Been quite a few years since that post similar to this subject. Been a few other posts on this type of subject also in the past that hopefully also hold up well. Sort of a FAQ type of thing - leave school or how do I become “x”. Stuff about stay in school - the amount of them with degree that work their way to the top these days is much better a percentage than those that mustang their way up from the bottom - art is art but refining is worth pay. Learning curve in getting the basics in concept for lighting in school type of thing over with before having to balance that learning with also learning what color code a cable is in length = in learning stuff,
foot candles, acting areas, lumens verses
lux, heck when in plastics and metals for the theater class and learning about a weld to steel being 100% the strength in class, stand up and ask how that’s possible given the
wire/material for welding is of a different carbon content than that of say the mild steel being welded? How’s that a weld is 100% efficient?
Many of them mentioned in the above linked post have gone freelance or moved onto other opportunities, others advanced to the extent of their ability including to the extent of being a designer for tours - a few I knew from cable slinger now are designers. Some of them who left for better opportunity, given the economy are now back with us or hoping to come back amongst other tech people recently hired from other shops that are constricting in staff - us expanding instead of contracting as opposed to other places. This hiring is mostly for name brand people with years of experience and not as much for those without a reputation behind their work at this
point. Got an entire tour leaving tomorrow I’m building gear for that I know nobody on yet they have say a cable repair kit in fixing our cable in theory up to our standards. That’s problematic - really problematic no matter how many years of experience with other places these tech people have no training or experience with our standards.
Still main emphases of the above is that it’s not a good time to leave school and hope to find a job, much less one you can grow with in attaining your dream. Board with school, you have probably not taken full advantage of it yet. Get into them computer classes, excel at AutoCadd, take interior design, take art classes or humanties for the arts classes, take history of China and as many other places you can for class while not also taking basics classes and or business classes. While board with school read a must read
book “The Business of Theatrical Design”, read other books on automatic lighting and control, read lots of side interest books while sitting on the side in school’s other than real world, heck read some comic books and go on dates, this plus work them theater shows you don’t have a taste for. Get that side job with the DJ lighting company or local production company, work at the local high school or work at the local store front theater lots. Learn, experience and
gain more questions to ask while in college of the professors or things to study into while in school and not having to choose between donuts for dinner because cheap and gas to get to work while new to the industry and broke and often laid off.
Don’t leave school at least for a year or more... Stay where you are and instead learn stuff that even if it don’t seem important enough for your driving intent, might refine it some no matter where it leads. What about those paper
lantern thingies, study their concept or
effect on oriental culture? Been used on tour before such a prop, what ya know about the history or design elements of such a thing?
The band you design for says they want this “x”
element say even “West Side Story” type of look for that song...
point being did you study it in infulence on what made for them the song, did you study as design concept “purple” in art class for what it regesters for what in design it means or are you starting from scratch in deer in the headlights without basis of concept for design in what’s asked for and having to start from scratch in achieving that look?
Where also do you start that research? Way back when while in school I was designing for “Italian American Resonation, ” Ever listen to an LP’ of the Turnadot opera? (Great opera!!! in broadining one’s horizons.) That’s a link true design links you to eventually in research. Listen to it at least while doing further research on the design concept. That where ever the research takes you to is what school teaches you to in doing proper research and good design hopefully at least. Perhaps if your school don’t inspire you, wrong school or perhaps you have not applied yourself. Once spent a week reading a
book something like “Structural Steel Engineering”. Fascinating reading about concepts like
dynamic and other loadings
etc. that I still understand in reading the basic concepts to. I was reading it for answer to questions I personally had about if my three story set for “West Side Story” was to be corrugated steel decking, how would it work, how does it happen it don’t fail given its small
gauge?
Cover to
cover read the
book and did get to understand engineering for steel in many ways - this if only while side
line to designing a show that was never realized in school but instead for class. Stupid I didn’t get to design the realized show.... Screw that, you get time to learn and study stuff in detail or as I did take your research where ever it went. Take a “Building Materials for Architecture” class and learn such things like about a terrazzo floor in now knowing it’s elements of how to reproduce it on
stage or at least how to clean it properly when slinging cable for a living. Similar classes in lighting for architecture or say electrical engineering or chemistry background you can get in school in say you becoming the person that does the xenon/
halogen liquid filled inventor of the
HPL lamp. Believe me “what have you heard” causes a sweat on vendors for lamps in the industry - why not be the one that figures it out as long as you add an internal
reflector to it so as to further increase the output. Hmm, can’t afford this 1.2K mantle for a show budget you wanted, best figure out how to make it by way of prodiding shop drawings for how it’s made. Hmm... full size 20 degree ellipse curves
etc. for the shop to use. This much less for that mantel converting a drawing with dimension given for it to actual.
Don’t leave school at this
point. What you when not having to balance donuts for dinner verses gas for getting to work is important in this economy. Not ready for you yet. Instead if your school don’t inspire, look to either what it offers you have not looked into by way of bettering or organizing your focus better, or another school. Stay at school and learn stuff you can later use in your field from paper lanterns in concept and aesthetics of to say structural steel design in knowing why a
shackle say is superior to a
quick link. Take the computer and drafting classes, heck even take ethics, psychology and theology classes in having stuff to learn and constant lively debate that will also help later on. Take humanities, a year of art to the extent you can sketch stuff that others can understand your meaning, take drafting, shop say wood shop and metals shop, take lots of theater - gee, no artist has ever had reference or concept to say something Shakespeare wrote. Read all the plays? I have not, and I tend to fall asleep with most of them but important... Yes! Even if not your field,
advance your basis of info. Got that above designer MFA asking me about some side contract he has with a interior design enclosed waterfall company he has a side job with working for. Was asking about access to service panels in such a thing and about how to light a waterfall. I lead him beyond somethign ColorKenitics/Philips offers to fiber optic lighting sources for it as an option in not having to access stuff. This as read in “Lighting for Historic Buildings” as
book I read, why have you not yet read it type question if doing design and understanding the career you make money from? Well read and for him not having a family to provide for is college time well spent while making the grade but not say making the grade while there as if high school so as to make it out of so as to achieve a piece of paper attesting to that... while in college what did you learn or achieve for yourself beyond what’s required? College is a wealth of books and pools of info to tap from separate from real life, and time not realized beyond due date for a term paper or design project that’s separate and secure from reality.
Project manager comes up to you at 11PM on a Friday night and says something about needing custom length steel to hang some moving light
truss ladders that are needed immediately. Where do you start beyond expected loading on the ladders? Than in knowing the load go from there in already knowing by memory approximate
SWL of
wire rope sizes. This all needed immediately of course. Start with the
SWL of 1/8"
wire rope and work from there in say 300# on the ladder but with two legs, but that
SWL not persay
shock loading.
Production manager should have already known all this but he is a
conduit between production and tech thus mostly is PR in function. How to safely rig such a thing - this given it was custom
truss ladders built, not important enough when having them built so as to consider how to rig them was not considered in giving proper time to
build or buy. Still though it was a failing on the designers’s part and those under him or her in a “gee, we got these elements to hang from, perhaps we should ask about how they will be hung also.” Anyway it should be any designer or tech person that could understand what size
wire rope to at least use to hang with two points 300# with
shock loading.
Overall, stay in school. Study all you can, find stuff you are interested in. For me, I had a goal in mind for my career in study and with open slots studying from interior design to History of Scotland type classes I took including AutoCadd and architecture type stuff - this given I was going to become a world famous set designer instead of just a ME, lamp guy and
fixture designer for a top ten lighting company in a rear backwards type of way ending up in - lighting was my secondary focus in school and you also very possibly might change career before your are done too. Many or most study one thing and end up with a second thing. Also keep that in mind beyond should you get hurt, say not be able to see color so well or see in the dark well, not be able to climb a ladder
etc. in the future - and we are talking your lifetime, what will that college degree show for you no matter what it is in earning money for a living verses that of high school degree and leaving college to follow that dream that is with effort, luck and learning much these days in part from college?
Show up at some place for a job with a college degree, you stand a chance for putting food on the table perhaps for your family as opposed to gas station attendant qualified without college you might compete for. My Step Dad has a degree in communications, he is now a mortgage broker. (By the way, “Interpersonal Communications” is another good class.) Don’t matter the degree in college, unless you years later you get a name for yourself and nothing happens in the mean time that requires you to leave the field, that college degree will both allow you to get a higher paying job outside the field if needed, and if in the field mostly allow you to excell in progressing in it.
College kids progress faster than mavericks simple and true statement limited than to only them and of course after that who they known and luck. Once during college I was offered perhaps or not to design for Prince.
Don’t know, guy was working in our school
book store in seeing my design and drafting and saying he was
production manager for him and wanted me to design his sets. Could be or could be pipe dream for him.
Still wanted theater design at that
point and rejected any concept of rock and
roll design. Had goal and lots of classes that might help me - this even if
broad in link to that career goal help me towards it. Last time I worked a Prince show, I was in the parking lot watching videos during the show while ensuring a follow spot lamp didn’t go bad in projecting his
image. Had to pre-arrange with security any pee calls I might need and it sucked.
Anyway, years later in working for a rock and
roll lighting company in giving up set design and production for the most part, there I was working a follow spot or at least getting paid to read a
book while making sure the follow spot projecting the
image worked or it’s generator had enough gas. Ah’ that’s art and the biz at times. Pee break... please.. Pee break...
Off topic but in general concept, that 1:1,000,000 chance you are getting to be a designer worth making your living is only helped by going to school for it and it’s
broad concept in what you do say in taking more than just a few lighting classes and avoiding shows say. Dislike shows... I dislike music or dance design - so what learn what you can even still. Really bad market to apply for a job in leaving school. Best spend time honing your art while in school instead.
