I'll admit I've heard grievances before as well about multiple flying companies, but generally they can be summed up as coordination issues. Someone's memo didn't make it front of the right people, stuff got loaded in in the wrong order, and then lighting and flying would fight each other for
stage time. In particularly bad scenarios, the LD is surprised at how many
line sets they lose to the flying rig they didn't know would take up so much space.
I will say I know of a couple close calls, both that resulted in injury to the flying op and were related to the flying op not having their gloves on and choosing to either get massive rope burn or let go of the rope and
drop the performer.
One was a staff member of the flying company. Another was a dance company's
stagehand who was caught with his pants down (aka his gloves off) when an inadequately run rehearsal resulted in him beginning the
effect before he had his gloves on.
Both incidents were on separate events, though there was a commonality between them that the flying FX staff member from the first incident was the trainer/supervisor for the flying op in the second incident. Also, in both incidents, the ops were caught off-guard and rushed into
flying effects they should have resisted the urge to rush into and taken the time to put their gloves on.
Lessons learned here are:
1) No matter what,
flying effects do not begin until flying op and talent are prepared. If this means an awkward pause in the performance, so be it. Worst position you can be in is to
hoist someone 30' (
stage) or 75' (
arena) up only to not be able to safely
return them to the
ground without destroying your hands.
2) The only person who talks to the flying op is the
stage manager. (In the second incident, a dancer in the wings was over-excited and prematurely told the op the
effect was about to start -- he had a full 90sec left he could've used for putting those gloves on but he thought he only had 10sec).
3) You can't teach just anyone to be a flying op. This person or people should be chosen very carefully. In addition to the technical know-how they'll learn from the FX supervisor, they need to have excellent judgement skills under pressure and a spine for telling people "No" with.
Worth noting in the second incident, the
stagehand has been blacklisted and the dancer was given grief for her inappropriate initiative. I wouldn't blame him for it, but that the flying supervisor was watching Netflix on his laptop in the back row of the theater when this happened was unfortunate. In his defense, this was the last night he was on-site and the cast and op were supposed to be self-sufficient at this rehearsal. Oops.
I shouldn't mention this because this third incident is based on hearsay, but I also know of a case with group where, due to lack of supervision by the
venue/director/flying company, a very lightweight student was the flying op who didn't weigh enough for that position. Supposedly the FX supervisor told him to fill a
backpack with heavy stuff to compensate.
Kid ended up wearing the
backpack, then tying additional heavy items to himself to make up the difference. Just so happened this
effect begins with the op jumping off of a ladder, rope tightly in
hand, to begin the lift. So this scrawny kid is
tripping over himself and the extra gak attached to him while jumping off a ladder......
It's clearly laid out in the contract that the person doing the lifting should weigh more than the person being lifted. I do not know why neither the director nor FX supervisor nor
venue (who provided the student) red-flagged the
effect that first day on-site.
I wasn't there, but that information found it's way to me, part from the sound op, part from the kid who was the flying op. Can't say I know exactly where to attribute my disappointment, but luckily no one was harmed during that production.
I've deliberately left names of people, groups, and companies out of this. Please do not speculate, and if you know or determine those details, please refrain from stating them here.
