Ryan Rodgers

English 12 CP
10-11-16 P.4
Research Reflection
Through my research on the topic of rigging electrical planning and safety in the
entertainment industry I learned numerous things which helped me through the course of my
senior project. For my senior project I elected to light and rig the class of 2016s graduation
ceremony utilizing industry standard equipment that I had access to because of my job as a
lighting technician/ rigger. While the show wasn't until june I began planning my rig in January
allowing myself six-months to plan an amazing rig that would make people feel as if they were
at a concert at the Forum. My biggest concern was safe and efficient electrical distribution for
the show, through my research I learned that an electrical system operates most efficiently at
70-80% which is what I was able to accomplish by utilizing many low wattage LED fixtures.
Typically when we rig graduation the district loans us a one-hundred amp generator which I
chose to forgo, instead I began talking with the plant manager about the installation of hundred
amp (3 120/208 VAC) circuits in key places around the school but what I wound up getting
was fifty amp (1 120/240 VAC), I also learned about paralleling and bonding which is what
many shows do to ensure that if one of these systems there is another to back it up within a
tenth of second (the time it take current to alternate between phase and neutral), so in hindsight
I would have still taken the generator and paralleled it to the electrical panels that we were using
through a method similar to a tie-in. Another key thing that I read into heavily was ground and
emergency fallbacks through discussions with my mentors we decided that distribution
equipment with class C ground fault interrupters (GFIs) would be the safest option for an
outdoor show. The biggest thing I would have to say that I learned was communication to my
team and the effectiveness of labeling. Through research I also learned the importance of
computer pre visualization and plotting in CAD programs as well as making simple excel sheets

with information so that information may be easily accessed by the team by utilizing cloud
services such as Google Drive. As a technician I have always had a very hard time selecting
moving fixtures, I spent countless hours watching videos, reading reviews and speaking with
peers about what fixtures I should use at the end of the day I had two key factors in my head,
Voltage and IP rating. I wound up selecting fixtures that had an ability called smart sensing
which allows the fixture to use any fixture to use voltage between 100 VAC and 240 VAC, the IP
rating of the fixtures was IP 21 which allowed the fixtures to handle most outdoor conditions
such as rain or in our case early morning june mist. After ordering the fixtures i felt like
everything was handled however on the day the rental company forgot to include the correct
cables to allow us to tap the two hots we needed for the arc fixtures however after discussions
with my friend Chuck he got us the adapter we needed within the hour, we still had to make a
few adapter ourselves but that is alot better than what I almost did which was tapping into the
three phase power of the band saw in the old wood shop. The biggest thing i learned through
my research even though it was never directly stated anywhere is that through proper planning
and having the right crew everything will work out and stress in extremely unnecessary and
looking back on rigs like this I feel stronger and more confident as a technician.