Late hours, early mornings. How'd you get into it and why?
- Thread starterLightingPenguin
- Start date
A good play for high schools, too!
FoxxDesigns
Member
I have a very different path than most here. I didn't even know this was a job when I was in high school.
The General Manager of a local hotel recruited a bunch of us from the baseball team in junior college to play on his softball team so he could beat all the other hotels and AV was the department I got assigned to.
A couple of long years later and after annoying every freelance lighting director we had in the hotel with question after question I started taking over the lighting events (and there were many). I would stay all night off the clock learning everything about every board we rented, played with every scroller and light and then finally learning moving lights off that horrible controller for I-Beams.
I then went to a theatre to work and study under the designer there and learned that I really had a lot to learn once I got there. I learned how to really design shows, write pipe sheets, magic sheets, etc etc and loved every minute of it.
Looking back at it, I honestly can't believe how I got to where I am just by pure luck. I wouldn't trade all the late night programming, crazy TD's, impossible tech schedules or off the wall set designers for anything. This rarely feels like a job to me and that is priceless.
Thanks for reading this LONG stroll down memory lane,
Jim
The General Manager of a local hotel recruited a bunch of us from the baseball team in junior college to play on his softball team so he could beat all the other hotels and AV was the department I got assigned to.
A couple of long years later and after annoying every freelance lighting director we had in the hotel with question after question I started taking over the lighting events (and there were many). I would stay all night off the clock learning everything about every board we rented, played with every scroller and light and then finally learning moving lights off that horrible controller for I-Beams.
I then went to a theatre to work and study under the designer there and learned that I really had a lot to learn once I got there. I learned how to really design shows, write pipe sheets, magic sheets, etc etc and loved every minute of it.
Looking back at it, I honestly can't believe how I got to where I am just by pure luck. I wouldn't trade all the late night programming, crazy TD's, impossible tech schedules or off the wall set designers for anything. This rarely feels like a job to me and that is priceless.
Thanks for reading this LONG stroll down memory lane,
Jim
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"Standard tale of seniors graduating and the passing of the torch and all: at the end of that year I asked our director who'd run lights after the guy who'd been doing it graduated, and he told me that I would. At 16 and virtually brand new to lighting, how cool and scary was that!"
Thats eerily similar to what happened to me.
In my freshman year of HS, I was dropped into the "TECH THEA" class for lack of other available classes, and soon "adopted" by the upperclassmen (two seniors and three juniors), who proceeded to teach me most of what I learned in that class. The next year, I SM'd the winter production of 'Rumors' by Neil Simon, and looking back on it, I probably should have been helping the TD with the set and everything, since I would come to need those skills much sooner than I thought. After the production (and the semester) was over, I took the tech class again, with 2 less of my mentors. This time it was for the musical Guys and Dolls. This was an odd experience, as one of my mentors was acting, so there wasnt as much witty banter; and it just wasnt as jovial as it should have been. I still remember having a conversation with the then TD (who was a junior) when she told me "dont be TD your junior year; its a bad idea. Just trust me." so I took her advice, and awaited more training the next year.
One day at lunch this past October, I was sitting there eating (wow, I know right?) and one of the VPs of the drama club comes up to me and he says "follow me." I ask him why, and where are we going, but he wont answer. We go into the small theater, and sitting there is all of the officers for the Drama Club, looking unseasonably solemn. One of them starts speaking; "the TD just quit for whatever reason, and there is nobody to take their place, and as you may or may not know, the winter production is coming up. We need you to be the TD." I was, reasonably, surprised. I accepted, but right afterwards, that past conversation came floating into my mind; "you dont want to be TD your junior year. trust me."
Now, we're starting work on this year's musical, the Mystery of Edwin Drood. It's an odd feeling, being the most experienced person there even thought I'm a junior, since I'm used to having some older people to hang out with, ask questions, all that. Now I'm that person. Anyway, the concern that I'm having currently is about the stagehands, all except 2 or three did not choose to be in the class. So now its only me and three freshmen that have any experience, out of about thirteen people. All for a show that is going to be more complicated than the previous, because we are in a brand new auditorium with a fly system, real lights, all that. and isnt fnished yet.
I like doing tech because I like doing things that seem like magic. Or the impossible. Whatever sets a challenge, or when something goes wrong, and I fix it, it feels amazing. I also like working with my hands, which is something that goes back a long time. I can remember my parents asking me when I was about three what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, to the best of my ability, "a construckshun worker."
Also, I like going places that are a bit removed and sheltered from everyone else, or places that the general public (I love that term) can't go; like the booth, like the catwalks, like backstage, like the doors in the lobby that only the crew can go in.
Every Labor Day weekend, there is a large music and arts festival that I seriously lucked out at getting a job in. I get a laminate, which allows me to go quite literaly everywhere except on the mainstage and the hot-shot artist lounge. It also gets me free lunch and dinner buffet.
Thats eerily similar to what happened to me.
In my freshman year of HS, I was dropped into the "TECH THEA" class for lack of other available classes, and soon "adopted" by the upperclassmen (two seniors and three juniors), who proceeded to teach me most of what I learned in that class. The next year, I SM'd the winter production of 'Rumors' by Neil Simon, and looking back on it, I probably should have been helping the TD with the set and everything, since I would come to need those skills much sooner than I thought. After the production (and the semester) was over, I took the tech class again, with 2 less of my mentors. This time it was for the musical Guys and Dolls. This was an odd experience, as one of my mentors was acting, so there wasnt as much witty banter; and it just wasnt as jovial as it should have been. I still remember having a conversation with the then TD (who was a junior) when she told me "dont be TD your junior year; its a bad idea. Just trust me." so I took her advice, and awaited more training the next year.
One day at lunch this past October, I was sitting there eating (wow, I know right?) and one of the VPs of the drama club comes up to me and he says "follow me." I ask him why, and where are we going, but he wont answer. We go into the small theater, and sitting there is all of the officers for the Drama Club, looking unseasonably solemn. One of them starts speaking; "the TD just quit for whatever reason, and there is nobody to take their place, and as you may or may not know, the winter production is coming up. We need you to be the TD." I was, reasonably, surprised. I accepted, but right afterwards, that past conversation came floating into my mind; "you dont want to be TD your junior year. trust me."
Now, we're starting work on this year's musical, the Mystery of Edwin Drood. It's an odd feeling, being the most experienced person there even thought I'm a junior, since I'm used to having some older people to hang out with, ask questions, all that. Now I'm that person. Anyway, the concern that I'm having currently is about the stagehands, all except 2 or three did not choose to be in the class. So now its only me and three freshmen that have any experience, out of about thirteen people. All for a show that is going to be more complicated than the previous, because we are in a brand new auditorium with a fly system, real lights, all that. and isnt fnished yet.
I like doing tech because I like doing things that seem like magic. Or the impossible. Whatever sets a challenge, or when something goes wrong, and I fix it, it feels amazing. I also like working with my hands, which is something that goes back a long time. I can remember my parents asking me when I was about three what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, to the best of my ability, "a construckshun worker."
Also, I like going places that are a bit removed and sheltered from everyone else, or places that the general public (I love that term) can't go; like the booth, like the catwalks, like backstage, like the doors in the lobby that only the crew can go in.
Every Labor Day weekend, there is a large music and arts festival that I seriously lucked out at getting a job in. I get a laminate, which allows me to go quite literaly everywhere except on the mainstage and the hot-shot artist lounge. It also gets me free lunch and dinner buffet.
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LightingPenguin
Active Member
I'm hijacking my own thread for about 30 seconds.
I'm doing that exact play right now. I like it, it's a lot of fun.
/End hijack
yeah, despite what I said, I'm looking forward to it
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