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B

BOOTH
Control Room.

BORDER
A narrow horizontal masking piece (flattage or cloth), normally of neutral color (black) to mask the lighting rig and flown scenery from the audience, and to provide an upper limit to the scene. Often used in conjunction with LEGS.

BORDERLIGHT
A multi-lamp strip containing one or more color circuits. Also referred to as X-ray; Strip Light or Footlight.

BOUNCE

• Diffuse light that has been reflected from the stage, walls, cyclorama etc.
  
• "Bounce" is sometimes used for a flat (non-curved) cyclorama. Strictly, a bounce is a white or light blue cloth onto which light is bounced to backlight another cloth. A bounce doesn't need to be seamless, whereas a cyclorama should be.
  
• Describes the fast in/out movement of "bouncing" flown house tabs, used during curtain calls. This can also apply to the fast blackout/lights up cues that happen at curtain calls.
  
• This facility is available on many multitrack tape machines. Describes the mixing down of multiple sounds from different tracks onto one track, hence freeing up the other tracks to be re-used. Allows many sounds to be recorded onto one tape.

BOWENS
Short for Bowens Flash Unit. Instrument which produces a bright white flash when triggered. Used by professional photographers. Unlike a STROBE, the Bowens unit needs to charge up between flashes (around 10 seconds) so is unsuitable for the same applications, but is ideally suited for recreating bright lightning flashes on stage.

BOX BOOM
US term for a front of house vertical lighting position (predominantly sidelight as the booms are rigged from the boxes nearest the proscenium arch).

BOX TRUSS
An aluminum or steel support structure often used for temporary rigging of lights, scenery, or sound equipment. As the name suggests a box truss is rectangular in shape creating a rigid structure which is easy to stack and load onto a truck. An additional advantage of box truss over other truss shapes is the ability to hang lighting instruments inside the truss, where they can remain protected while in transport.

BRAIL
A horizontal rope, wire or chain attached at either end of a piece of scenery or lighting bar pulling it upstage or downstage of its naturally hanging position to allow another flying item to pass, or to improve its position.

BREAKOUT
A connection at the end of a multicore cable which allows the connection of many items to it. (e.g. there is a breakout box at the end of a sound multicore cable which allows you to plug microphone cables into it).