High School Student Eagerly Learning

[Rex Lupa Primus]

Hello everyone! I'm a student in my Junior year of HS interested in all things Tech. I've been working backstage ever since middle school when the Director gave me a radio and told me to hit a button on the light board whenever she said "Go!".

I've been fortunate to be able to work on various school productions since then as an LD, light board op., audio board op., SM, ASM, TD, wardrobe, carpenter, and other miscellaneous roles. Our drama department is far from ideal or popular, so I've had the opportunity to assist if not lead in most of the roles backstage. I know next to nothing about anything because of budgetary/mentorship limitations, but I've been doing my best to use online resources (such as CB) to learn as much as I can. Unfortunately, it will be a few years until I can gain any real experience because of my age, but until then I'm looking forward to learning more from you!

 

[RonHebbard]

Hello everyone! I'm a student in my Junior year of HS interested in all things Tech. I've been working backstage ever since middle school when the Director gave me a radio and told me to hit a button on the light board whenever she said "Go!".

I've been fortunate to be able to work on various school productions since then as an LD, light board op., audio board op., SM, ASM, TD, wardrobe, carpenter, and other miscellaneous roles. Our drama department is far from ideal or popular, so I've had the opportunity to assist if not lead in most of the roles backstage. I know next to nothing about anything because of budgetary/mentorship limitations, but I've been doing my best to use online resources (such as CB) to learn as much as I can. Unfortunately, it will be a few years until I can gain any real experience because of my age, but until then I'm looking forward to learning more from you!

@Rex Lupa Primus Doubtless times have changed but NEVER say, or think of yourself, as too young or too old to learn. In my case, my father died when I was 13 in grade eight forcing my Mom to get a job to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. I was 13 when I began high school and began as an operator in a local radio station working midnight to six a.m. Monday through Saturday and all day Sunday, while still attending school. The chief engineer noticed the nicotine stains were gone and he never needed to clean any of the cart players or open reel tape decks. Once he figured out I was cleaning the control room, both production studios, and the tape heads in the newsroom I was asked if I'd like to expand my work to performing transmitter maintenance. If you're doing preventative maintenance on the main and standby transmitters at a six tower 10Kw commercial AM site in the middle of a field outside the city limits you learn excellent servicing and survival skills assuming you want to live to see your twenties. I continued as the alternate maintenance engineer for the same station throughout my electrical apprenticeship in construction and maintenance and for my first four years as the assistant head of lighting and sound in a newly constructed 2183 seat soft-seater roadhouse only leaving broadcast when I moved to Stratford to become the IA Head of Sound in their mainstage thrust theatre and was too far away to commute to the transmitter site on a moment's notice.
Bottom Line: I'm still learning, it NEVER ends. You're NEVER too young and as long as you're careful, you'll never be too old either.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[Colin]

Welcome! CB is a great resource, but if you find your school environment lacking then there are other hands-on opportunities out there. We're in the same state so I'm curious where in MA you're located. Anywhere in the state you'll find community and small pro theaters that will put you to work and teach you. My first professional experience was as a spot op when I was still in high school. The $10/hr pay seemed pretty great at the time, and I learned a lot. There are also summer stock companies around that will take high school students in as apprentices/interns or even just casual volunteers. Look them up and get in touch. While you're figuring that out, also ask yourself if you really already know everything there is to know about the equipment and processes that you do have access to at school, and if you don't then keep on being an independent learner (safely please). The simplest gear is actually pretty complex and versatile, as you may already know.

 

[Rex Lupa Primus]

Welcome! CB is a great resource, but if you find your school environment lacking then there are other hands-on opportunities out there. We're in the same state so I'm curious where in MA you're located. Anywhere in the state you'll find community and small pro theaters that will put you to work and teach you. My first professional experience was as a spot op when I was still in high school. The $10/hr pay seemed pretty great at the time, and I learned a lot. There are also summer stock companies around that will take high school students in as apprentices/interns or even just casual volunteers. Look them up and get in touch. While you're figuring that out, also ask yourself if you really already know everything there is to know about the equipment and processes that you do have access to at school, and if you don't then keep on being an independent learner (safely please). The simplest gear is actually pretty complex and versatile, as you may already know.

Thanks Colin! I live about 45 minutes west of Boston. I've looked into several local theaters and so far I've been told that they're looking for someone at least 18 years old. I guess I need to keep looking and reaching out until I find the right one.

Thanks for the tip on equipment. I'm currently working on convincing the school to replace our lighting board which only works ~50% of the time, but we do have a decent audio board and I'm trying to teach myself how to EQ.

Is it safe/possible/reasonable to disassemble and play around with old lighting fixtures? I haven't tried anything yet because there aren't any adults that know anything and I don't want to hurt myself or the equipment. The school has a couple dozen lekos spots and par cans, several of which don't work.

 

[egilson1]

@Rex Lupa Primus
If you are willing to narrow down where you are I can try to reffer you to some theatres I might have connections with to assist i finding someplace to allow you to explore your passion.

Ethan

 

[Rex Lupa Primus]

@Rex Lupa Primus
If you are willing to narrow down where you are I can try to reffer you to some theatres I might have connections with to assist i finding someplace to allow you to explore your passion.

Ethan

That would be great! I live in the Marlborough area.

 

[TheaterEd]

Welcome to CB. Definitely don't let your age discourage you. I have gotten students younger than you connected with local community theaters to run tech. I'm actually having a hard time finding enough HS students to meet the demands of the local community theater scene. Definitely reach out to any community theater in your area with a youth theater program, they will be able to work with minors and quite often have 'Old timers' that volunteer there with a wealth of information and experience for you to learn from.

Just remember that community theater tech is generally not up to snuff with professional practices, and you will learn an awful lot of trick of the trade that maybe used to be commonplace, but are no longer allowed.

 

[Colin]

Thanks Colin! I live about 45 minutes west of Boston. I've looked into several local theaters and so far I've been told that they're looking for someone at least 18 years old. I guess I need to keep looking and reaching out until I find the right one.

Thanks for the tip on equipment. I'm currently working on convincing the school to replace our lighting board which only works ~50% of the time, but we do have a decent audio board and I'm trying to teach myself how to EQ.

Is it safe/possible/reasonable to disassemble and play around with old lighting fixtures? I haven't tried anything yet because there aren't any adults that know anything and I don't want to hurt myself or the equipment. The school has a couple dozen lekos spots and par cans, several of which don't work.

Okay we're not far apart. I'll PM you, and you should definitely take Ethan up on his offer.

Yes, good, learn about EQ. Are you solid on what's "upstream" of that already though? It's a crap in, crap out kind of thing, so got to start with correct microphone use and gain structure on the way to the EQ stage. The basic concepts are easy to learn online, and then need lots of real world experience to master. If you want to be competent at live audio, perhaps the most useful skill to master in the realm of EQ is frequency recognition. You want to be able to identify by ear a frequency that you hear too much of (either as screaming feedback or more subtly when shaping the sound) and also be able to identify by ear a frequency that you're not hearing enough of. Do an internet search for something like "EQ frequency training" and you'll get lots of results with websites and apps that will test you by playing back random frequencies while you try to cut them out on a graphic EQ. That, plus sending good quality recorded music through your console's EQ and listening to what frequencies sound like boosted and cut will get you as prepared as you can be to start doing it for real.

It is definitely reasonable to disassemble lighting fixtures to a degree. I'd say don't do so with the electrical components if you don't have competent instruction and supervision by a human in charge of that at your school, but that's easy to set aside and still do some good things with the fixtures. Learning how to clean and maintain lighting fixtures is a valuable skill and will help you get more from the equipment you have. There's info on CB about this, probably on YouTube too, and any conventional fixture is a pretty low risk thing to explore on your own in terms of tear-down and re-build. Not much you can't fix with simple hand tools and some cleaning supplies. Just pull out the (unplugged) lamp assembly, look it over for obvious red flags like busted lamps and exposed or broken wire (take that stuff out of service and clearly mark it as such, and report to your appropriate authority) and then set it aside and deal with the rest of the fixture. Learn to disassemble and clean everything and especially lenses, get shutters sliding smoothly again, and if the lamp assembly is in good working order then turn the cleaned reassembled fixture on and learn how to bench focus your lekos before moving on to learning how to focus each fixture type on stage accurately and quickly. My college students tend to struggle with the manual tasks surrounding lighting production - muscling the pan or tilt loose, or finessing a shutter cut or barrel run. Practice all these things to get good with your hands and eyes and ears and you'll find yourself frequently the most useful person in the room.

Now, you say several fixtures don't work at all, so that's something electrical anywhere from a lamp replacement to a full socket replacement and re-wire. These issues too are almost always easy to safely identify by sight without plugging in potentially faulty equipment, so you can certainly work on figuring out what needs fixing and make a recommendation. Then it's a judgement call by somebody more in charge than you about who they're comfortable with making those repairs. If the answer is nobody, then you can still often buy the entire lamp assembly fully wired (as for your spots) so that there's no electrical work to do - just screw it onto the fixture and plug in. Costs a lot less than a new fixture, but then again some old fixtures you might decide aren't worth it.