(bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Davis, Nelson, Abutaa, Pike, Delgado, Spinder, Hirschi, Conover, Brown, Halterman, Brockbank, and Burkhart) The light crew was responsible for the covered light in this picture--the spotlight.
Before the show, each would climb up their assigned tower and run a spotlight for the show. They lit up various people and groups of people on the stage. The nice thing about running the show from 9:15 to 10:30 is that it's dark enough that we can create a blackout if needed! One of the hardest cues for the light crew was spotting (meaning hitting with their light; they could see him floating in midair just fine) the actor portraying Christ in an instant to make him "appear" after a blackout.
Two advantages come to mind with being on the light crew: not as much physical work (and low-sleep demands) and they had the best view for pictures and just looking out at the audience, stage, and sunsets! The light crew did a fabulous job this year and were much appreciated.
The ground crew (bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Powell, Cox, Jensen, Zobell, Ireland, Sumpter, Gassoway, Swasey, Lyman, Bishop, Gulbransen, Hooker, Lester, (Jones was the assistant director), and Krebs) was responsible for anything to do with the technical aspects of the stage.
This included lifting any set pieces into place, such as columns, walls, the tree of life...
...large idols, rock and cave pieces, Lehi's tent, and heaviest of all--Nephi's boat.
The sail could fold down into the stage and was covered when not in use. It was actually pulled up by our workcrew boys during the scene so they were required to be in costume. The next picture shows Brother Cox (far left) with the rest of the cast as they pose at the end of a musical segment.
You'll also notice that the side of the ship must be put in place (I actually helped with the particular piece shown). Overall it's an awesome part of the play. Partway through, a storm hits the boat and the effect of the storm is created as well. Our ground crew actually causes the sail to be ripped completely off, leaving fragments of sail on the mast!
Another fun part about ground crew is the pyrotechnics and water effects. We cause smoke to rise. We also create small flames...
...medium flames...
...water cannon explosions...
...and slightly bigger fireballs ;)
The destruction scene (described in the passage of scripture 3 Nephi 8: 5-23) was the baby of the ground crew. It was a 76-second segment of fire, water cannons, fireballs, columns and walls falling over and flying, chaos, and plenty of cast members falling and/or dying. The person calling the cues over our headsets would literally start a stopwatch and count from 1 to 76 and we just memorized what we had to do at what second. I can still whip out that I launch 4 water cannons at 5, 21, 72, and 76, and I also had a fire that lit for a few seconds at 55! Of course, if you know music or emotional drama, the best and most moving effect comes at a huge climax followed by silence. We definitely had that. At 76, all 3 of our fireballs launch along with a few water cannons, followed by a blackout, silence, and then a couple emotional voices finishing out (paraphrasing) the rest of that chapter in 3 Nephi (verses 24 and 25). The biggest part of the explosion was caused by the 3 in the next picture.
The pit: located between stages 1 and 3 and held 4 water cannons and a fireball. I was in charge of the two on the stage-left side, Bro. Sumpter the 2 stage-right ones, and Bro. Zobell over the fireball. It was cool :D
Among my various roles on the ground crew, my main role gave me the title of fontmaster. At 3 different times during the play, a baptism occurs on the stage. The baptismal font consists of a little step-down area on stage 4, where just about all my other cues were by the way. The only difficulty is that other parts of the play require the space where the font is for scenes such as the Nephite/Lamanite battle scene. To prevent actors from falling into the font, the font is covered, and then uncovered before a baptism scene occurs. That was my job--moving the two wooden panels above me in the next picture.
Allow me to explain the pillow and my goofy smile. During a particular scene with a wicked King Noah and the prophet Abinadi, I have no cues except to uncover the font. The scene is roughly 10.5 minutes long. Funny side story as to why I know this: the director of the scene actually called for some workcrew boys to act as guards in the background of the scene. He required them to hold this position...
...for the entire scene! The whole ground crew thought it was hilarious and we all tried it during one rehearsal, with me timing the whole thing. Arms were held for 10 minutes and 15 seconds...and it burned sooo bad!!! It quickly became an inside joke amongst the crew.
Anyways, back to my font pillow picture. Since I didn't have anything to do for 10 minutes, I decided to bring and store a pillow underneath my home in stage 4. At the start of the scene, I would bring out my pillow and lay in the font! I even had a bag of honey-roasted chex for the last 2 performances!!! It was great :) I opened the font halfway and still layed there, watching the light tower in front of me and the bats that flew by eating moths in the sky.
A special crew within the ground crew was the flight crew. 3 boys (Brothers Bishop, Hooker, and Krebs) were in charge of the flight harness as the actor portraying Christ was floating in midair. There were appropriately 3 jobs: horizontal motion, vertical motion, and unhooking the harness during the scene (given the title of ninja since they dress in all black for the part). Of all the rehearsals, I think they rehearsed that particular part the most.
Overall I'd say the crew delivered a wonderful performance to accompany the beautiful performance of this year's actors.
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