Where now?

[gleek96]

Hello,

 

I am a 15 year old pupil in London who is heavily involved in technical theatre and wishes to continue this intrest by pursuing a career in it.

 

I am just interested on what your views are on what would be best to get involved. I have work experience at 2 top London entertainments venues which helps but after I finish year 11, do you think it would be better for me to carry on to study in 6th Form or go to college to study technical teatre. This is the course I was looking at... ( http://www.nwkcollege.ac.uk/course_view.php?course_id=419&school_id=13&mode= )...what do you think?

 

I am grateful for any advice you can give :)

 

Thanks

[Smiffy]

Based on lengthy discussion with a few people that have recently left uni, and a lot of people that have had to work with people who have recently left uni..,

 

Go and get an electrical qualification (someone that actually understands the current reg's will need to suggest what)

 

Get involved with your local Am-Dram groups.

 

Read - Everything Francis Reid, Richard Pilbrow, Brad Schiller, and Jim (James) Moody have ever written

 

Forget everything you read. go out and make original mistakes of your own.

 

If you want to learn how to do the production paperwork - spend a fortune and go and learn it at Uni. Alternatively, read a few books and work with some pro's

 

An electrical qualification and practical experience wins hands down over a University 'Lighting Design' student. Bitter experience tells me that most uni leavers spend several years wondering why they haven't immediately been asked to light something at The National or the RSC within minutes of graduating.

 

HTH

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[jonwing1993]

Hey there I am a current student at the course you supplied a link to. Yeah its a great course and I have learnt so much from being here but be aware when is says long hours, it means long hours.

 

I have not had a weekend since the middle of May which can really take its tole on you.

 

Another thing to think about is that there are some very extreme politics here which sometimes make things very very hard to actually do.

 

Plus be aware there is quite a lot of written work which is sometimes hard to do because of the hours.

 

Not to piss on your chips as to say but I would rather tell you how it actually is here rather than say yeah its great its amazing etc for you to get here and think "oh..well this is ######"

 

If you wanna ask me any questions about the course it feel free to PM

[Leggy]

I have not had a weekend since the middle of May which can really take its tole

 

If this is your chosen career then you'd better get used to that!

 

Leggy.

[brainwave-generator]

The problem with courses like that is they leave you with a very specific skill-set when you leave, which are pretty much un-transferable to anything else.

 

I have A-Levels in English, Physics and Music Tech. At the time I only wanted to work in Music Tech. Now that I don't (really), I've found that it's a pretty much irrelevant qualification and that I'm very lucky to have Physics and English there to prop me up. I think if I'd gone straight to college and just done 'Music Tech' as my one-and-only, my highest level of useful qualification would be a GCSE and my working opportunities would be somewhat reduced.

[bigclive]

My suggested route is to make a concerted effort to get an apprenticeship as an electrician to give you a wide ranging and useful trade skill with tons of experience to back it up. (And you get a wage too!) Aim for an apprenticeship in a construction and/or industrial environment since it will give you a trade skill to fall back on or travel the world with. While doing the apprenticeship there's no harm in doing theatre work in the evenings or weekend. Then when you've served your time you can decide whether you wish to keep working as an electrician or pursue a career in the ruthless entertainment industry.

 

As said by others... A fully trained and experienced electrician beats a university student hands down. Most real theatre experience is gained working in a theatre.

[benweblight]

They are doing some school-leaver placements for the Olympics ceremonies:

http://www.london2012.com/get-involved/jobs/jobs-at-london-2012-ceremonies/technical-division-assistant-wf027-school-leaver-placeme.php

[tokm]

An electrical qualification and practical experience wins hands down over a University 'Lighting Design' student. Bitter experience tells me that most uni leavers spend several years wondering why they haven't immediately been asked to light something at The National or the RSC within minutes of graduating.

Well done Smiffy :D You couldn't have put it any better!

 

I'm not slating the quality of all these courses, just there seems to be an awful lot of them now and these expectations from students of instant and notable design work must come from somewhere! Speaking from personal experience too that the non-university way is a pretty good one, I think the phrase its who you know, not what you know still holds true as ever unfortunately (well, not so unfortunately for most of us!).

 

Get yourself on a decent sparks or tech theatre/production course to learn the basics, then get a job in a warehouse or as a house tech or do local crewing, just something to get you working with the kit and doing things in the real world, in an environment and position where you can find your feet and then move on from there as appropriate.

 

 

Best of luck! Tom

[erroneousblack]

 

 

Get involved with your local Am-Dram groups.

 

 

 

No, don't! Steer well clear of them!

[bigclive]

No, don't! Steer well clear of them!

 

Well you don't have to TELL anyone you worked with them. It's an easy source of experience, albeit limited and gets your foot in the door.

[TomG]

No, don't! Steer well clear of them!

 

Well you don't have to TELL anyone you worked with them. It's an easy source of experience, albeit limited and gets your foot in the door.

 

Take any work you can, not only does it get your name out there and know, it also gives you a chance to practice, what you have learnt on such courses in the real world, with real work.

 

I'm currently a Broadcast Engineer, Student at Ravensbourne. I came from a theatre background, and always assumed I would go back to theatre after this course, but after the last 3 weeks of working at Wimbledon, with SIS as an Assistant Vision Engineer in the Main Press Interview room, I now wish to carry on with the Broadcasting malarky, and also have some more work coming up at the BBC Prom's, all thanks to sticking with it and taking any opportunity presented to me.

 

I no have my name out there with a small group in broadcasting, who have all said they would work with me again, which must be a good sign.

As I said at the beginning, take any work you can, and if you do a good job, more will always come out of it. :)

[TomG]

No, don't! Steer well clear of them!

 

Well you don't have to TELL anyone you worked with them. It's an easy source of experience, albeit limited and gets your foot in the door.

 

Take any work you can, not only does it get your name out there and know, it also gives you a chance to practice, what you have learnt on such courses in the real world, with real work.

 

I'm currently a Broadcast Engineer, Student at Ravensbourne. I came from a theatre background, and always assumed I would go back to theatre after this course, but after the last 3 weeks of working at Wimbledon, with SIS as an Assistant Vision Engineer in the Main Press Interview room, I now wish to carry on with the Broadcasting malarky, and also have some more work coming up at the BBC Prom's, all thanks to sticking with it and taking any opportunity presented to me.

 

I no have my name out there with a small group in broadcasting, who have all said they would work with me again, which must be a good sign.

As I said at the beginning, take any work you can, and if you do a good job, more will always come out of it. :)

[Simon Lewis]

You've had a selection of comments and some good advice. It's hard in some ways to advise you when we do not know your academic profile.

 

The chances are, you will have a number of jobs in the next 50 years. They may follow a trend, but sometimes there will be complete changes as you follow a new path or opportunity.

 

You can choose to 'specialise' early on, taking vocational courses, training or apprenticeships (as suggested above) and this can lead to some very worthwhile employment. You can choose to stay on and take A levels or BTEC nationals and even consider further / higher education. All of that is up to you, your academic ability and aspiration, the financial risks you want to take and "what your hearts says you should do".

 

The thing about training and apprenticeships is that the employer usually gets a "work ready" employee. They know the job, they do not need showing how to do it.

The criticism levelled against many who graduate from college or university is that they do not understand the world of work, and in some cases believe they are owed a living once they have a piece of paper in their hand.

 

What I'd suggest you think about is "what do I need to make myself employable for a wide range of job opportunities in the theatre and event marketplace, and will the route that I'm looking at make me competitive compared to others in my peer group, and provide me with a long term set of skills that I could use in a variety of jobs?".

 

Some of the research on employability suggests that soft skills can be viewed as more important than specific technical skills. If you have the right attitude, you are a team player, you are quick to learn and adapt, you are good at communicating and you are self motivated, then this can count for a lot with many employers. In fact, some will say that they want the right attitude, and that the training can be done on the job.

 

With the right set of soft skills, you may succeed via any of the routes you are thinking about. However, many of your peers will take the FE / HE route, and there are some specific benefits to be had from it.

 

The advice that you get on a forum such as this one will often reflect the poster's own life experience, so it's worth talking with a broad range of people and getting advice from careers advisors too. They may not understand the industry, but they will understand the need for core skills to see you through the world of work.

 

 

Simon

[ramdram]

You are only 15 as you type. Despite EB's view of amdram...it may be amdram is the only way you get some...any... sort of experience.

 

The uni route has its detractors, and even if/when you do get that degree it's not really of much use 'til you get a job. The advice to get a sparkie ticket(s) is very sound 'cos if nothing else you can always set yourself up as a self-employed electrician to put food on the table, entertain the g/f, travel etc, etc.

 

You can work out for yourself that there are rather more folk wanting electrical work done that theatres searching for techs,

 

It may be useful for you to google up the number of technical theatre positions advertised and then learn how many folk apply for a job...you may have read in this forum that theatres are closing and it is not rocket science to work out that there has to be an ever increasing pool of techs looking for work.

 

Furthermore, you can work out for yourself that the money is not going to be wonderful when so many folk are chasing a job..the supply and demand principal.

[Matthew Robinson]

Have you considered doing a degree completely different to entertainments and then moving into the entertainment industry? I know a few people (some of whom are on here) who have done a degree in a subject completely removed from entertainments at Sheffield (not that Sheffield is the only place, just that most of the people I know who work in the industry have graduated from Sheffield) and been a member of the Technical Services Committee or one or more theatrical societies before finding work in the industry. It gives you both a degree and the opportunity to fall back on a different career, and if you do something like physics or engineering, you know the fundamentals of the tasks you're carrying out.

 

EG: I'm studying electronic engineering, one of the things we learn about what happens if you put certain components together. So we learn about tuned circuits that only let certain frequencies pass through them (a circuit replicated many times in an EQ), peak detectors (used on some sound desks to show the peak of a signal as well as the average signal), etc. There are other things that are linkable to the industry, but that is most striking.