Unpopular Opinion, But: If You Don't Understand That A Mandatory Left Turn Lane Is NOT A Through... Maybe

Unpopular opinion, but: If you don't understand that a Mandatory Left Turn lane is NOT a through... Maybe you shouldn't be driving.

NOR is it a "wait until the end then try and merge by pushing me out of the way" access...

The rest of us got over 800 meters ago. Get the fuck out of here with your entitled shit. Waiting in a line is kindergarten level manners.

Just because I'm a little motorcycle you can bull me around? Bring it.

Standing on the top railing of a scissor lift due to vertical access limitations, upper body wedged into a two foot square crawl space, boxed in by a sprinkler pipe and aluminium L-track with those cheap styrofoam feeling ceiling tiles. Only one small enough to fit, with nimble enough fingers to reinstall blackout curtain motor limit chain.

Venue Head LX (on ground) to Construction Electrician (properly in scissor lift beside me): "Hey, do we have a stud finder?"

I drop down out of the ceiling just enough to double thumb point at my chest and declare "This guuyyy."

ConstLX almost dies laughing. HeadLX's face was sheer confusion. I love this job.

Local Theatre Productions: Orchestra

Shows up for a one-off concert; Setup, rehearsal, show, tear down all in one day.

Sets up a nice stage wash cue.

Assists with chair set up and music stands and music stand lights and wiring and taping down cables.

Musicians show up.

Conductor "No no no this is wrong! There can't be any light from out there!" -flails towards the audience-.

:You mean the Front Lights?:

"Yes. Can't have any of those. Gets in the musicians eyes and they can't see me or their music."

:Buuuuttt.... They'll. Look. REALLY wierd. Maybe just at like. 40%?:

"No front light! None!"

:Are you certain. With just top lights, the shadows will fill in their eye sockets and chins and they'll look like skeletons... It'll be pretty ugly.:

"NONE."

Kills FoH fixtures. Looks like shit.

Orchestra rehearses. Conductor eventually wanders into house to admire everything.

"Why do they look like shitty skeletons?"

-.-

"Oh. Maybe just... Just a little front light..."

So that's a true story from years ago, but also an important lesson learned by me for future concert rentals. Fronts and tips can, with the right angle, make looking at their music or over at the conductor problematic. Musicians having little dancing burned retina dots while they read their sheets is not beneficial.

Another thing I learned was certain gel colours can cause havoc with any pencil markings they've made on their music, especially if the notations themselves are coloured. Trying to blend in a blue gobo wash for artistic effect maybe not such a great idea. I'll generally check that everyone's happy during a lull in rehearsing. (Or happy enough. They're never happy.)

Link is Super Handy for just that. Or you can just Move To all the momentarily unwanted cues to some distant number range.

There's also the sweet "Load earlier save file version" ability that the audio guy is very jealous of.

But! In this case?

It honestly didn't need 60 cues, it's a "Shaw Play". One location. One room. In Real Time. In the middle of the day.

We might have to break out Battleship over headset to pass the time.

With/Without Directors.

Lighting LD Levels:

In attendance: Lighting Designer, Assistant Lighting Designer, Lighting Board Operator (me).

Five hours of programming subtle, half minute shifts in looks as characters enter and exit and move around the stage.

————Next Day————

Lighting LX 1:

In attendance: Lighting Designer, Assistant Lighting Designer, Lighting Board Operator (me). Director, Assistant Director, Stage Manager, Light Walker.

LD: Talking with Director. Comes on Comm: “… Delete cues 8 through 60.”

Subtlety be damned. One look for an hour.

/sigh.

I ride motorcycles because the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi were so badass. Zoom! Nyyýeeeerrrrrrr!

Everyone shut up about star wars discourse from now on we are appreciating star wars like kids again. We are agreeing that the spaceships are cool and we are pretending to be Jedi.

Star War sCelebration 

Mural: Jason Palmer’s art