Messages

31

The Hardline / Re: What Colleges (Don't) Say About AEA?

« on: Aug 04, 2006, 09:01 pm »

I wonder what the AEA college outreach materials are like?

It might be useful for AEA to compose a few chapters about the history of Equity and what it does, why, and how, and how's it's useful today. These chapters could be posted on the website, (to save printing costs,) and accessible by schools. Important points to cover: what the business was like before Equity. What specific events led to it's formation, and specifically how that was done, and why- not just bland facts. How the industry changed as a result. What have been some major battles won and lost and why. Try to fairly present both the union's point of view and that of the producers. Also touch on the roles and jurisdictions of the other performing arts unions, and Equity's relationships with them. Also, explain clearly and honestly, (not just typical, overly positive propaganda,) on how one can become a member, and what the benefits and negatives are. Explain what kind of theatrical work members CAN do outside of a union contract. Check common theatre textbooks references to Equity and focus on filling the gaps in knowledge. Then it would be important to make the existence of this information widely known to schools. Email professors and theatre departments. Heck email the entire membership top help spread the word and encourage those who are professors to  utilize it in their classes. Provide a simple and responsive method for feedback, so that the information can be refined and improved.

32

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SM or PSM?

« on: Aug 02, 2006, 07:49 pm »

Check this thread for answers.
http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php?topic=931.0

The Search function on this site works really well, and lots of conversations have already been brought up. A quick Search of the word "Production Stage Manager" quickly came up with this thread.

Enjoy!

33

The Hardline / SMA (and AEA) Discussion

« on: Aug 02, 2006, 12:56 am »

For some reason, the archived SMA discussion just came up on my new-post list, but you can't reply directly to it, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

Just one thing that came to mind: What if here on SMN, our profiles, (like underneath our avatars on each of our posts, along with Karma and stuff,) could show if we're members of AEA, SMA, IATSE, Student, etc, and include a "Choose not to respond" option. I'm not interested in classifying and dividing us, so much as providing more information. I think it would be helpful to know if an opinion is coming from an SMA member or not. It could help to provoke more lines of thoughts on discussions and also help interest people in points of view from other organizations. What does anyone think?


On a completely other note: From the archived thread: "and though we may not be in your city, we'll certainly try to help you." Interesting statement. Definitley something both SMA and AEA need to work harder at in my opinion. They're both so New York-centric. I think this forum does such a great job of being universally helpful by being non-exclusionary. We have clear and valued points of view from all over the world and across all levels of experience here. Yet the SMA still says things like: "We've discussed having our own members-only forum similar to this one, but as our organization is more professional based it would have a different feel to it." More professional??? It's this attitude that has rubbed me the wrong way from both SMA and AEA for as long as I can remember. Why do they have to consider themselves the bastion of professionalism? Just because you're not a member, doesn't mean you're not a professional. It's this exclusive-club feel that's always turned me off to both organizations. I joined AEA out of career necessity, not because I liked it. SMA doesn't even have that going for it. So why should I join SMA, if I don't need to and they're just going to look down their nose at me? Heck, I went to an SMA drink night in NYC of all places, and as I was assured it would be, it was a pointless waste of time. A handful of old-school stage mgt friends, shooting the breeze, and zero useful networking going on. Similar to what it sounds like the recent AEA SM networking meeting in NYC turned out to be.

The great thing about this site is that it gives so many people such a great opportunity to bounce ideas off each other. The sucky thing about this site is that all of our discussions do zilch for actually getting something DONE within the industry. Why, oh why, can't AEA start a similar forum?!? Just think of the amount of efficient communicating that could happen! Regions would actually start to get their voices heard. Just think if Equity posted Wiki versions of the Rulebooks that members could edit. We'd finally start to streamline the convoluted, contradictory, and just plain foolish legaleze and be able to create a single, efficient language for the contracts, so that members could actually start to understand the rules properly. It might also be great for SMA to do something similar- it might actually give a decent reason to join- but it's hard to say how useful it'd actually be, since they don't actually have any real weight over our AEA contracts.

Just some thoughts.

34

The Hardline / Re: What Colleges (Don't) Say About AEA?

« on: Aug 01, 2006, 11:43 pm »

I too went to a school that did nothing to educate it's students about AEA. I found it ridiculous that we spent so much time learning about the many various repertory companies from over the last century and what their focus was and who founded them, but never the real meaty stuff about the origin of Equity: some points which will actually still matter to us today.

35

The Hardline / Re: Health cards discontinued

« on: Aug 01, 2006, 11:33 pm »

Yeah, I noticed this too. Of course I was told something completely different: that now, instead of filling out a Health Card, we'd have to go to the website and fill out similar info. A load of nonsense, is what it is. And how lame is it that Equity, only in ***2006!*** is finally getting their act together to realize that these new-fangled Com-Pewtors are capable of figuring out our Health weeks based on the data entered from our contracts.

Sigh... I suppose it's far too much to hope that they ever actually open a forum like this on the website. God forbid the members are actually able to communicate with eachother.

36

The Hardline / Re: Equity Deputy's identity

« on: Aug 01, 2006, 11:16 pm »

I've always put it in the report. I've always thought the idea of keeping it secret was a holdover from the bad old days when the union and producers were at major odds. In fact, I feel certain there's some rulebooks where it's specifically described how the deputy and management are meant to work together to resolve certain disputes. Frankly, I rarely trust anything someone at the Equity office tells me. Often, they're outright wrong, or their answer at least makes no sense. I've worked on some of those tours where the Deputy has regular meetings with management in order to deal with things. It works well. It seems silly to me to keep things in secret. How can that possibly be an efficient way to get things done? And I've never bought the whole "it's for their protection" argument. I've worked at some lousy theatres, but I've never felt like even those theatres would have the cajones to go toe to toe with Equity by actually treating an actor badly for having reported something. The union is there to protect us, and i think everyone seems to know this.

37

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: prompt books

« on: Jul 31, 2006, 11:03 pm »

There's quite a thorough discussion on portfolios here:

http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php?topic=664.msg3750#msg3750


Mac, what's that legal ribbon or whatever you called it? How's it work?

38

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Calling sound cues

« on: Jul 31, 2006, 10:39 pm »

I may have been a bit unclear. It's not that I think all Sound and Scenic cues should be descriptively named and called; just some, when it's more helpful to do so. And really, LX as well.

For example, If there's 300+ LQs in a show and they're all a matter of hitting the GO button, EXCEPT for the cue between LQ266 and LQ267, which is for the operator to flash a Submaster in time to the audience's applause, then I would prefer to call that cue as Lites Sub 1... GO, or something similarly descriptive. Or at least, in the standby I would describe the cue, as in "Standby LQ267.5: Flash Sub 1. ... LQ267.5... GO," or something similar. Cause how often does a LBO follow a cue sheet, even early in a run?

Likewise, I do prefer to number or letter SQs, and really it depends on how the show is weighted in terms of types of cues, and between you, the designer, and the operator how you name and call them. Mac, if your show was consistently as complex as you indicated, then yes, I probably would have gone with straight numbering for each and every sound cue action, as you did, and rely on Sound Op to follow his cue sheet closely. It'd be laborious and silly for me to call each and every board setting for the op- that IS what cue sheets are for. (Mind you, there's an awful lot of regional work out there where you may be working with rather inexperienced ops who may really need some major hand-holding. I've more than once had to call board presets or mic cues for green operators.)

But sometimes it might make more sense to call the cues descriptively. For instance, imagine a hypothetical sequence where 3 cues are running at once and they all have to be taken out in very quick succession, and sometimes in different order, depending on the precise stage action at the time. I might prefer to call them MD1-Out, CD-Out, and MD2-Out, rather than SQ25, SQ 27, and SQ26.

And of course, Board Ops should generally be depended on to run their own EQ, Volume shifts, etc, but sometimes it can make total sense to call it. Say you have a straightforward Sound show, with all very discrete cues that you call one after the other- totally easy to number every cue. But say there's just like one weird point in the play where a single cue gets an important volume boost on a specific actor's line. I'd feel remiss if I didn't differentiate that cue from the others in some way, either in the Standby or the call itself.

Do you get my drift now? Does it make sense what I am saying?

Also, I like the method Matt noted:
Sound Cue 5 - Start the cue
Sound Cue 5.5 - volume change
Sound Cue 5.9 - Sound Out
It's similar to my method, by helping to contain the discrete cue within the artificial descriptors of the numbers.



Oh, and btw, I don't think I've ever heard of calling Out cues "Prime," or calling any cues "Prime" for that matter. Granted, I'm sure many many people do, but I certainly know of at least 50 or so Sound people who never did so on any of my shows. Maybe it's less common regionally? I'm just saying there's an awful lot of theatre professionals out there and it'd be downright silly of ANY of us to assume that ANY of our experiences were the norm across the entire profession.

39

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Calling sound cues

« on: Jul 30, 2006, 11:46 pm »

The correct call would be:

Sound B GO
Sound B Prime GO

"Correct"?!!??! Tell me you're kidding, right?




Anyway, I think the big deal with recorded sound is that it is NOT like LX. (Well, not until very recently with the gradual emergence of computer sound boards, which are far from ubiquitous yet.) With LX, we have a computer board which deals with each and every lighting change in exactly the same way: as a completely discrete and NUMBERABLE action. Whereas with sound, we have many cues, each with their own sources, GOs, volume and EQ modifications, and Outs. The discrete part is the entire cue, from start to finish, whether it's a telephone ring or a complete underscore. Otherwise, nearly every action is very different. GO on a MD Player is very different from a slow fade up on Volume of the CD track, while panning from L to R. To number two such cues similarly doesn't seem logical- If the operator is performing two radically different actions, why confuse them by forcing the actions to conform to a non-descriptive numbering regiment. For the same reasons, we've already discussed on here how we don't call Scene Changes by numbers. We call them by what they actually are.

So for me, I like to call the cues something like this:

SQA... GO
S Volume Up... GO
S Volume Down... GO
S Out... GO

I see no need to say SQA Out Go, since we already know we're in SQA, (unless there are overlapping cues.)

40

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: resumes

« on: Jul 30, 2006, 11:00 pm »

Yeah, I hate when you can't tell if the person's a male or female. I usually just do To Whom It may Concern or something.


As to the pdf debate. Frankly, as far as I know most computers, both Mac and PC, tend to come pre-installed these days with some sort of Reader program which allows them to read pdfs. If not, most people are compelled to download Acrobat Reader very early in their computer's lifetime, being prompted to do so to read some document from their bank or something.

Frankly, I DON'T want to send my resume, (or most documents for that matter,) as Word docs. I KNOW it will almost certainly look wrong on their computer, and they might think less of me for sending such a crappy looking document. I'd much rather send a pdf. If they can't read it, they'll ask for another version and then I'll send the Word. I've never had anyone be remotely miffed for having to ask for another version. Generally, if they're not computer savvy enough to even have a Reader program, then they also have no idea what a .doc or a .pdf even is, and just assume it's the computer's fault for their not being able to open my original file.

And on another note, I don't want to just willy-nilly give away my document formatting. We stage managers pride ourselves on our paperwork, and while I'm always happy to share formatting tips or my files themselves with friends and colleagues, (including you fine folk!) I like them to at least ask for it. So that on the rare occasion, I can say no, (like if I don't like the person.) And also, it makes me be able to be just a little bit proud for just a moment to know that they like my document so much that they'd like to utilize some part of it. Hey, we gotta take what we can get in this "thankless" job.

41

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Creating a call script

« on: Jul 16, 2006, 12:41 am »

oooo! on a side note, I've used dry erase pen on top of sheet protectors before too, (it works great for a daily checklist,) but it can get tricky when it does what it's supposed to: dry erase. I've heard that there is a very simple, common liquid which will erase sharpie from plastic sheet protectors, to solve this problem, but I can't remember what liquid that was. Anyone?

42

Stage Management: Other / Re: What's the most unusual job you've had?

« on: Jul 10, 2006, 12:26 am »

Aw man! You already said weddings!

I didn't actually stage manage one- I was the groom. But I really remember how the so-called wedding planner was making such a huge deal over what I saw as basically a very simple production: only a few actors, only 2 principles, 2 costumes, very few sound cues, and very very few lines, with minimal blocking. It just cracked me up that it was apparently such a big deal, and all I could think was "Heck, I could SM this thing with my eyes closed!" Of course, prior to the actual event, everyone tells me that I practically did try to stage manage the darn thing. About the only way my control-freak-SM nature could handle the stress, I guess.

43

Tools of the Trade / Re: Condom reference??

« on: Jul 09, 2006, 10:03 pm »

On a tour where we hired local children at every venue for the show's big scenes with ensemble kids:

On closing night in a city, one of the children, (maybe 11y/o,) came up to me while standing by for her bow with a condom full on rolled over hand all the way down to her wrist, plucking at the latex to make it snap and squeak, and said, "Hey, Kris, what's this for?" as innocent as could be. I almost died. I barely managed to choke out "It's for sound." But god, how I wanted to tell her to take it home and ask her mom. Thank god I didn't.

44

Tools of the Trade / Re: Favorite Deck Flashlight?

« on: Jul 09, 2006, 09:52 pm »

Scorpions are great: check Botach Tactical online for cheap prices. I keep a minimag in my bag for emergencies, but I like the brighter LEDs better. Just bought a new Inova myself. Wish it came with a pouch though for the frickin price. Also, the LED headlamps are a godsend. I freelance electrics in my spare time and I don't know how I ever got by without them. I also like to keep one nearby when teching or calling the show, for the odd complete prompt book illumination failure- makes a great backup.

45

Tools of the Trade / Re: how essential is a kit?

« on: Jul 09, 2006, 09:47 pm »

"sticky beak thru the space?"

Yeah! I wanna know too!


As to looking dorky for carrying a kit: C'MON! We're stage managers! Dorky is our middle name! There's nothing you can do to reduce the company's opinion of you as the biggest dork there. (Well, except for maybe the Sound guy.)

I have my standard, 2-tray tackle box kit which I generally bring to my freelancier type gigs. But my favorite is my handy little pencil bag that I bring everywhere. It just has the few little personal supplies that I can't live without and then I rely on the theatre to provide everything else.