Kia Ora from New Zealand

[gumboot]

Hey everyone,

My names Victoria but I don't mind if you call me Tori.

I'm currently in the third year of Highschool in South Auckland, New Zealand. I've been interested in the technical aspect of theatre since I was 12, but it was only recenly that I've found my calling with lighting. During our production of West Side Story I got introduced to Dave, the head of lighting from our local theatre company. He was the one who did most of the rigging and programming. Anyway, he was pleased at the work I did and hooked me up with the local theatre company and I'm looking forward to working on their upcoming show of Little Shop of Horrors. If my end of year exams don't get in the way it'll be my first proper 'job' and I can't wait.

My highschool is very limited in terms of facilities (poorer neighbourhood etc). We don't have a both, just a storage cupboard for all our lighting stuff when it's not in use, and a small 'loft' accessed by a ladder backstage that houses our dimmers. We don't have a dedicated crew/teacher either, theres just me and another person on lights, and two students on sound supervised by a Music teahcer who knows her stuff. Everytime we set up for an event we have to drag the sound and lighting desks out to front of house position in our school hall. We have >20 lamps and have to hire more as well as a cyc from local companies whenever we do a big show. Considering the circumstances we do okay.

The theatre scene is tiny here (as you'd expect from a country of 4 million), so while lighting is something I want to do for the rest of my life, even part time paid work is scarce. So I'm hoping to study electical engineering and carry on working on shows just for the fun of it.

I want to do lights for Miss Saigon before I die. Best Musical ever.

I look forward to getting to know you all and furthering my knowlege.

 

[DaveySimps]

Welcome Tori! Good to have you with us. We have many members here from your side of the globe, so you are in good company. Enjoy your time here on CB!

~Dave

 

[gumboot]

Thanks for the welcome Dave.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

Hey Tori, you sound just like I did at your age...my username might be a dead giveaway that I'm a Kiwi too (although a South Islander - Christchurch born and bred). I reckon you'd be quite surprised at the amount of work that is out there - I spent two years in Auckland, studying Performance Technology at UNITEC, and once I graduated at the end of 2003 have made my living in theatre ever since - I shifted over to Sydney at the start of this year for a new job, and also spent two years in England, but there's certainly plenty of work! Anyway, welcome - and if you have any NZ-specific questions, just ask!

 

[gumboot]

Definitely good to meet another Kiwi here! Must have been tough being from Christchurch with all the earthquakes, it's hard enough watching from Auckland. I'm glad I got to visit the Arts Centre when I was down there almost three years ago.

Yeah, I've had a look at that UNITEC Diploma, the Careers Advisor at school recommended it to me. I'm in Year 12 next year so I've got to start making decisions about what/where I'm gonna go. I think I'll try my best to get into Electrical Engineering at Auckland Uni (240 UE points, 18 credits each from Physics and Calculus...eugh) and if I don't I may go for the Unitec course. How did you find it? Eventually I think I'd like to work for a bit in Australia and maybe America or the UK but I'm not too sure about being away from New Zealand my whole career.

 

[YesItWillWork]

Hi Tori, nice to see another Kiwi on here. Just thought I’d share my thoughts with you as I was in your position a few years ago. I’m from Rotorua but am currently in my first year of engineering at the University of Canterbury – so its definitely been an interesting first year for me down her. Then I’m going to go into electrical engineering. If you do decide to go with engineering then my advice would be to consider Canterbury as well as Auckland. You still have plenty of time before you need to decide where. There are certainly a lot of first year engineering students down here who are from Auckland. Either way though the engineering degrees at both Universities have great reputations, and I might be slightly biased arguing that Canterbury is better.

If you decide on engineering then be prepared for a lot of hard work and a lot of maths. I’m not sure about Auckland but at Canterbury if you want to go into electrical engineering 3 of the 8 first year papers are maths, two are physics, one is engineering practice, one is computer science, and you can choose the last one – most people do another engineering or another computer science paper.

Like you , I consider at the Unitec course and also the course at Toi Whakaari in Wellington before I finished school. But as you may of found by reading on here a qualification in theatre isn’t necessary to get into the industry, I mean it certainly won’t do any harm, but there are an awful lot of people in this industry with a huge range of qualifications, though electrical engineering is one that seems to come up more than others.
I guess my only advice is get involved with as much as you can, whether its events at school, community theatre, fundraiser events that need crew. View every show you see and every event you are involved with as an opportunity to learn. Never think that you know it all – that’s a guaranteed way to get on the wrong side of a lot of people in this industry.

Hopefully that all makes sense and has at least something useful in it. Its a bit of a random ramble sorry, just finished a maths assignment so my brains a bit mushy at the moment. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.