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Messages - ericjames

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1
Tools of the Trade / Re: iRFR App
« on: Sep 24, 2013, 12:05 am »
In addition to stage managing, I am also a lighting designer and electrician.  While I use the Android version of the app (my phone is Android), it works the exact same as the iphone/ipad/ipod version.   

The history (at least as I have heard) of the app is that one of the programmers for the new ETC line of consoles was bored at home one night and decided to write the app for iphone.  He brought it into ETC and they loved the idea, but didn't want to spend time/resources actively supporting the app.  However, they wanted to make it available to people in the industry so they released it.  The relatively large price tag seems outrageous, but 100% of that price is donated to one of 2 charities devoted to helping disabled stagehands. (one charity is USA based, the other is canada based).   

As for the app itself, it does replace the physical RFU that ETC sells (and actually it works much better).   From the app, you can access nearly every function available on the actual lightboard.   So, its helpful for focus, channel check, focusing moving lights, etc.  I have not made use of it as a stage manager, but the cue list function could definitely be helpful so you can keep track of where the lightboard is in the cue stack. 

If you are interested in more info, please let me know and I will help as much as I can!

2
The Green Room / Re: Forwarding previous information in emails
« on: Jun 18, 2013, 11:27 am »
Is it necessary to send along all of the previous information, no.  That is something that is determined by the sender.  I know that when I am forwarding an email, I try to be very aware of what is included.    Sometimes its much safer (and easier) to just start a new email thread completely with the pertinent information. 

However, I there are also times when including everything can be very helpful.   There have been numerous times when I get brought into an email change part-way through the conversation.  In those cases, its often necessary to have the previous emails to figure out the context of the conversation and to see what discussions have already taken place.   

Depending on the topic of the email, there may also be legal reasons to keep an email thread intact.   

my two cents!

3
Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Curious about unions
« on: Mar 04, 2013, 07:51 pm »
There is no "rule book" for IATSE.     Every local has its own contract with different terms based on the city and venue they are working with.   There are some national PINK contracts that apply to Broadway and national tours, but unless you are on those contracts, I don't think you can get a hold of them.   

I have worked under a number of IA contracts over the years... is there something specific you are interested in? I can try and help.

4
Tools of the Trade / Re: New Break-Time App: Take 10!
« on: Sep 23, 2012, 12:10 am »
A person's willingness to spend on money on a specific piece of software depends greatly on the person and that particular software.   I have not used Take 10! (to be fair, as of the time of writing, I have not even so much as looked it up online), however, if the software is purely a fancy stopwatch or timer, then no, I would not spend $15 or even $1 on this app.  If it has additional functionality, then that would of course affect my decision.    That being said, there is definitely industry specific software that I spend a large amount of money on.   In addition to stage managing, I am also a lighting designer and electrician.  As a result, I own copes of Vectorworks and Lightwright, which are far from free, but, I don't hesitate to make the purchases because they make my life much simpler and/or are becoming an industry standard. 

I believe people in our industry are the same as any other industry, we are willing to pay the price for software, hardware, tools, etc as long as there is a strong and/or compelling reason for the purchase.  No one wants to spend money on something that is not necessary.

I'm really interested to see where this discussion goes!

5
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Fogger Fluid Clean Up
« on: Jul 17, 2012, 12:16 am »
I will second Babens.... dishwashing liquid, particularly Dawn (yes... in this case, the name brand does make a big difference) is great for cleaning up any type of oil or glycol based fluids. 

---I learned this a few years ago when we had "empty" 55gal drums of oil used as props in a show.  One night one of them got flipped upside down by accident and well, you can guess the rest of this story....

6
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Drunk Actor
« on: Jun 21, 2012, 07:30 pm »
Nick.. thank you for the heads-up about being able to search... I didn't consider that other (non-SMNetwork) people could access the page... I am amending my original post shortly...  I also didn't realize that I had "current gig" listed....  hmm.....

Thanks again

7
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PEOPLE: Drunk Actor
« on: Jun 20, 2012, 06:26 pm »
First off.. I apologize if this thread already exists somewhere but I just did some searching and didn't quite find anything like this....

This past weekend, I just closed a farce at a professional (non-union) summer stock theatre.  We are a fairly small company, although we do 6 shows (2 are big musicals).  We have 2 stage managers and we alternate shows (ie.. I am SM for shows 1, 3, 5) as well as a stage management intern who functions as ASM for all 6 mainstage shows and SM for the children's show.   

Last week, we come in for a matinee show and a few of the actors ask me for a ride to the theatre.  (For this show, this is fairly common as its a 20min drive and the woman need extra time to get into wigs.)   This particular actress (lets call her 'X') says she didn't sleep well the night before and asks if she can lay down in the backseat on the way up, I say, yes and go from there.  When we arrive at the theatre she is being very boisterous and loud and starts asking very inappropriate questions of the other actors.    I pull her aside and ask whats wrong (she sticks to the lack of sleep story) and then I ask her to calm down and take it easy as she was making people uncomfortable.  Things continue eventually resulting in two other actresses going outside to cry due to the way she was treating them.   I am concerned enough about her that I called my producer/ artistic director and filled him in on everything.   I explained that we were trying to keep her calmed down and were in the process of getting her some coffee.   This all happens before our "fight call" - For this particular show there is a very complicated chase sequence that happens in Act II which leads into a fairly large actor motivated scene change.    So, every night we run this entire section to help get everyone's mind on the show and to build up some energy.   During this run, her line readings and pacing were all over the place.  At one point, while standing still, she almost fell over on her own.  In another place, she completely went up on lines and another actor finally came in to get the scene moving again.   After this run, I released the cast and called her over again and asked how she was doing and talked to her for a bit.   At this point, I have pretty much decided she was actually drunk, although I was unable to smell it on her.  She still maintained she was just tired.   Thankfully, by this point, we had some coffee ready so I sent her back with a cup of coffee.   

When the producer arrived, he pulled her aside and they talked for about 15min.  Afterwards, my producer told me that he was able to smell the booze on her and that she broke down and admitted it to him.  She recently had a lot of personal issues in her life and that was the cause for the drinking.    She is going to be getting help after this contract ends.

Thankfully, she does not enter until about 20min into the first act, so still had about 45 min before she had to go onstage.   During the show, she actually did pretty well.  Her pacing was all over the place and her acting choices were very strange, but thankfully, we did not have any serious problems.   After the show, she went off on her own without talking to anybody.  We had an evening show that night and she was very quiet and reserved, again, not talking.  Thankfully, by this point, she was sober and the show was much less stressful for everyone. 

We only had 3 performances left, so neither myself nor our artistic director said anything else about it.  Over the next few days, X went up and apologized to all of the cast members and myself.     

I have been stage managing professionally for a number of years, but I have never had to deal with a drunk actor during a show.   We do not have understudies, and realistically, there was no way that we were going to cancel a sold out matinee performance of the show.     So, I am curious... has anyone else had similar issues?  What have you done?     Aside from getting her coffee and having her rest, are there other tricks I could have tried?

Edit to subject line-Rebbe

8
I just got a definite schedule for my summerstock...   

I'm looking for:
Ladies Man
Drawer Boy
Cats


please email to ericjbehnke AT gmail.com


thanks
Eric

9
I just got my summer season.. if anyone can help on these, please send them to ericjbehnke AT gmail

Thanks
Eric

The Ladies Man
Grease!
CATS
Agatha Christie's The Hollow
The Drawer Boy
The Mystery of Irma Vep

10
Tools of the Trade / Re: Digital Show Binder
« on: Aug 13, 2011, 09:45 am »
Ignoring the digital calling script debate. . .     

I'm trying to imagine how you would even do that.   Are you going to issue everyone on the show an ipad (or similar)?   What does the crew use to run the show?    How do you jot down quick notes?  I consider myself a fairly fast typer and texter, but I can still scribble a note on a notepad much faster than I can think through typing it out. 

The reality is that all of us (or at least most of us) already use our computers to create all of the paperwork that we use.   So you can easily turn those files into a company when the show is over.  However, for practical purposes, I think you need to have paper versions to hand out to people for ease of note taking.     

11
I just had a similar issue stage managing a production of Joseph (we just closed this past Saturday!).  We had 20 adults plus 2 casts of 9 kids each (18 total kids).  The director likes to do scheduling day by day.   I created a website using "Google Sites" and every night (over our dinner break) I posted the schedule for the next on that website. It was the responsibility of the actors (or the parents) to check that website everyday and make sure they were present at the correct times.  When I did the daily schedule, I spelled out basically everything and made it as simple as possible (aka... very few, if any abbreviations).  For many of the kids, this was their first experience doing theatre, so I wanted it to be as simple as possible.

So, my suggestion to you... take the directors schedule, and each night type out the schedule for the next day (or couple days if you prefer).   Make sure you are very specific and then post it to a website (or mass email it).   It is then their responsibility to read the email or check the website.  Its a little extra work for you up front, but it could save a whole bunch of individual phone calls and/or emails.

ps... I plug Google Sites because I already use gmail and its really easy to use.  However, anything similar could also work, I have even heard of other stage managers using Facebook to distribute schedules....

Good luck!

12
I will agree with Q-lab as an option however, I would caution away from Powerpoint. I have had bad experience with PP crashing while trying to play video.  However, if a MAC is available, I will recommend Keynote (MAC equivalent of Powerpoint). It seems to be more stable (I am using it on my current tour and it has never crashed ... knocking on wood)


If you are going with a consumer DVD player... are you going black between cues or is the video always on?  If you go black and its a using a projector, I would cover the lense with a piece of cardboard or whatever.  Then add a few seconds of lead time to each track.  When you hit play, wait for the "play" display to go away and then uncover the projector.  Extremely low tech and not the most accurate method, but it will work in a pinch.


13
Tools of the Trade / OCR software
« on: Feb 16, 2011, 07:55 pm »
Mod... please feel free to move this topic to a more appropriate location or merge it if you know of a similiar topic that I missed.

I have been using the OCR software that game with my scanner for years now to scan scripts and make e-scripts.  However, it is an old Epson flatbed scanner, and it is time consuming to go through each page individually.   I am curious what software and/or scanners that other people use for the E-scripts.  I know that if you go to a Kinkos or similar, you can scan pages using the sheet feeders and get a pdf.. but is there a way to then run a pdf into an OCR engine?

I would love any suggestions!
Thanks

14
The Green Room / Re: One of those funny cartoons
« on: Jan 18, 2011, 11:53 pm »
here are two more cartoons that I recently received via email...

Meeting the set designer:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8267527/


Lighting Truck Arrives

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8142999/



Enjoy!

15
The Green Room / Re: Trivia Tournament III - 2.0.11
« on: Jan 12, 2011, 03:25 pm »
Ouch!  I'm almost ashamed to call myself a theatre person after that one.....

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