I'm one much not for
PAR Cans myself unless for a specific barbaric
wash of light or I run out of good lights.
PAR cans are kind of a
Fresnel and kind of a
Leko but not really a substitute for either if you care or know what you are trying to do.
Cyc lights are much more effective in washing anyway. That said, when I heard at one
point the hopefully retired
lighting designer at my old high school theater had plans of replacing all the Lekos in the inventory with
PAR cans, I was seriously taken agast. If I remember right, they were the classic Century
Strand units that were high in quality and supplimented by S-4 fixtures the the TD had bought to spite him for when she did the designs. The
Lighting designer never inspired me to follow lighting by knowledge or fun.
During high school, I was more carpenter crew, but knowing what such a change over would mean for future budding tech people would mean, and as a later
lighting designer I was enraged. His rational was that since he never really moved or did anything more than a Repretory
plot for any show, why did he need any aging Lekos that required maintinence. Hope he is well gone! That TD that knew what she was doing and was more qualified that the science teacher that by the way knew something about electrics opened my world to theater and inspired me to a career in it as opposed to the science teacher that made his crews do stuff but never really tought or opened up the world to them. That said, I kind of feel sorry for those that don't have qualified teachers out there to train and inspire them. I of course would have become an architect with a BMW had that real theater teacher not come along, but my life would never have been as inspired.
"Everything I learned about technical theater, I learned almost completely by myself and with the other techies" So we get into your real motivation for this website. Had one similar for the store front theatere industry, but I burned out.
When ever I hear about stuff like the kids running the tech program, big flashing warning lights go off in my brain. What the heck is going on here? Why is a student that has only been on this earth a few years and certainly does not know the big picture saddled with so much responsibility without direction? I remember the time between when we/I got that other science teacher that was TD to quit and the qualified person showed up and in the mean time I was left in charged. Funny, we had problems holding those foam colum tops onto the tubing with the nails, and Elmers glue wouldn't hold. Drywall screws were not even introduced to us yet much less proper adhesives. I never had any idea without instruction that there was any other method of mounting foam to a colum and assume other kids miss a few things out of lack of instruction.
The show goes up, it's fun, but you miss so much more. Even at my first college - one that didn't really have a good tech program, I quickly found myself in charged. I was at the top of my world, but didn't really learn anything. Where would I be now had I only been hacking my way
thru what I do?
I hope this website fits the mission statement. I would love to see more kids talking amongst each other and given "what we do" advice rather than us "Experts" answering the question, but hope at least we help some.
Finally, "because I said so". to me is the more funny theater commandment that I live by: "The TD is never wrong. If you think the TD is wrong you must have mis-heard him." It's really a shame if the TD doesn't know what he or she is doing and is wrong.