Messages

451

The Green Room / Re: A Sticky Wicket

« on: Mar 24, 2012, 02:55 am »

I think we've strayed slightly off topic.  The OP's question was regarding how to handle the situation with the present employer.  The etiquette and manners of hosted housing is likely a different topic.  There are merits to both sides of the arguments, but this is an issue for company management, not stage management.  As an SM, stay out of it. 

452

The Green Room / Re: A Sticky Wicket

« on: Mar 22, 2012, 05:15 pm »

So long as the actor is performing his professional role to the satisfaction of the company, what he does with his personal time is frankly nobody's business.  I wouldn't even tread lightly here, don't touch the issue at all.  It's hearsay and you can't win by bringing it up.

And frankly, even if he was meeting people for "encounters" or coffee or card games or to debate the finer points of basketweaving... who cares?  As long as he's on time and ready to work the next day it's nobody's business. 

453

Employment / Career Goals

« on: Mar 21, 2012, 08:55 am »

Responding to a previous post got me to thinking about career goals and how well having goals has served me personally in my career. 

Do you have 3, 5, and/or 10 year career goals? 

Does having goals have a positive effect on you?  If so, what are they?

How does having career goals keep you focused on your personal advancement?

Look forward to hearing your responses, after we get a few rolling in I'll throw in my responses as well!

454

Employment / Re: Choices to make: what would you do?

« on: Mar 21, 2012, 08:47 am »

Since the salaries are relatively equal I think you need to weigh which opportunity has more potential for the advancement of your long-term career goals. 

Do you have a 5 year career goal, a 10 year?  Which of these opportunities is most along that track?  I've always had a 5 and a 10 year goal.  I've never been on the same track long enough that either of these remained relevant, but I always found having these goals to be incredibly valuable in focusing my career choices and keeping me motivated for advancement. 

455

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Stage Managing for Disney

« on: Mar 06, 2012, 09:51 pm »

The company I work for does a considerable amount of work for Disney Cruise Line, and to a lesser extent Walt Disney Imagineering.  I actually am writing this post from my hotel room in Port Canaveral as we're tieing up our loose ends onboard the Fantasy. 

In my capacity and the relationship I have with Disney as a client they're a very good company to work for.  The company is full of talented people and they really push the bounds of technology to the limits.  The product Disney produces for its guests is very, very impressive.  They do have a very strict and rigorous set of standards, but they're in place for a reason, and at the end of the day it works.

As Matthew mentioned, Disney is very corporate.  They're a publicly traded company with a market cap of ~$76bn.  They exist for the sole purpose to make money.  There are myriad secondary and tertiary goals (entertainment, creating a phenomenal experience for guests, etc...), but they all serve the primary purpose.  So yes, they're mindful of the bottom line.  "Overly" mindful, I suppose that's a matter of opinion.  When you work for a large corporation, that's the way it works.

If you this matches your expectation of working for Disney, go for it.  A lot of excellent careers have started there.  They do amazing work and it's a company full of very talented people. 



Note: I am not a Disney employee.  The opinions here are my own.

456

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Dealing with rude emails

« on: Mar 04, 2012, 01:27 am »

I have dealt with similar attitude issues.  My solution was to fire the party in question, which worked wonderfully, though clearly that is not an option for you here. 

I would not respond.  The attitude and tenor of the email is clearly incendiary.  Your response will not better the situation regardless of what you say.  This person has actually done you a great favor in cc-ing the world.  Everyone is witness to their attitude and demeanor. 

I'd recommend alerting the dean of your school or college (depending on how the university is structured) by forwarding this email verbatim and requesting a meeting. 

There's two possibilities here:

1) You're in the wrong and faculty members are not properly coaching you on how to improve.
2) You're in the right and are being assaulted by faculty. 

Regardless, you're not being served by your universty.  You need to run that up the flagpole and hold the powers that be responsible to make it right.

457

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Dear Abby: What classes would you look for in a BFA stage management program?

« on: Jan 23, 2012, 06:43 pm »

Wouldn't the university itself have a foreign language requirement?  I think making a specific requirement to stage management is odd.  (If it's for Opera . . . you could focus on one language that is opera specific.)

I've seen this go both ways in BFA programs.  The program I attended specifically had no langauge requirement associated with the major and the only requirement that had to be met was the general education curriculum, while I believe most BA, BS, etc.. degrees required some language in addition to the general education.  For most of my classmates in the BFA program our language requrirements were met prior in high school prior to admission.

458

The Green Room / Costa Concordia Aground

« on: Jan 14, 2012, 10:16 am »

I know there are a good number of folks who frequent these forums that have worked or do work in the cruise industry.  In case you haven't seen - the Costa Concordia has run aground off the coast of Italy and almost completely sunk. 

459

The Green Room / Re: Happy New Year SM Network

« on: Jan 05, 2012, 10:47 am »

1. Run a 10k. (I did a 5k this morning so I'm off to a good start!)

If you can do a 5k, you can probably already do a 10k   Good luck. 

460

The Green Room / Re: Picture Wars!

« on: Dec 30, 2011, 08:24 am »

Garfield's true weakness.

461

Employment / Re: Response Time

« on: Dec 29, 2011, 02:50 pm »

Certainly a reasonable request.  And even around the holidays or if you're on vacation, if you know you'll be out of touch and will be receiving work emails then you should set up an auto-response with details about when the sender can expect to hear back.  This is doubly true if you know you've got resumes out there and are expecting communication regarding an offer.  A lot of it is about managing expectations; if you fail to manage expecations, in this case by not acknowleding receipt of the email, you're allowing the sender to make their own assumptions and form their own expectation about when you will respond. 

462

The Green Room / Re: Picture Wars!

« on: Dec 29, 2011, 09:09 am »

Such a charming snake!

463

Employment / Re: Response Time

« on: Dec 29, 2011, 09:08 am »

I expect a response to mail messages within 48 business hours.  While 5-7 days may not seem like a lot, if you let three, four, five days go by between every (or even some) correspondence you can quickly find yourself at three weeks without a whole lot of progress.  Then if the arrangement doesn't work, how long is the PSM left to find someone else to fill this position?  If you go through that song and dance three times you can easily find yourself up the creek.

Earlier this month I ran into a similar situation with a technician I am subcontracting to complete service.  The first tech I contacted didn't respond for seven business days.  By the time he did, I had already contacted someone else, heard back, and contracted them for the work.  The work isn't until late January however I wanted to resolve the issue, respond positively to my client and move on to the next item on my list. 

This isn't exactly the same as booking an SM, however the principle is indentical, sometimes the first to respond does get the job.  Keep in mind whoever is doing the hiring also has many other tasks or responsibilities.  And yes, the employer definitely has the upper hand, but that's the way it is.

464

The Green Room / Re: Picture Wars!

« on: Dec 24, 2011, 05:45 pm »

Because:

465

Tools of the Trade / Re: The Motion Labs cue light system?

« on: Dec 21, 2011, 09:25 am »

A brief browsing of Motion Labs' website leads me to believe they don't make a specifc "cue light" system (which would make sense as I don't believe this would be terribly profitable).  Many of their products are geared towards power distribution systems.  The "remotes" section of the website lists remotes to control their chain hoist/automation products.  My assumption would be these remotes would not work for the power distribution systems. 

The shows you mentioned are obviously very large scale shows.  If they were using "Motion Labs" products my guess is they were using a large distributed power system to control all of the show lighting, with perhaps a few circuits set aside for the SM's cue lighting system. 

Noting the experience level you have listed in your profile as "high school" I assume something like this would be well out of your budget (not to mention likely overkill for your production's technical needs).  You may look at something like their  Rac Pac (1100-1-W-W-01) product.  This is a 1RU small scale power distribution unit with six independently switched power outputs.  At less than 4" deep it's extremely shallow and could easily be mounted in a rack within arm's reach or right at the SM's calling desk.