Where is the Industry Heading: An Interview with Cat West

In our continuing column, Where is the Industry Heading we sat down with Cat West. Cat toughs herself more of a console programmer rather then a designer but from time to time finds her herself designing lights in the fly.  Cat has worked in the entertainment industry for over 10 years working as a wholehog specialist for High End Systems for 4 years.

Currently, Cat is the Lighting Director and programmer for IO Echo, an LA based band while also working with ACT Lighting on the west coast by providing GrandMA training classes. Cat also runs a website with Joe Cabrera called ConsoleTrainer.com which provides tips, tricks and training materials to console programmers at no charge.  Why you may ask, it is Cat and Joes way of giving back to the industry they love.

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ConsoleTrainer.com PSA #2 – How Not To Call Tech Support

Do you own or operate a lighting console?  Chances are that at some point in your career that you will need to call Tech Support to ask a question or figure out how to recover a console that someone else broke.  Cat and Joe from ConsoleTrainier.com have put together an0ther PSA on How To Call Tech Support.  While it may seem trivial, Cat and Joe make some good points.

Console Trainer Announces Interactive Quick Start Guide for WholeHog

ConsoleTrainer.com has recently released a new Interactive Quick Start Guide for the WholeHog lighting console. The interactive guide is laid out to provide helpful insight on common uses and problems faced when programing the WholeHog console.  The online guide consist of cross-reference links and embedded training videos broken down into topics by chronological order. There are tho PDF version of the guide for users to print out and take with them.  The first is about 30 pages long and contains all of the text and images.  The second is geared towards the novice or new user that is an abridged version running 20 pages long.

The interactive guide is by no means a replacement for the user manual provided with the console for for download at highend.com, but gives a quick start to common uses and questions.  The interactive guide is still growing with more videos and sections.

ConsoleTrainer.com is a resource for console programmers to learn about features of consoles from the WholeHog and MA Lighting consoles.  It is a project created by Joe Cabbera and Cat West in response to questions that have been asked over the years by programmers calling into tech support.