Yum

-Me.

Finished.

Finally, I'm done with the lab show, "When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?". So much time consumed and I learned so little. We struck the set today and I was planning to take pictures and post them, but I realized (thankfully before the strike started) how stupid that would be of me. Take pictures while I'm working? Nahhh.

It was a fun strike where none of our stupid class mates showed up (thankfully). A strike where everyone is competent is always the best strike. Nice, fast, and painless...except when I hit my head on the grid...ow.

Also!

A few days ago I loaded lighting and sound in and out and mixed part of a show at the Citrus Student Center. During sound check, at which point I was working with the audio folks, I leant my Leatherman to someone on the lighting crew. I don't know what the fuck they did with it, but It came back to be charred and slightly melted.

I think they cut some live wire with it. Next time, I'll post some pictures so you can see for yourself.

Excited for thanks giving? I am! Time to welcome home the friends and family!...soon...ish.

Hope life is well for everyone.

-Me.

Advice...take it.

When someone offers you advice, please listen to it.

Hear out what they have to say, then, if they're wrong, explain to them why.

Don't be a total ass hat and say "No, I don't need your advice" then proceed to mix three songs into a feedback cluster-fuck.

Happened today.

To me.

I was pissed off.

-Me.

How hard is it to get Hired as a(n) (Electrician, Carpeneter, FOH Engineer, Seamstress, Designer, ME, Deck Hand...etc.)?

Well, that's a hard question. I'm going to answer it, but I would like people reading this to keep in mind that I am 18 and haven't actually "broken in" yet.


I have two things to say on this topic so far, and this is the first.

In most other fields, you just get hired at a job and work your way up the ladder. In this industry however, if you're a freelance anything, you have to start over with a new group of people sometimes every day. How do you overcome this? My scenic design professor put it best:

"There are 8 people in the entertainment industry, and we all know each other."

If you work with one guy, and you do a good job, eventually other people in the area you did the work in will find out, and when you apply within that area again, even if the person interviewing you has never seen you before in their lives, they will have an opinion of you to base their decision about hiring you off of.

On the other side of the coin, if you show up late and are lazy...well...good luck finding work in that hemisphere again.

So, that pretty much boils down to: "If you get any job in the entertainment industry, no matter the size or length, do it to the best of your ability, because every boss you could ever possibly have is watching."

This is the second, and I have a personal experience to support it.

So, someone who was teaching me about audio for a show that was way over my head offered me a job at the end of the show. I was really excited so I agreed to take it. He gave me someones email address and told me to contact them about filling an open A2 position. I did, and I waited for a really long time...a really. Long. Time.

The person didn't get back to me.

I just assumed that he didn't need anyone and that not responding was his way of telling me "No."

I talked to the person who offered me the job again, and this is approximately what the conversation went like:

"Did you email him?"

"Yeah, but he didn't email me back..."

"When was the last time you emailed him?"

"Uhh, the day after you gave me the address?"

"...Dude you should have been emailing him twice a week. Technicians of his caliber are constantly busy, and if you only contact them once, chances are they won't have time to respond!"

"Isn't that annoying?"

"Granted, some people find it annoying, but 90% of technicians see it as a sign of presistance and appreciate the thought. Next time, don't be so email shy."

This sentiment was then reiterated by every single one of my professors. It's a hard one to believe, I know, but I think if us younger technicians start realizing that older technicians know what it's like to be young and trying to "break in", we would see that that they probably do want to be contacted a ton and given the chance to help some struggling kid out

This was a long post with no pictures. My bad. Sorry.

-Me.

Dude...

My



Can cut:




With its:




That makes me:



-Me.

Ghost!

I think it's funny when older technicians play tricks on younger ones. For instance, telling someone to "Go pull the shutters on all the par cans!" in a very urgent tone. Oh...uhh...for those of you who don't know:







No shutters to speak of...

Or when you ask a young electrician to get you R666 or some other color that doesn't exist. Or when you:

• Ask someone to test a generator by "licking it"
• Tell a noobie audio tech to go put fresh batteries in the SM-58s
• Ask someone to put that "up downstage"
• This one is sort of unintentional, but apparently when people say "drop the gel" to an electrician focusing on an AP, and the electrician hasn't heard the phrase "drop the gel" before, some electricians will just...drop the gel off the AP.
• Tell the very timid and brand new student running crew that there is a ghost who listens to rock music in the building and then going to the basement with a wired com and playing rock music over said com...but then again, I'm probably the only one unfortunate enough to experience that...

OR

The ever popular "Watching the programmer in training on a Express console try to figure out why his lights aren't on, when his Grandmaster is at 0.

Funny things, just don't let them take you as their next victim!

-Me.

This is why I love technicians.

We have a multi-thousand dollar light? Lets curl it!
 
This is a link, so click it!

Thanks!

-Me.

Time off.

Finally, some time to just sit here at home and relax...

The show I've been working is in the Little Theater, the venue used for labs (sorry if I keep repeating this information...). To me this translates into "You're not learning much because you're a go monkey and you have no life because this show still manages to take all your time".

Thank god for Christmas...not because I get time off (because I don't), but because in the Haugh, the venue on campus that I learn from and get paid to work at (there I go again), we put on a spectacular Christmas show (not that I've seen it before), but everyone is telling me to look forward to it, so I'm pretty excited.

I just have to make it through this Lab show first...




Also, I would like to take a moment of silence for my gerber, which will killed in action a few weeks ago.



Apparently my Gerber, which I thought could handle some abuse, was really a piece of shit. Both of the blades broke off, the saw while trying to cut through luan (sad...), and the straight edge while splitting pins.






Now I have a Leatherman Surge.



It's a beast, which is why bought it. I don't anticipate any breaking problems with this one.

-Me.

Oops.

Hey, did you know in the cuing software "SFX", that if you press the space bar, it takes the next cue?



Because it does.

So my hand was hovering above the keyboard, for no reason apparent to myself, at the quietest part of the show.

I think you can see where this is going.

I pressed space and took the next cue...which happened to be a motherfucking gunshot.

When rehearsal stopped, everyone had a good laugh at my expense.

Never again will I relax my body near a button that does anything.

-Me.

A Good Opertunity

For those in NYC, check it out!

Click Me!

-Me.

Technical Theater is Fun

Title Unrelated.

There is an ad on my site supporting prop 8.

I do not support prop 8.

I just want to make that clear.

Pic also unrelated.



Thanks for your time.

-Me.

Putting Yourself Out

You know. Getting your name in the hands of people who can get you work.

Make one of these on backstagejobs.com.

Not that Ive gotten any work from it, but you never know!

By the way, have you been checking backstage jobs lately? You never what you might find on there!

Go look!

-Me.

Relief

So, remember that call that I was so worried about going to? I ended up at school for three days strait. From 10AM on Thursday until 1AM on Saturday. Seriously, that was the most fun ever. I got to school at 10, did my classes, went to the call at 8PM, learned a lot about our rail system and did some other stuff, got out at 8AM on Friday, slept until my class, went to class and took a midterm (owned it, by the way), went to a lab for that class, then I went back to work and stayed till 1AM, Saturday.

Holy crap that was really fun, but I'm really tired too.

My advice: If you're ever on a call like this, be sure to bring deodorant to the site...I had to go out and buy some when I realized that I wouldn't be home. I smelled like ass.

I hope you enjoyed your Halloween!



-Me.