2007 Aug 09 - Thu

Lighting Assistant at Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society

Since the beginning of the year, I've been helping out with Lighting Design with the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society at the Daylesford Cinema on Dundonald Street in Hamilton. The first production was a straight forward, almost as simple as white lights on-white lights off, lighting requirement for Sordid Lives (A Black Comedy about White Trash). The lead lighting designer, Mary Brier, came down with pnemonia just prior to opening night. As such, I 'ran' the lights for the 10 nights the show was open. No big deal. Press the 'go cue' button when called to do so by the stage manager. Stage manger was Nicola Wilkinson, who was great to work with.

Next show up was a musical by the name of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. We had an off island director by the name of Vivienne Elborne. For lights, Doug Parker, the lighting designer on this one, took a different approach to lighting. For primary lighting, he ran with a number of clusters of three lights each. Each cluster had red, green and blue filters. As such, any color could be chosen for lighting the covered area, including white. Because three separate lights were used, we had some interesting colored shadows as artifacts. At first I thought it was a bad thing, but after a while, It seemed appropriate for how the stage had been designed. We did use some fill in whites as well as some specials. One of the specials was a white light shining out of the crypt, with a smoke generator running, as a cue to Drood to come out. It looked quite good.

Mary Brier was lead designer for the next production, Famous for 15 Minutes. This is a production with six plays, each being fifteen minutes long. Lighting this production taxed the inventory of lights and lighting channels. One of the more challenging plays of the sequence was Bermuda Triangle, which is set on a sailboat about to encounter a hurricane. This one required careful timing of lighting (lightning) and sound (thunder) queues. As the storm approached, lightning and thunder became stronger and closer together. The play that did win the Golden Inkpot was Grass is Greener. To simulate a light club we did a simple two light special by shining an emerald and a purple spot on the back wall.

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Trading Site of the Day -- QWAFAFEW: A four letter word for those who can't count?

Really, that means: Quantitative Work Alliance for Applied Finance, Education, and Wisdom. Quite a mouthful. Anyway, this appears to be a current and running site for quants in various stages of the game. Regular meetings are held, and the site is chock full of presentations regarding Hedge Funds, Regression, Portfolio Construction, Simulations, etc.

Plus it has a random quote section, one of which I found rather pointed:

When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the mathematician likened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins scaling the mountain's sheer face, encountering obstacles at every turn, often retracing one's steps and struggling every foot of the journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands examining the peak, taking in the view of the surrounding country side and then noting the automobile road up the other side! . Robert J. Kleinhenz

Here is a self description of the group:

QWAFAFEW is an informal organization of quantitatively oriented professionals in various aspects of financial services (primarily investment management). The group was formed ... to provide a venue for quantitative researchers to discuss their evolving work with peers. ... The members span the gamut from owners and senior executives of investment related organizations to recent entrants to the industry.

Another good quote. I wonder where they get their database from.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . Max Planck

On another track, they have a link to a recent New Yorker article, called Hedge Clipping, where they have an interview with an ex-analyst, now academic, Harry Kat, who has developed some software to emulate trading styles of hedge funds that he could find that had published data about their returns and asset type usage. He charges clients one third of one percent of the moeny they invest using the software. The interesting thing I learned in the article is that it is typical for fund managers to make 2 percent of the value invested, plus twenty percent of any profits that the fund generates. A nice little return, for the fund manager. Just so long as the fund generates significant enough returns to cover the percentages.

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