My First Lighting Job

A few weeks ago I received a phone call from one of my teachers, asking if I would be interested in helping out with a stage building job in Amsterdam. Of course I wasn’t going to let an opportunity like that slip so without knowing exactly what I was getting into, I said yes.

The following Monday was the first of a three day event over in another ROC building in the center of Amsterdam. The event serving as a sort of informational meeting mixed with some fun team play events. My teacher and some hired help (including me and a classmate, though we didn’t get paid unless you count a 25 euro gift certificate as being paid) were responsible for everything audio visual. Everything from building the stage to operating the lights and sound installation was done by us. And, like with any event, the first day started with building.

Monday February 9th – Day 1

My day began at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM. I didn’t have to be at school until 7:30 AM but I don’t like rushing in the morning like some people do. Do you know there are people out there who shower, dress, eat, watch the news, walk the dog and pack their bag in less then half an hour? I’d go crazy every single morning!

Anyway, after I took my time preparing for what would be quite a long day, I got in the car and headed to school where I would meet with my teacher and my classmate. By 8:00 AM we were all in my teacher’s car, heading to an AV supply company who would be supplying all of the equipment for the event. After a short introduction we got in an already loaded truck and headed off to Amsterdam, hoping to arive there before 9:00 AM. Needless to say traffic around Amsterdam sucks at that time of day so we didn’t get there until about 10:00 AM or something.

We quickly got a move on and started building seeing as we were already late. While the more experienced guys started working on assembling the trus, I unloaded the speakers and dragged them and their standards to the right place. All in all work went pretty smooth and the entire stage + control booth was set up and ready to go around 4:00 PM.

Tuesday February 10th – Day 2

For the event that would be taking place today the attendees would be guided through the building and attend presentations in various classrooms about stuff so boring I don’t even want to know. These presentations did require a computer and beamer to be present though and setting those up was our job.

The event at the main stage started at 9:00 AM and the classroom presentations would start at 11:00 AM, meaning we had two hours to get everything set up. But as usual everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and we ended up with a rather primitive blueprint of the building which, on top of things, was marked incorrectly. It took some doing and a lot of talking to people to figure out in which classrooms exactly the equipment was supposed to go. But in the end all beamers were working at 11:00 AM and everyone was happy.

As for the rest of the day, we did absolutely nothing. The only time we were needed was when the stage was actually being used, which wasn’t even that much during the day. The entire crew spent more time on Solitaire that day then on anything productive.

By the time the entire thing ended, which was around 9:00 PM, we got started on turning things off and covering things up for the next day. I got home at about 10:00 PM.

Wednesday February 11th – Day 3

Just out of curiosity I asked my teacher how long we would be working today. He took a look at the schedule and told me that the event itself would be lasting until 9:00 PM, minus the breaking and packing of the equipment. We were in for another long day.

Since the morning part of the day was not really that busy and we didn’t need 6 people running around doing nothing, I requested to come in later. Luckily I was granted that wish, so on that last day I got to sleep in a bit at least. But even when I got there, things were still boring. For the biggest part of the day we just sat around again, doing nothing. At that point you’re glad when the entire thing is over because that’s when you actually get to do something.

As soon as the last guests left the building we started tearing down the truss, ripped apart the stage and threw everything (ever so gently) in their respective cases. All in all it cost us almost 2 hours to get everything loaded in the trucks at which point everyone was glad the day was over.

We said our goodbye’s and all headed to our respective homes. I reached mine at about 10:30 PM, at which point I was just about ready to fall asleep on the sidewalk.

All in all it was a very cool job and if there’s one thing I learned it’s that I am NOT going to go into the lighting business after I’m done with this study. As fun as the work is, the hours are hell and I do not want a job with hellish hours.

Robin

Lighting 101 – By Christian Bale

For anyone who hasn’t heard yet, Christian Bale, the actor who played Batman in The Dark Knight, went completely balistic on one of the crew members of Terminator Salvation. Apparently they were doing a scene and some guy randomly walked on to the set to check out if his lights were working or something.

The funny thing about this story is that the entire thing was recorded, by accident or on purpose, who knows. Be advised before listening though, it’s a pretty intense audio clip and not exactly safe for work unless you’re allowed to swear a lot.

Download the audio clip here.

I’m kind of two sided on this entire thing and here’s why. I go to school to learn about stuff like backstage work particularly, so I understand how this guy must have thought “let me just check the light real quick, otherwise they have to redo the entire scene just because I screwed up a light”.

That right there is doing more then you’re hired to do. If the director thinks the view of the scene is bad because a light is busted or aimed wrong then he’ll tell you and THEN you can go fix it. Unless you are specifically told to get on the set to fix something you should be as far away from the damn thing as a possible. And according to the audio clip this guy walked right onto the set twice in a row, in my books you’re just dense if that happens. As if everyone on the set being in position to shoot isn’t enough indication for you to stay clear.

So does that justify how Bale reacted? No of course not, but it’s understandable. Acting isn’t an easy job. As much as we all like to bitch at people for bad acting, we couldn’t do it any better ourselves if we tried. So when you spent a week memorizing a scene and have to do it for real it would be nice if things could go right in one try. Can you imagine some dude ruining your scene twice in a row? I think I would be pissed too.

Anyway to make something good come from a bad situation someone took the above audio clip and used it to make a remix. It’s quite nicely done, you can download it here.

Robin

Building The Stage

Today was particularly fun day because today we got to build the stage for the very first time! Together with our teachers from light class we went up to the cafeteria to prepare the stage for a short performance by RED!. We basically had to put the lighting into the stage truss (the construction above the stage) and help out with guiding cables and making sure the stage was ready and safe for the performance.

When the stage is not in use there are generally a few lights on the truss, though not connected to anything. They are mostly there for the show of things and to keep the storage from getting to full. However the lights that are normally up there are generally not used with an actual performance. So before we could put the performance lights in we had to take those other lights out.

When the truss was empty we got together to have a quick look at the light plan. This a top view of the stage and the truss that displays which light is supposed to go where. In this case we were using the standard PAR Lights, MAC 250’s and MAC 300’s. The latter two also being known as Moving Heads since they can pretty much move in every direction and are programmable to even the tiniest little details using a light mixing table.

We spent about four hours getting the lights in position and securing all the cables to the truss. You don’t want to ruin a good stage by random cables dangling from the truss above you. So when all loose ends were literally tied up (or in this case taped down) we could start inspecting all the safety cables.
To make sure a light doesn’t just fall down on someone should it come loose one way or another, every light has to be secured to the truss with a special safety chain or cable. In the case of PAR lights the barn-doors (the flaps you sometimes see on these lights) have their own safety cable.

When we made sure everything was secured as it should be the more experienced light guys could start programming the lights. I watched along a little as they did, but there were so many buttons there that I quickly lost track of what the hell he was doing. In any case, programming those lights is a lot of work.

Before the performance could begin there was only one more thing that needed to be installed: sound. Luckily we were not responsible for providing the sound as RED! brought their own installation for that. We just had to help unload it from the truck and get it up to the stage.

Setting up the audio took the guys only fifteen minutes or so and fifteen minutes after that the show finaly started. Many of the school’s students had gathered in the cafeteria to watch and the good news was: all our lights worked!

It’s pretty cool to see something you’ve worked for hours on come to live like that. It’s to bad it doesn’t last, tomorrow we have to take the entire thing down again. It’s been a very educational experience though and I hope we have many more projects just like today.

Pictures & Videos!

Of course I did take some pictures and shot some video. What would the world be without camera’s in your phones these days, right? Hope you enjoy watching these as much as I enjoyed making them!

Oh and excuse the quality of the photos. It’s just a phone camera afterall.

Videos

Robin

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