Tech Theatre - Tumblr Posts

It's a Professional High School.

So I'm working at a decent venue tonight, just a one night gig for some band double bill tour.

This sort of thing usually goes along the lines of:

Band shows up early afternoon. Band sets up instruments. Band does sound check. Band plays a few songs. Band leaves. Supper. Audience is let in. Band plays. Audience leaves. Stuff band back into truck.

Notice there's nothing in that list about lighting.

So what you have to do if you're called in as a lighting person is help the audio crew load in the band, sometimes including running mic cables and amp lines. At some point you need to find time to tear yourself away and go see what mess the last technician left the hang in, because you're never in back-to-back. There has always been at least eight other people, and at least twenty different stage configurations from the last time you worked here two months ago.

So you go to the lighting board and turn it on and bring everything up and see what you can use and what you can adapt and what's terrible. Then you go fix what you can and make a new magic sheet on the fly and wait for the band to actually get to playing so you can give them all focused specials and pray they stay in that same spot during the show later (they never do).

And then the best (worst) part is you've probably never heard this group before so you don't know their songs. So while everyone in the audience has memorized every lyric on all three albums and all agree that THIS song MOST DEFINITELY should have a BLUE light to suit the mood... you put on a red light and. Oh shoot this one is sad... uh... crossfade blue up...?

If your venue has smart lighting, LEDs and movers and stuff, you can fudge it by making them move around and change color or gobo. Look at the shiney. Please don't notice it means nothing.

But when the venue you're in just has some old Par 64s, Cantata zooms, and six Source 4s?

And the tour technician walks up to you and says "You're lights? It's a rock show! Go nuts!" Sometimes freedom is worse. If you're lucky you get a set list with "blue" "flashy" "slow, sad" beside the tracks to give you a heads up how they might Feel, how you might choose to light that song. If you're lucky. Not lucky this show.

And I look at him and grimace because there's high schools with better lighting rigs, except the high schools aren't charging $40 a head.

At least I was able to borrow a hazer.

How to spot a tech.

So we're seeing Letterkenny Live tonight in downtown St. Catharines. We stop it at the local student coffee shop for drinks on the way over. There's a group of four guys waiting for their order. I glance over at their all black attire, then down to their feet. "Heh, Blundstones," I snicker to Garwik, pointing out some of the group had the favoured steel toes of Theatre Tech workers everwhere. And that's when I zoned into their conversation and caught "so I don't care about the lights, I just need to know what I can do with the truss..." Oh they ARE theatre people. Hah.

I'm killing time by decorating my helmet with LEDs anew.  The lights on the Icon Variant Thriller lasted from December to May, which was when I crashed and had to retire the helmet.

So I'm sitting here sticking the lights to the peak on my Scorpion Exo and this church asshole keeps glancing over at me and I can tell he's dieing to say something.

 I finish up and he blurts out to the audio guy "There's no way that's gonna hold!"

 I calmly inform him it held last year.  And last year I used low tack green painters tape.   So by logic, the gaff tape I have now should be even better.

He's flustered for a second, then retorts gleefully "then you must not go very fast!" as he grins triumphantly at the audio guy again.

 "Yah, I mean, I've only got a 750cc Adventure bike so I top out around 180 (km).  Maybe if I could break 250  I'd work in more zip ties."

 He got mad and turned his back to me. And hasn't talked or looked at me since.

7:30 pm. -3°C. Ontario.

Getting paid to sit next to gear while a bunch of middle class white people present the story of a teen-pregnant Jewish middle-eastern refugee family.

By singing to synth music tracks.

But there's a real donkey and horse.

The most important sign of any concert load-in or movie/tv location shoot.

If that's the most important thing for a load-in, then this is the most important thing of a load-out.

One size fits fattest, as usual. I have so many unused dresses.

The most important sign of any concert load-in or movie/tv location shoot.

You mentioned being a spot op for a concert. Can you talk a little about how that works? I work in theater so I know a little about concerts but I’ve always wondered how the locals know which person to hit (especially if you’re not familiar with the band), how much practice you get ect ect. Thank you!

Yah sure, uhm. So how it goes for me is, I'm a member of the union IATSE. We handle everything from theatres to TV shows to movies to concerts to live events and more. Basically if it's entertainment and it needs someone technical, we can do it. So for things like concerts? Generally the venue hosting the concert will have a contract with the local IATSE chapter, and when a tour gets booked in, they send ahead a list of how many local crew they need to put everything together. That list gets passed on to the Union Business Agent, who then phones and texts members until enough people agree to take the jobs that are needed.

In most locals how the BA prioritizes is Seniority based; the member who's been a member the longest gets first dibs, then the second longest, and so on. This system has a lot of flaws, needless to say. The other typical method to fill the jobs is Meritocracy; What you know gets you work. So for example, I may be "Member 102" on the seniority based list, but I'm also one of only 5 people who can operate a lighting board. So if they need a Board Op, the BA skips all the people without the proper skillsets and just calls those five directly.

Does that mean the properly skilled people are always in the right jobs? No, sadly. There were guys who'd said "yes" to operating spot on that same concert, and they'd never touched one before in their lives. Sometimes you learn trial by fire. Some of them did just fine, picked it up and did their best. One guy was outright incompetent to the point that the designer just turned his lamp off. You hope your fellow members who "know things" are nice and share their information. You do what the road crew says.

And not all venues have IATSE contracts. They might staff their concerts from a temp agency, or have regular people they call, or something else... but. Ehn. Unions protect their members and also hold them accountable. If you skip a call you get fined. If rando from Generic Temp Agency skips a call, so what. He doesn't care. And the show gets short staffed.

So I guess the best way to find out what method your local venues use is go ask 'em? See if they hire off the street, or if they're affiliated with an agency or union, and then figure out if you want to sign up for that sort of thing.

We'll have members who 'went to school for this', members who have a family member already in the Local, members who just enjoy the job, members who just earn some spare cash now and then. It's a mixed bag, but -generally- you used to find out by knowing someone in IA already. Back before all this social media info sharing.

And unless you're in like, New York, Toronto, or Hollywood? Or land a job as a permanent venue technician? This is NOT a job that will keep you alive. Hamilton members who aren't in the top 50 are lucky if they get one call a month, because the main concert venue has decided it can't be bothered to actually book any tours in. It's -great- cash when you can get it, but unless you have a main job, or a spouse willing to shoulder the primary income; it's just like being an actor. Sometimes you work, sometimes you don't. I've only had six days of calls so far this year? 21 days into January. It's a lot of "hopefully the phone will ring this week".

As for "practise"? At the BTS concert the spot ops met the Korean Operator Designer - not sure her exact title, but the lady who would be directing us who to pick up. Through a translator, she assigned us lamps, talked us through each song, and showed us some footage to try and explain more complicated pickups and swaps. This is not what usually happens, in my experiance.

For a concert that rolls in one morning, unloads, sets up, performs, tears down, packs up, and drives away, all in one day, you generally get told "You'll be on spot six. Follow the guitar guy with the white shirt. I'll tell you on headset what number spots are going to be on for each song. Have a good show." And then you hope like heck there aren't two guys with guitars and white shirts.

I had a coworker who did an Irish Riverdance style concert and the touring tech came on comm and said "quick, pick up the girl with red hair and the green dress." Hot tip. That's every girl in a show like that. Ouch.

For something like a theatre play that runs for weeks or months, you'll be rehearsing spot during the tech weeks, what character, what color, how fast or slow, how big, going along with them as they practise running the show to hopefully create a smooth and fluid experiance. In a rock concert there's so much lighting and flashing and video and pyro that if you miss a pick up, it's not the end of the show. It might look sloppy but no one will even remember. Since plays have more intimate designs, less intentional "blind the audience", if you're cutting the actors head out of the beam, it's going to look a lot worse. So the rehersals help tidy that up.

Not sure if that answered what you were wondering!

Theatre Tips and Tricks:

Nightvision:

No, not the goggles.

So you're backstage and it's dark and you forgot your flashlight and you KNOW there's scenery and props that you are probably going to run in to, but no matter how hard you stare, you can only see the black void that exists in all technician's souls.

And there's an actual, biological science reason as to why.

It comes down to those little things in the eyeball called rods and cones. Cones are near the center of the retina and are great at picking up colour. Rods are on the edges of the retina and are great at picking up light. Rods are a bit shit at colour, but cones are a bit shit if there isn't a lot of light.

So when you stare -AT- something in low light conditions, you're mostly using the Cones, and they're like "We can't tell what that is because it's too dark so here's a dark blob."

What you want to do is look Above or to the Side of what you want to see. And then gather information with your peripheral vision. This uses the signals from the rods who are like "We'll suck in all the light we can to help you see, but we're not sure what color that is," which is fine.

It's tricky to get used to, because of course we want to look right at where we're going, but next time you're waving your arms blindly in the wings, give it a go.

Also note it takes five to twenty minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to dark conditions, and you can wreck that in a couple seconds by flicking on a light, so keep one eye closed if you have to click on your MagLight to check something and that can help retain your vision in at least one eye.

Hope that helps!

Simple studio show, he said.

Hardly any tech, he said.

Then why I am at hour five of a solo focus/design session.

Needless to say the lighting area for the last show in here (one woman on an 8'x12' stage at a 1' height) was not sufficient for a three person production, on the floor, with a shipping trunk, 3'x2' slat box, coat rack, and canvas ship sail/projection screen.

So let's turn an 8x12 foot coverage wash into 24x20 playing space.

Hell yes I love this job.

But sometimes, seriously.

San Fransokyo is gonna get overrun with Heartless while I'm stuck here focusing tips.

Theatre Life Tip: Your Business Agent/Technical Director/Designer will always say "it should be easy" to coax you to take the call, because once you walk into the building, your soul is theirs. It's never "that easy".

My Kingdom (hearts) for an FEL

So apparently the venue fixture lamp bulbs I advised they get more of last October...

Weren't ordered...

And the supplier can't get more from Osram?

Because they're made in China and now they've been outlawed?

FEL why you gotta break my heart like this?

Why is 1000W of blinding brilliance so unloved?

Don't talk to me, my children, my baby, or my 300 twin siblings ever again.

Lamp maintenance at the Festival Stage!

My world is colour and plastic...

Gearing up for a new season, and that means fresh new gels for all the lights! Welcome to my life for the last four days.

So many rectangles...

I got my tubes tied.

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.)

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.

Focus session one for Getting Married.

C-clamp?

I-clamp maybe.

Critical integrity failure. Thank gods the technician still had one hand on the light.

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.

Sconce Troubles

Practical wall fixture doesn't come on in lamp check.

Step one: Check plugged in to right circuit.

Step two: Unplug and replug.

Step three: Track along power cord for damage.

Step four: Jiggle it.

Step five: Jiggle it more.

It works!

Nope, now it's off again.

And crackling?

That's usually not good.

Give it a tentative poke.

Now it's on again and there's an interesting smell...

-Kills power-.

Alert Technical Director standing nearby.

Notify construction electrics.

Pry the thing apart in case it's an easy fix.

Oh look! It was on fire! Awesome.

This is now sufficiently a safety hazard and beyond my skillset.

Show it to Lighting Designer, stick it back on the wall, but not plugged in, for Aesthetics.

Sometimes making notes in the dark be like that.

I'm resisting adding a :3