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Weir69

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Hi all,

 

I am currently studying for my Scottish Higher exams this May and am beginning to think in more detail what route to take after leaving school (in about a years' time). I would like to work within the entertainments industry, to be specific within theatre and working within lighting. Working as an LD is appealing to me because I enjoy the creativity of working with light but I also know this won't just happen out the blue.

 

Basically I am wondering what my first proper steps into the industry should be. Should I go and find a job in a theatre or go to university? Should I study a lighting course a general technical theatre course or even do a physics degree? At the moment I am moved more towards the university side.

 

Experience is also a problem because I live in a remote area and the nearest bus service is an hour's walk away and doesn't run on a Sunday. Now I'm 17 I can learn to drive after the exams so soon that won't be a problem. The nearest theatre is still a good hour and a half away though.

 

So with all that in mind does anyone have some tips or advice!?

 

Thanks in advance.:)

 

Hamish

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Hamish, welcome to the Blue Room. I will pitch in with my 2p worth first before everyone else comes in and disagrees.

 

The first thing to say is that there is no right or wrong answer to your question, any of the routes you describe could lead to you being an LD but there are some questions that you should ask yourself.

 

Are you sure you want to work in theatre at all, where has this desire come from.

 

Are you sure lighting is your thing, I went to college intending to study lighting and stage management and have worked in Wardrobe ever since.

 

If you are heading for HE do you want to come out with a degree, this may give you more options in the future.

 

 

Do try to get some experience as much for your self as for impressing future educators/employers, you really need to be sure that this is what you want to do if you start to shut down your options. I have no idea what the Scottish Youth Theatre is like but investigate them and the National Youth Theatre.

 

I hope this is some help at least in you starting to come to your own conclusions about what is best for you.

 

E2A SYT tech

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I suspect that what is happening is that the industry is splitting into more and more separate strands, with more and more people being self-employed. Theatre is tricky because it's becoming very common for the larger, bigger budget venues to have a small core of full time people and then casuals to make up the numbers. As a result, the good people are all quite mobile - and pop up all over the place, and much work comes from within. If you can;t do it, you suggest somebody else, or they take the next name on the list. Many people are shed each year. This forum seems very similar. We get new members who spring up, hang around, lose interest and go, while others are more like fixtures. Facebook becomes the place for people to share their work. Lighting Designers now often specialise in one area. Not too many cover a wide range of genres. So the opera guys do opera - the music, serious drama and musicals people tend to stick with what they do best. Some designers are programmers too, others concentrate on the image, leaving technicalities to specialists. Others are techno-fiends, others technophobes?

 

University is the best route for some, while others benefit from leaving school and getting dirty quickly. University equips you for work with a 3 year delay, and much debt, and is very useful if you want to move into roles where qualifications matter. Those going in straight from school have a 3 year get in early capability - but could struggle of they fancy a more 'secure' job - maybe in a school, college or even pro theatre, because the lack of a higher qualification will be noticed.

 

It's a real gamble. Qualifications are important - I've just decided NOT to do another qualification because by the time I finish it, I'll be nearly 60, and although it would open a door or two - I don;t actually fancy these jobs very much, so I'm not going to do it. I should have done it 20 years ago.

 

What I do know is that living in a fairly rural area as I do, finding people is actually quite tricky. The ones who are local are working regularly. What does concern me is the career progression. If you are self-employed, you don't have many chances to increase your rates and getting a mortgage or even a big car loan is very tricky, because many of us use accountants to maximise our earnings, make sure we pay the right tax, and correctly claim for the right expenses. On paper, this means many self-employed people do not earn very much by PAYE standards, but are actually quite well off. This sounds a little like what the rich are getting slated for at the moment - minimising their tax liability. On paper my small business isn;t making much money, so my tax bill last year was modest. Trouble is, if I applied for a mortgage, ignoring my age, I bet I would not get one. Self-employment works well for some of us, but if you want a house, a car, kids and all that stuff - self-employment makes it difficult. To get a 'proper' job, as my wife calls it, you need qualifications. If I were now starting out, I genuinely don't know what I'd do.

 

My opinion on uni is quite simple. If you are aiming for a First, or a 2:1 at worst - and can put the effort in to get it, then uni makes sense. I can't see the point in all that debt to scrape though with a degree that on inspection says "I was there". All that debt for a lower level result seems to me a waste.

 

Driving is essential, so get on with it!

 

One thing - you will be asked to list your experience - as in now! Questions will be

"what amateur group are you a member of?"

"what shows have you lit?"

At 17, you should already be doing it - if one career path is straight to work. You will learn nothing very much about what we do at school. Wanting something is often enough for the unis, but no use for getting paid.

 

Sorry I have no real advice, just lots of choices to be made. Best of luck with it. As you live in Scotland, there's little chance of you nicking my work. Around here, the newbies tend to work with me for a year, then pinch my clients!

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1. Want to be an LD: do a philosophy degree. We need LDs that can think and create; we don't need them to know how things work - that's what production sparks are for.

 

2. Want to be a production sparks? We need production sparks that can think and create and know how things work. Do the SLLET degree at Derby.

 

 

KC

 

( I have past history with the SLLET degree, so I'm a bit biased.........as if I care......)

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Welcome Hamish and the only advice I can give is not to tie yourself down to one job description and especially not one as restricted as LD. Flexibility has always been crucial in our game and will become even more essential in future. Soft skills (like CAD etc) will become essential. The ability to earn a crust outside the industry has always been useful, look at the number of teachers on BR. It is an amazing life but it is incredibly hard and poorly paid and is actually getting worse. People are charging the same today as I was 20 years ago for the same work.

 

One thing I have just learned is that there are under 200 members of the ALD, including students. Eleven times as many people are permanent, full-time researchers at CERN and 50 times as many frequently work there. Statistically speaking you are more likely to get a job as a university vice-chancellor than to make a full-time job out of Lighting Design.

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Our member Grum a few years ago had an accident that wasn't his fault. It got to the High Court to get the money side sorted, and critically he had Patrick Woodroffe as an expert in what a lighting designer did. The Judge listened to the kinds of things he did, and the people he designed for. He then decided that Grum's aim to be an internationally working Lighting Designer was probably optimistic. Ironically, this is what he now is!

 

Are you a good lighting designer - which I suspect now is actually an Art role - a creative process rather than a craft role. I don't know what it is about lighting that interests you. I wonder if the real problem is that LD sounds good, but probably means very little. Lots of people do lights, and do it well.

 

One thing is certain, there are few full time LD positions anywhere, but as the others have said - decent production electricians and technical people are always in demand.

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Start your CV! It's obviously short but find everything that you have done in lighting, stage, theatre etc and list it with an accurate description of what you actually did. Pictures, programmes, listings in the credits all help to get the next stage of work -even if it's a course.

 

1/ you MUST have English and Maths at "O level" (or the Scottish equivalent)

2/ You need to be able to get to work and get home again at midnight (or later!) so driving licence and wheels are essentials.

 

A higher education course will help you get some experience but will delay you earning for three ish years. BUT the "degree" will be with you forever (no annual institute membership subs!)

 

All sorts of things you can do will help your cause; Amateur theatre, Voluntary technical work at a festival ( Folk (maybe Scots?) festivals tend to use a lot of volunteers, Pop festivals tend to use paid crew, (so they want known good staff), CAD course at college,

 

Do you have a particular speciality at the moment -maybe that opens doors?

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Thanks everyone for your detailed replies.

 

I'll address a few points that have come up in general.

 

Amateur dramatics groups/societies. I already work with one and have contacts in another for their next show. First time round I was unfortunate enough to have the treasurer on the other end who for a start didn't have a clue and secondly only checked the emails every about every month. There is a lack of festivals in the area and those that do crop up get a large rental company. Anyway once I can drive volunteering at such events should be easier. I also work on all the school shows etc that come up although there is a lack of teachers willing to the spare the time to put on shows at the moment.

 

While I said LD would be an ideal I equally enjoy working with the technical side, a bit of both world would be best. To be honest I though the route to LD would be through working as a tech and programmer initially and working my way up.

 

CAD course at college

Few people mentioned something along these lines. I am a large computer user and use 3D CAD software within school (Autodesk Inventor to be exact). On this line perhaps a degree in graphic design/communication could be broader than one in theatre/stage.

 

Do you have a particular speciality at the moment?

Everything really. With the small events I am involved with I am usually the sole person with knowledge and experience. I try not to limit myself to any one this. I do sound too although not my forte (some may recall me asking advice on radio mic's for £200 ;)). People always say I do a good job but then there's nobody else to do it!

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I started on the education path to the job I wanted. Which at the time was as an audio guy - monitors specifically.

 

In the year running upto the course started I immersed myself in work experience, voluntary work, and quiet quickly as a paid casual.

 

Very shortly after starting the course I realised that the work proceeding it had push me way further than where we were at with the course and I had a few... "now what" moments.

 

I got a phone call about 3 months into the course from someone needing a lampy for a tour asap. Even though I thought I wanted to be a audio guy, I made sure I got well versed in many aspects during the run up to the course and took the job and quit the course(much to my parents dismay at the time).

 

I stayed with that tour for 2 years, and moved to a bigger tour for another year. I then had a years worth of freelancing for various people before entering full time employment for one of those firms.

 

I have now moved from mainly lampy work, to more project management work.

 

I wouldnt have changed anything, but hard work and the right attitude pushed me much further than I believe the course would have done.

 

Learn everything you can, listen more than you speak and put your hand up to be the first guy on site and the last guy to leave - you will soon move up the crew pecking order.

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I'm actually just 9 weeks off finishing my definitely-non-theatre Physics masters degree, so perhaps I can offer some perspective (ie. a very non-structured ramble) from that road.

 

I (like so many others...) got bitten by the backstage bug in school: we didn't have much in the way of equipment to play with (taking a handful of dusty parcans, some cable and a pair of Alphapacks out to the canteen for the school panto was about the highlight of each year!) but regardless I enjoyed what we did and did briefly toy with the idea of applying for a technical theatre degree, but was encouraged away by well meaning teachers, the careers advisor etc. - in retrospect I'm glad they did, though not because I think I'd have regretted the choice or not enjoyed it, but because I've been able to "do theatre" as a hobby while doing a more traditional degree which will look a bit less unusual for applying for jobs outside the business. I'm also glad because of exactly the same reason peza2010 mentions - I probably would have got bored quickly, and I personally know a couple of people who've said much the same about their tech theatre course.

 

You did actually mention Physics as the subject you were thinking of - while I certainly find electrical concepts etc. easier than most, 99% of what I've learnt hasn't been relevant in the slightest to theatre - but still interesting to me personally of course! I'd say do something more electronics or programming related if you're interested in working for equipment manufacturers. Certainly the key skills of working in a theatre are things you either pick up along the way or teach yourself to an extent- knots, wiring things, soldering, basic carpentry, CAD etc. There's always transferable skills to learn and as others have mentioned this is key for your CV, especially if you want to change industry - for example my summer job at school was working as a CAD technician for a local engineering company: nothing to do with theatre but very useful. Another example - consoles these days are often basically computers and setting up a large sound Dante network, or a lighting control network etc. is a not inconsiderable task - knowing your subnets from your IP addresses is a big help, so computer networking skills as well as the normal Word/Excel/Powerpoint stuff is something to learn.

 

Definitely, definitely try to do some work in the industry if you're thinking of committing to it long term. In a way the biggest advantage of taking a more traditional degree is that you can do this before you're out of the safety net of education - I've done enough Fringe and casual work in holidays to know whether I'd love it, cope with it, or hate it, and what areas I'd want to focuson.

 

Others have touched on the designer vs. technician thing - if you as you say 'get a job in a theatre' you'll very likely find yourself doing little to no design work, you'll be fitting up other people's designs and/or just running the same show many times. This is no bad thing, but isn't necessarily what you might imagine working in theatre to be like, particularly if you're more interested in the creative side of light.

 

I'd actually venture that choosing to go to university or not shouldn't be a choice of "theatre vs. university" - I think you should actually first just think about "university vs. not university" in general terms, especially given the huge cost of attending pretty much any university these days. In today's world however just having a degree (in anything) is pretty much a prerequisite for many jobs - and often for no real reason, in my opinion - so you may regret not doing one later in life if career options are closed to you (wasn't there a thread on that last week?!)

 

In general, with any degree - or, for that matter, with many jobs - the most valuable end results are not the ones that you were required to produce, but the things you encounter along the way. If you go out of your way to learn new skills and acquire work experience you're ahead of those who just do what's required of them - regardless of what degree you do or don't have.

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I'm actually just 9 weeks off finishing my definitely-non-theatre Physics masters degree, so perhaps I can offer some perspective (ie. a very non-structured ramble) from that road. <SNIP>

 

Thanks for putting perspective on the situation. I mentioned physics as it is one of my strong subjects and one which I believe is a good stepping stone to anything else in the future. Definitely sounds like it would be a good idea to do a traditional university degree as it would give me flexibility If my mind did change and allows me too keep it as a hobby to perhaps indulge in later.

Thanks @peza2010 too!

 

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You should be as certain as possible that the industry is for you also.

 

I took a college guy out to help with a outdoor gig for 3000 or so people.

 

It was a rainy, early morning and everybody got drenched unloading the truck, but an easy enough fit up.

 

The guy vanished after about an hour - without saying anything. Clearly it was not for him.

 

What he didnt know was that if he would have shown a good attitude and desire to work we would have offered him a full time job starting off in the warehouse, but he could have pushed upwards in the chain from there to do what he liked - so he missed a decent oppurtunity but clearly the reality of the industry didnt suit him.

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Another option is an electrical apprenticeship and carry on with cassy work in your spare time,if you decide theatre aint for you at least youve a decent trade too fall back on,and that trade is very useful in many parts of the entertainment workplace.
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