After college

[Tex]

Could be worse. We could be actors.

Yep. The competition is even more fierce.
It's a bit like beating your head against the wall. Every once in a while you land a role and get to stop beating your head for a while. It feels so good that you're willing to beat your head a little longer until you get another.
That's one of the reasons I started teaching. Fortunately, I found some better reasons to keep teaching. I'm able to use my BFA in acting to make a secure living with all the benefits and continue to create. I'll never make a million bucks or win a Tony, but all in all it's not a bad trade off...

 

[HornsOverIthaca]

It shows how important networking is. You have to make as many contacts as you possibly can. Never burn bridges with anyone, no matter how idiotic they may be. It also shows how important it is not to lock yourself into a specific area. Be willing to learn anything. Just because college is over that doesn't mean you're done learning by a long shot.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

It shows how important networking is. You have to make as many contacts as you possibly can. Never burn bridges with anyone, no matter how idiotic they may be. It also shows how important it is not to lock yourself into a specific area. Be willing to learn anything. Just because college is over that doesn't mean you're done learning by a long shot.

Lots of people keep saying the "you should learn everything out there" and I really think that is horrible advice if you have higher ambitions. If your life goal is to be on a crew at a PAC or do local theatre your whole life, sure, be a jack of all trades. But from what I have seen so far the people who are doing the really impressive shows are all really good at one aspect. Not to say they don't know other things (being rounded is good) but they don't try to be everything to everyone.

 

[Footer]

Lots of people keep saying the "you should learn everything out there" and I really think that is horrible advice if you have higher ambitions. If your life goal is to be on a crew at a PAC or do local theatre your whole life, sure, be a jack of all trades. But from what I have seen so far the people who are doing the really impressive shows are all really good at one aspect. Not to say they don't know other things (being rounded is good) but they don't try to be everything to everyone.

Many of the professionals on this very board have experience doing just about everything and are all at high ranking areas in their respective fields. Being a jack of all trades gets you in the door then you can specialize. Not saying its the only way, however your less likely to run into a wall later. You have not been out of school long enough to fully say that statement.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Many of the professionals on this very board have experience doing just about everything and are all at high ranking areas in their respective fields. Being a jack of all trades gets you in the door then you can specialize. Not saying its the only way, however your less likely to run into a wall later. You have not been out of school long enough to fully say that statement.

I take offense at the comment that I am too young to have an accurate opinion on the matter. Especially coming from someone just a year or two older than me.

I've spent an enormous time talking to to just about every designer and tech I've come across in the past two years about how I should go about trying to make it and all the people I met who are doing well for themselves are the ones who always had a strong focus and were very much working to a goal.

The people I know in theatre who are "jacks of all theatre trades" are the ones who I have encountered who never went very far or are complacent where they are. They are the people who never really found that one passion that drove them or had other life goals outside of this industry.

And that is just in the abstract side of things. In the reality side of it, because I put all my focus on one goal, I ended up in a much stronger position when I graduated then if I had been a "jack of all trades". The skills I took the time to develop landed me a specific position that would other wise have not been open to me yet.

But as I learned different people have different goals and aspirations and that is okay. Not everyone wants to be a big time designer or whatever and that is a good thing, makes society churn a little easier.

So I guess I say, whatever. My posts are just my two cents on the issue, they are worth no more or no less than anyone else's opinions, but I do feel like I have taken the time to really figure out what the best way to go for myself is, anyone else who takes that advice may see their millage vary.

I still agree with horns point about the importance of networking, it really is the most important thing you can do.

 

[cdub260]

Lots of people keep saying the "you should learn everything out there" and I really think that is horrible advice if you have higher ambitions. If your life goal is to be on a crew at a PAC or do local theatre your whole life, sure, be a jack of all trades. But from what I have seen so far the people who are doing the really impressive shows are all really good at one aspect. Not to say they don't know other things (being rounded is good) but they don't try to be everything to everyone.

Learning a variety of different aspects of theatre is not so much about learning "everything out there" and trying to be "everything to everyone" so much as it's about learning what you really want to do and where your talents lie. Once you've figured that out, you know where to focus your efforts to achieve your goals.

Many of the professionals on this very board have experience doing just about everything and are all at high ranking areas in their respective fields. Being a jack of all trades gets you in the door then you can specialize. Not saying its the only way, however your less likely to run into a wall later. You have not been out of school long enough to fully say that statement.

I'm one of those who has experience in a variety of different aspects of theatre. I've held my position as Master Electrician at the Pageant for a bit more than ten years now. But it was not my skills as a lighting tech or as an electrician that got me the job. It was my skills as a carpenter. The ME position had been vacant for three years when I was hired and the board of directors wasn't convinced that a specialist in lighting and electrical was really necessary as the show had been doing fine without one for so long. But my ability to fill more than just that one, specific role gave the show's director and TD the extra ammunition they needed to convince the board that hiring me would be worth the expense of adding another person to the staff.

As things stand now, I almost never venture outside the realm of lighting, and over the last decade I have honed and focused my skills in the area of lighting for Tableaux Vivant (Living Pictures) to the point where I sometimes have difficulty transitioning back into more conventional stage lighting on those occasions when work on more traditional types of stage shows. This would be a fairly minor example of the proverbial wall Footer mentioned.

As for the final part of Footer's statement, he could, perhaps have phrased it a little better, but the point is a good one. We all make judgments and predictions based on our own experience and what we've seen. Most young people simply lack the life experience to put their observations and experiences into perspective. Some gain this ability earlier in life than others. Others never gain it. Going back to a personal example here, I'm a far better tech now at 35 than I was at 18, but I'm not half the tech now that I thought I was then.

 

[museav]

Maybe a bit different perspective. For one thing, you can't be doing anything in entertainment technology for long and not pick up some knowledge of other areas. The entertainment tech with a "it's not my job" attitude better already have the experience and reputation to justify it or be ready to find a new position.

Also, in the rock and roll industry it is not uncommon to have someone that just started in a role and never really did anything else, maybe even just being a friend of someone in a band that makes it big and suddenly they're a national touring mixer. In theatre, and especially in relation to a thread discussing college, you typically get a broader exposure to the industry. How many theatre tech degree programs don't require at least some education in more than one discipline? So in both cases you may end up with a much more focused role, but I think it is more common for theatre to entail exposure to multiple aspects of the industry before getting there, especially if coming out of a degree program.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I'm not suggesting that someone should focus only on one thing and then be in a vacuum, not at all. It's impossible to not pick other things up as you work and being balanced and rounded and all that is good. I am suggesting that it is important to have a focus as opposed to just being an all around "theatre person".

All I am saying, is I had a focus, and it worked for me, nothing more.

 

[cdub260]

I'm not suggesting that someone should focus only on one thing and then be in a vacuum, not at all. It's impossible to not pick other things up as you work and being balanced and rounded and all that is good. I am suggesting that it is important to have a focus as opposed to just being an all around "theatre person".

All I am saying, is I had a focus, and it worked for me, nothing more.

And you have a valid point here. I think the heart of the problem with this discussion is that in the entertainment industry there is no "path to success". My road to where I am now was just that, my road, not Pie4Weebl's road, not Footer's road, not museav's road. It takes a combination of different factors to succeed, skill, talent, drive, networking, luck, each of which is unique to a given individual. While learning how others got where they are can be immensely helpful in learning what is likely to work and what probably won't. Trying to duplicate their actions is far more likely to land you a job as overnight security at the Holiday Inn (Incidentally, except for the overnight part, that was a job I had in college.) than it is to land you a job designing lights for a major tour. Use the success of others for education and inspiration, but ultimately the road you travel will be your own.

 

[HornsOverIthaca]

I'm not suggesting that someone should focus only on one thing and then be in a vacuum, not at all. It's impossible to not pick other things up as you work and being balanced and rounded and all that is good. I am suggesting that it is important to have a focus as opposed to just being an all around "theatre person".

All I am saying, is I had a focus, and it worked for me, nothing more.

I think what he's trying to say is that it's good to have all around tech theatre experience and knowledge. There's a reason undergrad lighting and sound people have to take costume construction and history of decor. It's important not to notch yourself into a position where you'll only take one kind of work. An electrician might be asked to setup a clearcom system at some point. Being able to do that looks good. If I'm designing sound and I'm asked to help figure out how to do something on an Obsession 600 or EtcNet issue I'd be more than willing to help. I won't barge in but I'll help if asked. I might need to build a specific speaker mount so I better know how to run the table saw effectively. I could need to create a special yoke for a front fill so I better know how to mig weld.
We also don't know which areas of tech theatre will have the most demand in five or ten years. Knowing how projections and video work might not have seemed very important a few years ago, but it is now.
However I do agree that labeling yourself as a "theatre person" is a mistake. To me that sounds like a person who wanted to be an actor and now does anything to stay in the theatre. Just like every other field, it's important to try to recession-proof yourself.

 

[ruinexplorer]

I have spoken with Victor off forum a few times and I think he has definitely found his path for the foreseeable future. I congratuate him as well. I think that he has a valid point in that focusing on generalization often doesn't help you obtain a good paying job. A TD will often benefit from being generalized, but many technicians are able to stand out by somewhat specializing. As a union hand, I was put on all the crews (except wardrobe which was a separate local), but most often I was on electrics or was traded into electrics since that's where I had the most experience.

Another thing about specializing is that you can definitely become too specialized. I know people who are a creative genius at programming on a specific console, but if the job requires them to program another console, then they are no better than an amatuer. Victor will do well since he has found an employer that has equipment that he can excel on, but I encourage him to have his employer get demos from other manufacturers as well. I know that when I worked for a production company, there were times that we did shows so large that we ended up sub-renting consoles from a vendor who did not have any of the consoles that I was familiar with in stock. I had a bit of a learning curve to provide for my client and had a hard time doing what I was used to including expedience.

So, I guess that what I am saying is that we sometimes are closer to actors than we'd like to admit. Many of the "great" gigs require us to have a very specific set of skills which will make it so many of us are overlooked, just like not having the right "look". Those of us with general skills could probably do the other jobs but will have an extreme amount of competition and still need something to make us stand out, so will always be in a "supporting role".

I guess the best advice is to make sure that you have enough general skills to get you going, while working on your specific skill set to allow you to stand above the crowd. Part of your general skill set is to have the skills that you can apply outside the theater as well. A technician without actors should still be able to be employed.