Soap Box

[Stig]

We are a very skill based profession with a very hard working attitude, we also admit people, from all sorts of back grounds to the fold and teach them everything we know. These people look up to us and use said knowledge to the best they can, make it work better and show us all up! At this point you feel pride in what you have created/taught/spawned.

 

I think I have a soap box to stand on here which is why I am writing this. There are people out there who have the audacity to claim to be technicians.

 

I have recently had the miss fortune of working with someone who could not do what they said they could do on their CV (admittedly everyone embellishes a little) but as claimed “a moving light technician†when it came to it couldn’t climb a ladder or coil a cable!!

 

Being a theatre technician is not about knowing every product in LSI it is about the ability to be given a problem and being able to deal with it. A theatre technician can not only fix a mac500/VL5/Studio spot but can also work out why the boiler doesn’t work, re program the burglar alarm and re-plumb the kitchen sink without seeing a manual once and still have time to focus, plot and fix the set

 

As my Boss was asked

“how do you become a theatre technician?â€

Reply

“Well you start at the age of 4 taking pens apart………..â€

 

I have had the miss fortune of working with one or two people recently that claim to be technicians I have to say that there is the difference between stupidity and ignorance. I am ignorant in a lot of subjects, but stupid I am not. I admit my faults and I am willing to take criticism in what I don’t know, what I hate is the down and out lying that some people say about subjects that they do not know anything about.

 

Being a theatre technician is very varied and skilled profession and I am proud to be one. Let us try and keep the standard high!

[Guest lightnix]

I've met these types before as well, more than once. I especially remember one particularly useless individual back in the late 80s, who popped up all over the place for a few months, having invented an impressive CV. Obviously he didn't last and luckily didn't cause any accidents.

 

The fault here, though, lies not just with those who try to lie about their experience...

 

*Gets out own very large and very well-worn soap box*

 

All employers / clients have a legal duty to ensure the competence of the crews they book / employ, using investigative means to do so. This means that a CV alone cannot, indeed must not, be taken at face value. It has to be backed up with hard evidence in the form of qualifications / certificates of training and written references from previous clients / employers. If they can't provide these things, then they shouldn't be allowed through the door.

 

It sounds very much like there has been a failure of management in the cases you describe and while you have every right to be angry with the idiots you have been made to work with, you should be every bit as angry with the idiots who booked them in the first place and should take steps to remind them of their duty of care, not just to their crews, but to those who will be affected by their actions.

 

Also remember that self-employed freelancers are, like any other business, governed by the terms of the Trade Descriptions Act and the Sale Of Goods & Services Act. If they tell porkies about their abilities and experience, they can wind up in trouble with Trading Standards.

[landy]

Being a theatre technician is not about knowing every product in LSI it is about the ability to be given a problem and being able to deal with it. A theatre technician can not only fix a mac500/VL5/Studio spot but can also work out why the boiler doesn’t work, re program the burglar alarm and re-plumb the kitchen sink without seeing a manual once and still have time to focus, plot and fix the set

I couldn't agree more, it's having the nouse to either fathom it out or go and ask your mate (or foram!) who knows and can point you in the right direction.

As my Boss was asked

“how do you become a theatre technician?â€

Reply

“Well you start at the age of 4 taking pens apart………..â€

sounds familiar!

[Bryson]

I always say: It's all about the principle. If you understand the principle behind fault-finding (elimating possibilities until you know which piece of kit is to blame) for example, you can use it with a rig of 2 patt 23s or 400 moving heads with the same efficency. Even if you've never seen this or that moving head before. Being a technician is not memorising the specs of the latest SuperMovingLight 2004 but having a set of useful skills which are applicable to any situation.

 

Consider yourself violently agreed with, folks.

[paulears]

..... and the growing trend of having interviews carried out by non-technical people to "give a balance to the practice of stereotyping job types". I was paid recently to write a series of technical questions for use at interviews. God knows what they made of the answers they got. I'd love to have worked with whoever they chose.

 

Or the daft idea of interviewing your existing staff and giving pyschometric tests to determine if they are suited for the job they've already been doing?

[Jivemaster]

Agree totally. A mate was forcibly retired at age 65 from employment as a theatre hand "no technical skill" it said on his contract. They keep calling him in to bale out where the appointed techs cant do something. Last time was to build up and break down a 35mm movie print.

[Just Some Bloke]

Consider yourself agreed with everyone.

 

Being a technician is in many ways innate. You're either born with the ability to work out what's wrong with something even though you know nothing aboutit, or you're not. And reading brochures, manuals and copies of LSI doesn't help.

 

We've all come accross people who can quote you the light output of a Venizia 1338b (HPL) but can't work out that the reason it's not working is that they've plugged it into channel 10 instead of channel 11.

 

I've no idea about the specs of most of the kit I work with, but I know what it is, what it does, what colour the light comes out, what it makes things look like and how many I can put on one circuit. And, more importantly, I know where to look if I need to know anything else.

 

As regards interviews I would agree with Paul. If you are asked to provide questions and suggested answers then you end up with questions like "in what type of lantern would you put a gobo?" (answer "a profile"): interviewee has looked around the theatre, seen what kit you've got and replies "in a Source 4 zoom" - marked down as wrong!

 

My tip when interviewing any technician is to ask them to put a gobo in a profile, climb up a ladder to rig it and then ask them to hard focuss the gobo onto the cyc. Takes 5 minutes or so and you know instantly if they're any good or not.

-_-

[Brian]

My tip when interviewing any technician is to ask them to put a gobo in a profile, climb up a ladder to rig it and then ask them to hard focuss the gobo onto the cyc.

 

You are asking a member of the public to climb a ladder on your premises? -_-

[paulears]

just did a show where the most senior venue crew member consistently called the cyc the 'gobo' - confused me quite a bit. Nothing changed his mind, so in the end I started to call it the gobo too, just to avoid embarassing him - at the end of the night a 21 yr old stage crew 'technician' (ha ha) took me to one side and said - I noticed you keep calling the cyc a gobo - "actually it's short for cyclorama". I said, "I know - but your *** doesn't" - that's ok, he said - he's deaf in one ear, the problem is that's not the one that has the cans on - so he can't hear when people answer back anyway!

[erroneousblack]

One interviewee I had a couple of years back floundered particularly badly on being asked to tie a clove-hitch. In his hobbies and interests section of his CV,he stated he was a member of the Sealed Knot society!

[Tomo]

One interviewee I had a couple of years back floundered particularly badly on being asked to tie a clove-hitch.

Often takes me two attempts to get it right to be honest - it's about the only knot I struggle with. Not sure why - a monkey's fist and bowline are no trouble whatsoever!

[Chris Higgs]

hobbies and interests section of his CV,he stated he was a member of the Sealed Knot society!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Know what you mean, but isn't the Sealed Knot a battle re-enactment society?

If it had been the Guild of Knot tiers (or whatever they are called), I would tend to agree....

[James]

http://www.sealedknot.org/gallery/FrontPage/IMG_7603.jpg

The Sealed Knot

 

http://www.igkt.net/images/logo.gif

The International Guild Of Knot Tyers

 

(I was invited to join the IGKT once, however I declined)

 

James

[erroneousblack]

Know what you mean, but isn't the Sealed Knot a battle re-enactment society?

If it had been the Guild of Knot tiers (or whatever they are called), I would tend to agree....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It was the irony of the name that struck me. Also spending your weekends recreating battles involving the Viking King Stitt of Knuegger-legging, or whatever seems like a serious waste of pub/footy time to me. We would'nt have worked well together.

[James C]

Also spending your weekends recreating battles involving the Viking King Stitt of Knuegger-legging, or whatever seems like a serious waste of pub/footy time to me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh I don't know...think how often you come out of a production meeting with an innate desire to tear through the streets wielding a broadsword and a mace?

 

No? Must just be me then.

 

(oops - is that the time? I'm late for my medication...)

 

back on-topic, though, I've had two staff in the last three years who claimed they could rig and focus, but declined to mention at interview that they weren't "good with heights" :)