How to mess up the lights when abroad

[johannamai]

I am writing about the intercultural communication errors that often happen when touring theatre internationally, especially from the lighting design perspective.

Please tell me YOUR BEST STORY about touring your design abroad or hosting a foreign company at your theatre - I'd love to hear about misunderstandings that happened because of differences in work cultures - either linguistic (things called differently) or practical (things done in a different way).

All stories will remain anonymous unless otherwise requested. So many thanks in advance!

[harrydir]

My best story was getting to FOH and finding 2x MA1s rather than 1x MA2 that I so desired in a Spanish venue.

[jonathanhill]

Not lighting, and I have posted this before, but it is my very favourite example of two countries divided by a common language.

 

An American company were visiting us in the UK. The instruction from their 'Production Carpenter' was:

 

'Can you tell the rail that's the low trim for this pipe.'

 

The call that went up to the fly floor, from us, was:

 

'Flys, that's your in-dead.'

 

 

 

[Ken Coker]

Would you like the red three-phase socket in Bilbao that only gave 115 Volts a leg story?

 

Or the ADB S20 console in Rimini with no local op, the screen in Italian and the manual in French story? Luckily, I read a bit of French...

 

 

Or the famous Irish Opera house with the FOH 5kW sockets where the earth, neutral and phase were all wired in green....?

 

KC

[themadhippy]

Or asking were the lighting power was and being show schukos on each face of a pillar,well it was lighting power, fed via a dimmer,ment for table lights.took a while to suss out why the pa was buzzing and lighting doing strange things

[top-cat]

The main translation issue I tend to get in certain countries is that when I say "No, you can't do that, it's properly dangerous and just downright callous"... what I actually mean is "please continue to ask me whether you can do it, and then do it anyway, I don't really mind".

[David Lee]

I feel so cynical when I read the OP and think that they are asking for all these stories so they can self publish a book in a vain attempt to make money out of other peoples stories. Please prove me wrong and say that the stories will be freely available to all.

[top-cat]

I feel so cynical when I read the OP and think that they are asking for all these stories so they can self publish a book in a vain attempt to make money out of other peoples stories. Please prove me wrong and say that the stories will be freely available to all.

 

 

Writing could also mean a university dissertation. I'd say we get more student requests here than wannabe authors.

[johannamai]

Great stories, thank you everybody!

Indeed, you are right, this is for a university research - my main thesis is on the duality of technical and creative in performance arts, based on the example of lighting design - but I am doing a little side essay on intercultural communications.

 

Although I would really, REALLY like to know how to get rich by publishing a book of tech jargon jokes, I'll skip that perspective for now and share a couple of highlights I've heard so far.

 

- In Georgia, the LD was brought an ashtray to the board, which was situated openly at the back of the audience. So they kind of offered her the option to smoke in the audience while the performance takes place.

- In some parts of Latin America, one should not use the term "snake" (in either English or Spanish) to refer to multi-channel audio cables, especially in the TV industry, as saying the word "snake" on the set or in the studio is considered to be bad luck. You'll usually only hear such cables referred to as a "multipar", almost never as a "culebra" or "serpiente".

- a theatre team in China made a bunch of MR-16 striplights from scratch, as they did not have the specified fixtures. Never came to mind to check with the visiting LD whether they could use an alternative.

- and then there's the visiting show that switched the board language to Russian and forgot to change it back. Fun for the American LD!

 

Please tell me more :)

 

Not lighting, and I have posted this before, but it is my very favourite example of two countries divided by a common language.

 

An American company were visiting us in the UK. The instruction from their 'Production Carpenter' was:

 

'Can you tell the rail that's the low trim for this pipe.'

 

The call that went up to the fly floor, from us, was:

 

'Flys, that's your in-dead.'

 

 

 

 

This one is totally priceless. Thank you!!!

 

 

[Stuart91]

- and then there's the visiting show that switched the board language to Russian and forgot to change it back. Fun for the American LD!

 

We had someone accidentally do something similar with a projector. The onscreen language was Mandarin, and the image had been mirrored. Lots of fun trying to sort that one out over the phone.

 

Hint: the language select menu option often has a globe icon beside it.

[LXbydesign]

Getting to China once to a venue having been told beforehand they have top quality moving lights but were unable to specify the model number. Eventually told that they were moving washlights.

 

Ok - not so bad then. Better than nothing.

 

Turns out they were PANCANS !!!

 

Good grief.

[David Ripley]

A similar North American phrase was from a Canadian company at the Old Vic whose electrician came into the crew room and asked if we could

 

'Eyeball the spike on the instrument pipe'

 

Translation; Look at the dead on the LX bar

 

I also had an exchange with an American college. Their Tech Manager spent hours admiring the simplicity of a UK hook (G) clamp. If you've ever tried using a C Clamp, you'll know why.

 

David

[chelgrian]

A similar North American phrase was from a Canadian company at the Old Vic whose electrician came into the crew room and asked if we could

 

'Eyeball the spike on the instrument pipe'

 

There can be far more subtle misunderstandings. For example many moons ago I was involved in the UK where the director was from the USA but everyone else was from the UK.

 

Just before the dress rehearsal the DSM makes a 5 minute call, the director then gets very agitated that the call was made at the wrong time. It took us quite a while to workout that while we would make a 5 minute call 5 minutes before the beginners call that is to say probably 10 minutes before curtain up apparently over there the 5 minute call is actually five minutes before the curtain.

 

Not theatre related per say but

 

http://cheeptalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/anglo-eu-translation-guide2-1.jpg

 

is great.

[Bryson]

I fall afoul of this sort of thing in a daily basis, having spent 12 years of my career in the UK before moving over to Canada. I once asked for a "radio mic" and got a wired SM7b, rather than the wireless mic I was expecting.

 

After a while you get used to it. I've stopped saying "profile" and my venue is notoriously the only one in town that carries PCs in stock, so every new technician gets the "this is a PC" talk. I still occasionally say something, get a slightly blank look and have to rephrase in Canadian for people.

[johannamai]

I've stopped saying "profile" and my venue is notoriously the only one in town that carries PCs in stock, so every new technician gets the "this is a PC" talk. I still occasionally say something, get a slightly blank look and have to rephrase in Canadian for people.

 

What's Canadian for "profile"?

If you remember some other examples, I'd be really grateful :)