alexvarlowsoundlight Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Hello blue room, Since I was 14 I have been rigging lx and mixing live sound, its just what I do. I have studied for 4 years at BTECH level in school and college and was expecting to come out of college, and with not a HUGE amounf of effort be able to find some freelance or a basic shadowing job. This is not the case.... For nearly a year now I have been emailing phoning and trying to talk to every person possible in the industry and to be fair I have had a few bits volentry work. But im finding it impossible to get any commitments of work, it seems to me that no one wants to hire a 19 year old even though I believe I do have a good amount of experience for my age I just need someone to give me a chance !!! Dose anyone know of any company willing to take younger people and either train them up at minimum wage or some sort of apprenticeship (have tried the National and a few others) Sorry for the rant hope someone can help me! Cheers Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Try the many hire companies. There's nearly a constant demand for warehouse staff with many of them, and it's a good environment in which to learn and sometimes make useful contacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 In the real world under 16 experience counts NIL, College experiance counts half, two year old experience counts 2/3 and only recent paid employment counts 100%. SO you must get paid employment, it's hard but you must, Hire company assistants are always needed, the "ALWAYS" bit because it's a good way to make contacts. Get into a hire company now preping kit and go out to babysit the kit in the summer for them then maybe -if you are good! Go out and do jobs with the kit later til you get bookings in your own name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 I like that percentage system - it does sum it up. Contacts mean so much more than experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GridGirl Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 One other thing - there are a few spelling errors and some missing punctuation in your post. For all I know, you probably check your e-mails very carefully, but these kinds of mistakes can put a potential employer off. Just get someone to read over what you write before sending it - it sounds like such a small thing but it really can make a big difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilalexrose Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 But im finding it impossible to get any commitments of work, it seems to me that no one wants to hire a 19 year old even though I believe I do have a good amount of experience for my age Take it from a 30 year old freelancer, with nearly 10 years experience working in theatre, who is struggling to find work, unfortunately it's the way it seems to be at the moment. The companies I have worked for over the last few years are scaling back their output, so I don't have any work, and there are a lot of people (including me) chasing the jobs that are available, making a lot of competition for not a lot of work. A lot of stuff is not happening this year because of the Olympics, so the companies you are asking for work, don't have the work themselves, so they can't employ anybody, let alone you. Best thing to do, try the big companies who we know are busy this year, for work experience, but don't expect anything out of it. Whether you like it or not, you are one of a lot of people in the same situation at the moemnt. Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 It's not what you know, but who you know... Take the warehouse work, local crewing (Gallowglass/Pinnacle/Pitmans People etc), odd get ins etc, be prepared to learn from scratch and be humble about it. Be genuinely useful on all the jobs, and in the warehouse (nowt wrong with being known as the lad who brews a good cup of tea), ask questions before blundering in if your not sure, and be prepared to turn a hard graft, and while your doing all this - make those contacts. Eventually someone will find a gap in a job that you fit and away you go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toby Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Have you thought about holiday parks? I work at one of the larger companies, start off at a stage crew which involves general backstage/follow spot duties, great place to learn, pm me if your interested Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Alex++, I fear you are in the learning curve, so it may be prudent for you to think about Plan B, C and so on. If experienced folk have difficulty finding work then you can work it out for yourself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicktaylor Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Its sad that one of the things wrong with the education system is the courses provided provide more and more people with paper qualifications but actually there are only a finite number of jobs to be had. In the field I am a professional in you will get 2000 applications for ten jobs as a trainee. Most of those trainees will have full degree in anything and have worked in media somewhere. The stats are the same to be a trainee journalist. I do the stage tech as a paying hobby and maybe more when I semi retire. What is the point in colleges churning out thousands of students a year with media studies or stage technical or whatever if all those bright youngsters can do is go on the dole? Very sad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 What is the point in colleges churning out thousands of students a year with media studies or stage technical or whatever if all those bright youngsters can do is go on the dole? Apologies, as this is very OT, but I have a problem with this type of statement/assumption. I would take issue with ANYONE who says that just because they have studied 'x' subject to A level, or degree level or whetever and they fail to find work in that field then they give up and just take unemployment benefits. Whilst that's not true of all graduates by a long way it does seem to be a story we hear repeated a lot. If you can't find work in your chosen field, then LOOK for something else. There ARE jobs out there, many with fair to good wages, that should tide you over til something more suited to your chosen career path turns up. It just seems that too many people these days are too choosy (dare I say too snobby?) to take what they might see as lesser employment because they want something 'better'... Almost 30 years ago, my missus left uni with an English degree and theatre studies second. She'd been looking at a career in journalism or some such application of that degree, but partly bcause of me I suspect (!) she lowered her sights for a while. She spent a year or two working in the office of an automotive parts distributor, then moved on to work in a building society (which got us a very decent mortgage rate back then) and then stopped work to have our two daughters. In recent years she went back to do a PGCE and is now a primary teacher. Not once did she feel that as she couldn't find a job in the area she was educated in, that she'd wait around on the dole - she may well have waited a long time. Back on topic with trained technicians...My point is that anyone with any half-decent training in theatre work can use those skills and apply them to other avenues of work, either short term or medium/long term. And with minimal re-training (night classes, maybe, or intensive block courses) could extend their knowledge into related areas that might not only give them other avenues of employment but also benefit their preferred career options. For example, retrain as an electrician, and you have another skill that can get you work but also help in theatre.... Too many people are TOO choosy! /rant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Young Johnstone Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Just my 2p on college courses! The ones designed for our industry really don't cover the basics of what they would need to know in the real job at the very basic level! I went to college and received a btec qualification after two years of study. I have to be honest that I hardly ever tell people of my qualification. I'm going to use lighting as an example of one lack of training. This includes myself and other people I went to college with but also people from other colleges I've come accross! Student coming out of college know what different lights are (ie profile, PAR..) but do they know the inside of the light works with optics, shutters, moving parts? Or how to service the light? Open it up and clean all the lenses and replace a lamp correctly? Maybe rig it correctly with the appropriate clamp and Saftey bond? Most students will know the difference between 13A and 15A connectors, but have never seen a 16A cee form let alone something like 32 or bigger. Also IEC and powercon is unknown. Basic Power and electrical understanding, calculations & wiring a plug are also things students do not know! I was amazed when a group of students had no idea what DMX was about, we had to sit down and explain for them. For a student who wants to join a lighting company their going to be expected to know these things if they have come from a place of training! If they don't know these things companies will not be as interested if their looking for someone to jump in as such Now I'm not saying college was a complete waste of time, I got a lot out of the stage management side of the course! But I think it needs to be restructured and actually work towards helpline people into our industry! I was very lucky in the fact I was able to work for a couple of companies whilst at college. Some students didn't get this opportunity of work experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Ah but young Johnstone, you completely missed the point of education. It equips you with a set of basic skills, but expect YOU to fill in the detail. You say you got a lot out of the stage management side, but could this be simply that you found this the most engaging part, but I doubt that your college had full flying facilities, dressing room speakers, cue lights, flymen - or any of the real stage management professional facilities, just typical college stage management consisting of a role very unlike the professional role you could get employment in? College means you will be able to, or understand, or be aware of - that's all. You'll be tested on specific bullet points, and rarely on anything to do with professional practice. The critical thing is that college is not ever marketed as something you do to get a job in your chosen discipline, because we all know, there are not enough jobs out there for every graduate - but I keep in touch with loads of my old students and a single one is professional lighting designer, travelling all over the world, none of the other lighting people are - some did it for a while, but then moved into other areas. Others turned into teachers themselves, despite protesting strongly when I mentioned they'd be good at it that it was NOT what they wanted to do. I can think of a couple of the singers who do it for a living, and maybe only 3 or 4 dancers out of hundreds made a living by dancing for a living. Some moved into media, some into music, some into advertising, and a small number are working as directors or managers in the arts in general. The vast majority are using what they learned in a totally different industry - but the skills are useful, and absolutely not wasted. Width is the key. If you can stage manage, you are useful to manage all kinds of events, not just stage ones. If you did production rather than performance, loads of the skills are transferable. I left education with the intention of working with radio equipment, but I found after just a few months that it was exceedingly dull! What I learned came in handy when I turned my hobby into a job, and then again when I did my PGCE and turned into a proper teacher. Look at many educated pop musicians and tv celebrities - look at what they studied compared to what they do? Just because you take a two lighting units out of eighteen at college does not set you up for a career as a lighting designer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathanhill Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Just because you take a two lighting units out of eighteen at college does not set you up for a career as a lighting designer!Nor does a BA in Lighting Design... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomG Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 <Snip> Back on topic with trained technicians...My point is that anyone with any half-decent training in theatre work can use those skills and apply them to other avenues of work, either short term or medium/long term. And with minimal re-training (night classes, maybe, or intensive block courses) could extend their knowledge into related areas that might not only give them other avenues of employment but also benefit their preferred career options. For example, retrain as an electrician, and you have another skill that can get you work but also help in theatre.... Too many people are TOO choosy! /rant Exactly the same applies to Broadcasting. Some of my fellow students, are starting to complain at me for working / having money all the time, some of these students do not work at all, and rely on student loans, they also expect to go straight into broadcasting at the end of there degree. The reason I have work all the time is due to I now have a good reputation at a few different skill weather it be a lampie or engineer or the odd bit of web code, at the end of the day work is work it pays the bills and teaches you something new, and also leads you onto further work. I still have my part-time job at Waitrose, its nothing to do with my chosen career, but it pays the bill's and some of the people are great fun to work with. As I think, any work is better than no work, as work not only keeps you out of trouble, it also gives you life experience and contacts. Life on the dole would become very boring for me, even if u can earn more on the dole than the average uk employee before tax, which is completely wrong, and another mater for discussion another day. Any work you can find, go for it, even if its not directly related to your chosen career, It still gives you experience you can use later in life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.