Create A Fat Frog Show File?

[PeterV]

Hi

 

In our theatre I would like to remove the need to fly our Fat Frog from the perch down to the auditorium for focusing and plotting to reduce the amount of bashing it gets. We have already substitued a small desk for focusing, but obviously this is no use for plotting.

 

I was wondering about putting together a simple program to control the 48 channels (and fixtures if I could be bothered to do it) which can save the looks of each scene and output a show file which the Fat Frog can read. It might still need tidying up, but this would be better than flying the desk up and down every few weeks.

 

Is there a reference anywhere of the exact show file format for a Fat Frog which I could have? This is strictly non-commercial and intended to save knocks to our precious desk.

 

Peter Vincent

Lighting Manager

Chesil Theatre (reg charity and amateur member owned)

[Jon Hole]

Hi Peter,

 

Unfortunately, the showfile format for the Frog Range wasn't quite so simple and so the format is not something we ever publicly released.

 

One option for you might be to try and find a second hand 'Frog Box'. You could then do the programming on the Frog, save the show and load it onto the 19" Rack Mount Frog Box which sits in your control room (looking at your post on Blue Room it doesn't look like you have enough space for the Frog anyway!). The Frog Box has an Up, Down and GO button on it.

 

There's also a DMX In on the Frog Box, which (from memory) allows you to connect a smaller desk into it (such as a level 6 or juggler), and map the faders to the submasters.

 

I know it's not an ideal option, but I thought I would mention it. If you decided to think abotu this, let me know and I will check about the DMX In functionality

[PeterV]

Hi Jon - there is one on EBay for £1,232.11 at present (from USA) but absolutely no chance of anyone buying at that sort of price. We could get a Fat Frog much more cheaply than that (£500-700 usually) but we don't have that sort of money up our sleeves.

 

Our Fat Frog does fit neatly on the perch - see http://www.ald.org.uk/photo.php?number=1774&id=9620

- with just with a few millimetres to spare either side. It is the getting it down and back up which is difficult.

 

Maybe my best bet would be to make my software output a txt or CSV file so I can go up and type the cues in with on the FF, or get one of our operators trained up as a programmer and rely on them to do the business remotely (as I have done for musicals in the past).

 

Oh well...

 

Regards -- Peter