Messages

166

The Green Room / Re: Performers & Safety - would you walk off a show?

« on: Oct 29, 2010, 09:25 pm »

Adding to this topic: Where does safety rank on our priorities? Should it be #1 over any visual effects? Or is our job to simply see the danger and prepare for the possibility of injury (and prevent it when we can)?

Safety is always top priority. I would not walk off of an unsafe production if I saw something was unsafe and no-one in power would agree to change it.

Down here, as SM chances are I would be the Occupational Health & Safety rep, so I would issue a PIN notice (Provisional Improvement Notice), which is lodged with WorkSafe - it is a notice to the employer that you have noticed a serious OH&S risk, and even though you have communicated your concerns, no action has been taken. The notice has a resolution date, and the employer is required to respond to this notice within that time and allay your fears, otherwise an external inspector is brought in and will generally be a lot worse than changing a few little bits of an act, as they will tear through your OH&S policies and venue safety like a hurricane (they generally don't like being called out for stupid things like idiotic directors).

I would be surprised if there was not some form of written notice you could give your producer regarding safety that would somewhat force their hand.

167

Stage Management: Other / Re: Risk Assessment

« on: Oct 27, 2010, 06:32 pm »

It is not so much the SM who does it - our venue being a live events venue does not have traditional SM's - who does the RA all depends on the $$$ figure on the job and the complexity. Any job under $5,000 our account managers do themselves (using our 2 page RA). Any job over $5,000 will be done by either a technical director or production assistant.

Being a rather large corporation we have people up in another state who spent ages working on our protocols.

168

Employment / Re: Dear Abby: How can I discreetly put myself on the market?

« on: Oct 18, 2010, 11:30 pm »

The main thing is make sure you clear up any existing commitments and leave things in very good order - let your immediate supervisor know that you are considering expanding your horizons via freelancing and try to give as much notice as you possibly can.

169

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fog machine recommendations?

« on: Oct 15, 2010, 02:21 pm »

If you want to continually pump out haze, you are probably best off to duct the low fog - a long duct along the back of stage for example (just a long piece of large diameter tube with holes along the length) or a number of ducts installed along the sides of the stage. 2 units are always better than one.

If you are planning to hire, then talk to your local effects hire companies and see what they have to offer for a space like yours - many will be more than happy to talk over details and recommend the best item in their inventory that fits your needs and budget. If you are looking to purchase - chances are the suppliers will be more than happy to demo it for you. Hire companies thrive on repeat business, so they generally try not to give bad advice. And as far as sales of machines... they want you to use them for support and for consumables, so they should be more than happy to supply a demo unit for an afternoon or even a few days.

WRT Dry Ice low foggers - pea soupers are probably the simplest - they are basically a deep frier, - a heating element at the bottom to heat the water, with a basket to hold the dry ice. You control the fog by lowering the basket into the water. Any hire company with a dry-ice low fogger should be able to give directions. A lot of the "dry ice low foggers" which exist as kits out there are more like chillers for fog machines (the same effect as a glaciator etc) which is never as good as actual CO2 fog. It is still effective though.

170

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fog machine recommendations?

« on: Oct 15, 2010, 01:07 pm »

Dry ice is a better effect and in my experience leaves less of a residue when compared with the chilled fog options. That said... look at the Martin Glaciator, or MDG's low fogger (MDG's make some of the best haze and smoke machines in the world in my opinion)

171

Stage Management: Other / Re: what does a production manager do?

« on: Aug 30, 2010, 07:20 pm »

Damn... Definitely in the wrong country... I don't mind paperwork born of necessity (in fact, big fan)... but I HATE paperwork born of bureaucracy with a passion unbridled... and PM'ing down here... lots of the later with a little bit of the former.

172

Stage Management: Other / Re: what does a production manager do?

« on: Aug 30, 2010, 05:10 am »

PM is often involved far more in the budget and over all co-ordination of the production than the SM - whilst the SM (or PSM) is responsible for the day to day running of things, the PM involves themselves in the longer term items - permits, organising site inspections, getting permits, ensuring OH&S policies are followed etc etc etc etc. Basically, a show that involves a PM takes some of the load off of the producer/director and some of the load off of the SM. Generally the job is death by paperwork and meetings. Been there, Done that... No thanks.

173

Tools of the Trade / Re: SOFTWARE: Adobe Story

« on: Aug 29, 2010, 03:29 pm »

sgoldsbo - do you mean multiple users collaborating? Final Draft has a feature called Collabowriter. It is basically like VNC for Final Draft, one user hosts the session, the co-writter(s) logs in. The co-writter sees as the host types, and should they wish to type can request "control" over the script. In its base form though, no, Final Draft does not allow you to place a copy of the script on line and have multiple users edit it at any time they wish, it has to be done in sessions, with a "Host" (Head writer) who has control. Even though collabowriter has a number of limitations based on Adobe Script, in a professional setting, I feel this is the safe way to do it any way - there should always be one person in charge of the script - revisions should be made as revision notes and integrated by the person in charge of the script - it should not be a free-for-all.

174

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SCHEDULING: How do you allocate shows?

« on: Aug 24, 2010, 11:26 am »

For the short time I spent as a resident SM, we structured things like the attached image - Basically we would all trade on and off as SM and DSM - it meant there were two stage managers when it came to tech rehearsals, and the DSM had the time to do a lot of additional running around and filling out of paperwork etc (as well as acting as a safety net). It also meant that we each touched 2/3rds of the shows that went through the venue.

We had a short rehearsal period (4 weeks) with a 3 week show length and a week to tech. At the start of the season, we would sit with the AD and a list of the shows in the season and a copy of each script in an "allocations meeting". The AD would also have a blurb from the shows director about their "vision" - how technical it was, which resident actors they wanted etc etc etc. We would sit and plan the season so that if anyone was passionate in wanting to do a particular show (or not wanting to do a particular show) we could order the shows to that effect, as I was the most technical of our small group, I generally got the shows to DSM with a number of technical difficulties etc. AD had the final call though and would often have some vision for how the season would progress and would veto our ordering of the season if necessary. We were all good friends though so we kept it generally friendly.

175

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fake Braces

« on: Aug 22, 2010, 07:47 am »

Yep... Stupid brain fail combined with not checking the spell checker.

176

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fake Braces

« on: Aug 22, 2010, 05:50 am »

You should really go to an orthopedic surgeon - one of a few reasons - the mouth is a highly corrosive environment which has a very fast track into the blood stream - you don't want to be dissolving "bad" things and throwing them into the blood stream - the other main reason is that if you don't get them properly made, there is the risk that an actor could trip with lovely sharp bits of metal in their mouth - a paperclip through the cheek hurts... A lot.

177

The Green Room / Re: SMNetwork's Resident expert in...

« on: Aug 12, 2010, 10:51 am »

I am the expert hole-puncher... It is a compulsion of the obsessive kind... I cannot stand binders with documents not punched correctly (centered). I was handed 4 folders of stuff a few days ago and I spent 4 hours re-punching holes in the documents inside to make all my pages line up in the folder... I think that makes me an expert in the art....

178

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Watching 100% of the show.

« on: Jul 30, 2010, 05:03 pm »

Unfortunately you are there to work, and that generally means that whilst over a run you will eventually see all of a show, you won't ever see a full run with all the production elements... unless you get an ASM to call the show (rehearse your absence) - in which case you could potentially see the entire thing, or if the show is really simple and your presence is really more a formality rather than a true necessity (you know the ones, you call go and have maybe 20 cues for the entire night that you know by rote, because they are all fairly obvious)

179

Tools of the Trade / Re: Hand/head sets for light use in Spain

« on: Jun 30, 2010, 04:54 am »

Please have a quick look at the Coms FAQ up the top of this board for a links to some coms manufacturers and other discussions around the topic of coms. What you go for depends primarily on needs and budget.. how many user stations, how many simultaneous talk paths - full duplex/half duplex/mix of the above. It may suit you better to hire comms for your event. I don't really think your budget is suitable for any really professional gear.

180

The Green Room / Re: Tony Awards

« on: Jun 21, 2010, 09:41 am »

A lot of the time, I really wish that the people who organise these sorts of things would let the "pro's" organise things.

We have five or six really large award shows with OB components in our largest ballroom. Every time, their poducers come in and try and make us re-invent the wheel, and it generally ends up with 15 straight edges and the axis off center. They insist on full broadcast splits, but use a studio engineer, who is not used to the nature of live events (with differing playback levels, odd noises, weird accoustics etc) the list of little niggles that 20 minutes talking to people who do live events day in, day out would solve is insane.

We pull off about a hundred of these award type shows a year - it is our bread and butter, many with more awards, and some that are a fair bit more difficult production wise. We frequently broadcast our events as full web casts, use video conferencing and live streaming to run our event over upwards of 7 live sites, and have even done full live to record "tv-esq" style shows - so we know what we are doing.

Yet the TV crews show up, throw a thousand people at the job, take 5 times as long to build it and often get worse results by applying studio rules to what is really an ENG event.

I gather it is the same over in the 'States with events like the Tony's;