How do you get Production and Technical People Talking?

[bruce]

its hard to say "screw you" and walk out on them.

 

I don't think that's the point. In a school, as in a professional environment, it's would be improper, and damaging to one's career, to say "screw you, I'm off" at the last minute, leaving them in a hole.

 

However, try saying "sorry, on this occasion I am unable to contribute as I have other committments. Had I been involved at an earlier stage and been able to assess exactly how much time, effort and resource was involved, , I would probably have been able to reschedule these committments, and been happy to provide you with service. However, on this occasion I'm sorry, but I can't help."

 

 

Or as someone once said, "lack of forward planning (on your part) does not constitute an emergency on mine"

[KindredHyperion]

I guess it generally boils down to the fact that people think that the technical bit just happens by itself with no input from the direction. This year it's been quite a good start: the musical is in March and the students running it started planning before the summer break, giving them almost a year until the show. They even got me involved fairly well from the start, appointing me 'technical director' because they wanted the technical aspects of the show to be 'as cohesive as possible'. So far so good.

 

Then a couple of weeks later, I (fortunately) notice posters around the school for a 'technical meeting': 'anyone interested in lighting, sound, makeup, costume, stage management'. I have heard nothing about this meeting to recruit people who I'm ultimately going to be co-ordinating. B-)

[bancroftsm]

I think an important factor has been overlooked so far. Most commonly the people directing school plays, well at least at my school, are all teachers. During the day they are teaching and then rehearsals come into play after school. This means that they are never really focused completely on one task until the few days running up to a production. Often I think that the task of directing is underestimated and technical aspects are most commonly an after thought and as said before consideration for time to program etc. is rarely taken into account. It is also very important to remember that once a production is over you are still going to interact with these people often on a daily basis.

 

Nathan

[Bobbsy]

In my experience (as a parent in this case) the directors are teachers but they've directed enough shows to know what they're getting into. Also, the ones I know might not understand the technical side but they also want their shows to look and sound good.

 

May I put out one hypothesis for discussion: are student technicians ready and able to discuss the show in terms the teacher director wants to cope with? Many's the time I've met student lighting and sound people who want to discuss Macs and boards and dimmer channels and mic models--when the teacher just wants to say "make this scene dark and moody" or "I need a sound effect of thunder here". Similarly, I've seen some students who want to "blind with science" or make things look difficult so they can be heroes (or martyrs) later. Too much of this and, though it's not the way to deal with it, I could understand why a teacher might want to avoid the technicians.

 

Anybody see any truth to this, or am I generalising far too much?

 

Bob

[Ben Langfeld]

<snip>

Anybody see any truth to this, or am I generalising far too much?

 

Bob,

 

I think this is probably more true than a lot of people realise, especially your average student technician him/herself. It tends to be something that comes out of both experience and maturity. A lot of younger techs (I'm thinking pre-GCSE here) just enjoy flashing lights and lots of buttons. Once you've done a number of shows, have seen it all before, and most importantly are mature enough to relate to the teaching staff on a more even footing, you begin to understand that your job is as much as a translator as it is a technician. The director often doesn't care where things are plugged into or how an effect is made to work, nor should they have to; that's the job of the technical people. The most fundamental description of technical staff as I see it is to translate someone else's needs into the correct button pushes/fixture placements/etc.

[Bobbsy]

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound...

 

Besides the above, we see an quite a few posts here from student technicians who like to complain about everyone and everything connected with productions at their schools. I would hope that, deep down, they must enjoy doing technical work, otherwise why bother doing it. However, there seems to be a fashion to play the martyr and feign a world-wise boredom. If the same attitude carries into their actual work at the school, I can certainly see why teachers (and performers) might want to avoid people who bring such a "chip on the shoulder" to the job.

 

Even working professionally, I find I get more co-operation (and more future work) by displaying a real interest and enthusiam--even if I'm not interested and enthusiastic. Similarly, directors would rather here "no problem, I'll sort something out for that" rather than "welllllll (finger in shirt collar) I guess we COULD do something but I dunno how good it'll be....".

 

Anyhow, hypothesis part two.

 

Bob

[Joe Bleasdale]

I would hope that, deep down, they must enjoy doing technical work, otherwise why bother doing it.

 

 

Quite right! I absolutly love technical work, I know I make the misatke of giving c*ap advice on this forum, hence the reason for me being on pre-mod. But I generally do have a natural passion and love for lighting, and I also wont let anyone stop me from becoming a programmer, well without a real reason anyway! I also have been doing my best to read posts and not post rubbish and listen to other peoples answers and opinions. I do everything I can to learn from programmers and designers, aswell as every other member of the industry I come into contact with, including on this forum.

 

thanks

joe

[adamcoppard]

I go to every rehersal as a member of stage managment in the year leading up to the production (I'm one of a few let into the audition process.). Then, as we near Easter, I generally start talking about tech stuff, and manage to extrace a budget. Then, straight after Easter, it's pushing for a meeting, which this year didn't happen until early June (we would hire at the end of the month). AS I knew what the stage would look like, and how the acting would be done, we could quite easily hire the stuff, and get it in. Then, as we didn't want actors asking stupid questions during the rig, we took em out and put the rig up, then later in the week asked the contractors to come back and focus properly, and the rest was a on-the-fly job (finding sound effects the night before, programmes printed during the first performance!!!).

The only way I get them talking is when we mess up a mic switch on, and the shout at us, so....

[sjb88]

We tried intoducing a "1 week notice for large events and 24 hours notice for an assembly" policy but when it is teachers asking for it, as tokm said, its hard to say "screw you" and walk out on them.

 

Oh, we tried that one at our school once... school changed the H&S policy so that we were no longer allowed on stage without staff supervision so the next day they had no mics for their assembly as, understandably, no member of staff wanted to watch as we set them up. Head Of Drama found himself being pulled out of a lesson to get a major telling off from the Headmaster over it as apparently it was his fault. It had just been taken for granted that we'd be there to do 3 assemblies a week plus any other plays or events.

 

I think a major problem was that at our school was there was simply no member of staff really willing to take up responsibility for tech. There was a single Head of Drama, a teacher in the English dept, who normally organised and directed all aspects of every production. He could delegate some jobs to students but, them having no experience of theatre, he had to basically do everything for them. The tech team, he figured, could look after themselves as we had before. There was never a "lighting designer" or "sound designer" or whatever, there was just whoever of us were around to put the scaffold up when he was willing to supervise us (normally whilst the cast were rehearsing the day before their first performance, or the evening before that if we were lucky). On at least one occassion we reminded him he needed to do a plot and tech rehearsal when he was literally about to send us all home just before the first night, because he had spent the whole rehearsal day so worried about the acting! I know some schools have a different teacher who takes responsibility for tech (often from a relevant department such as Physics?) and I think this is the way it should work so dialogue can begin at a teacher-teacher level well in advance and then both can steer their relevant student teams to the best outcome.

 

To be honest it's easy to blame student techs for not sitting in on rehearsals or whatever but without recognition and leadership from staff these things are going to happen.

[BenHowitt]

At the end of last school year we lost the adult who was previously in charge of and represented us. How on earth we're going to manage shows from now on is a mystery! I mean, we've been effectively foisted on the IT department, who I seriously doubt will have the time or the motivation to supervise us. Next year's going to be interesting....

 

On an on-topic note, I agree that it very much relies on who's directing the show. I believe somebody mentioned junior techs talking technical, when all they're meant to do is press the right buttons so the show runs correctly and looks/sounds nice. However, some directors will not even think about what they want, or arrange choreography until about a week before the show (thereby resulting in a botch job), leaving the techs to read the script, and try to anticipate what the director is thinking, or just do what they think will work well.

 

Although, to be fair, not being given precise directions does allow us to have some fun :D

 

Happy days, and if I did say something coherent in that rant, do tell me,

 

Ben Howitt