Messages

31

Tools of the Trade / Re: Help shopping for a headset - specifically, help understanding connectors!

« on: Dec 01, 2015, 08:11 pm »

Basically because there was concurrent development going on - as well as vendors attempting to lock out competitors - Most 2 wire systems (those cabled up with 3 pin XLR) will tend to have a male socket on the beltpack and require a female connector on the headset. In broadcast, where they use matrix intercom systems, many of them used to use a female on the panel and need a male connector on the headset - now most are either female on the panel or you have the option to pick your connector.

32

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: TOURING: Venue info/questions

« on: Nov 20, 2015, 09:11 am »

Locations of: dressing rooms, green room, water, restrooms, laundry, callboard, valuables lockup, calling station, SM office (if available)
Any codes needed for the building (copier, door codes, etc)
Wifi info
How to communicate with HM (walkies, headset, phone) and  FOH procedures (house open, late seating, etc)
How to use backstage comms/PA/god mic/q lights
Who to ask if stage temp needs to be adjusted

I don't know about the US, but in Aus, 99% of venues will have a duty technician on who will answer all these questions and probably a number of questions you have not thought of when they meet you - and they should induct you into the space (including a walk around). What sort of runs are you doing in the venues? Single day, short (<1 wk) runs or longer runs?

What you get is normally dependent on what your company has booked ahead of time and how long you are in for.

Over here, a DT is basically a safety requirement, so access is only when the DT or a Head of Department is on site. So access times will need to be arranged in advance (wardrobe & office access may be an exception - although more and more whilst I was operations manager for a venue we were denying office access outside of business hours under the expectation that the SM can work from their accommodation). The venues I have worked at - if you need a couple of photocopies, we were more than happy to do them. If you needed lots of printing and copying, it was very much a case of hire in your own.

FOH proceedures is generally largely laid out by the production (you), not the house - especially with regards to late seating.

Names of venue crew
Comp ticket procedures (this might be determined ahead of time, not sure)

I would be expecting names of _operating_ crew for season runs to be provided well in advance - if you are in for multiple shows, insist on the same crew for the run duration. If you are in for more than a couple of weeks, you will want dedicated swing staff too. General setup crew you just pick up as you work with them - get to know the local heads of department and let them do their jobs of managing their teams under the guidance of your heads of department.

Comps should be established well in advance - as seat holds generally need to be made to allow for them. Oft times, the box office manager just hands you a box of tickets and leaves it up to you to go about your business. If you are after comps that are not pre-arranged then you probably don't want to start your relationship with the venue asking them for favors.

33

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COMMUNICATION: Be agressive?? Be, be agressive?!

« on: Jul 29, 2015, 03:19 am »

With the asking not telling - I find that if you reprimand with something along the lines of "I was not actually asking, I was being polite. Kill the workers please." people will very quickly learn that you are polite, but do not mistake politeness for weakness.

I always use please and thank you - I would have told the production manager who made that comment, Matthew, just because we are paying them does not mean we don't have to be polite and thankful for tasks being done promptly and well.

34

Tools of the Trade / Re: Act Like A Hazer?

« on: May 21, 2015, 02:56 am »

You will never get a "theatrically" acceptable haze out of a fog machine. Typically, a fog machine set on it's lowest pump setting with a fan running full-bore about a foot in front of the fog machine will give you SOMETHING that picks up the beams, but it tends to not be a nice even haze. For added dispersion, point it off stage with the fan blowing on stage. You can fine tune it by checking to see whether you can get a lighter fluid, but not one that is fast dispersing, that may help... I would suggest looking towards hiring in a hazer as required.

You also really want to chill the venue pre-show, then fog/haze the bejeezus out of the venue with the HVAC off and then top up as required. Air movement will kill your effect very quickly due to the high molecular weight of fog fluid.

35

The Green Room / Re: The Trouble with Paperwork

« on: May 09, 2015, 12:28 pm »

I tend to look at paperwork examples holistically. I think asking to see an example of X, Y and Z is pretty close to useless.

Show me a production book (not just a calling script) with perhaps a couple of pages of script, some of the rehearsal reports, show reports, minutes of production meetings and all the documents you need to mount a show - including documents provided by other departments.

Anyone can make a form - but it takes a specific mindset to create a system of work that is efficient, easily understood and efficient. It also takes skill to take a large amount of information provided by other people and make is usable.

36

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COMMUNICATION: Ignoring line notes, improvising

« on: Apr 09, 2015, 08:07 pm »

My advice - catch up with him over coffee - not instant from the rehearsal room kitchen, but in a neutral location like a cafe or something. As he has been in a number of shows before and has had some rather big issues, I am assuming he has deteriorated over time? An actor who leaves his cast hanging and is difficult to work with on his first show out the gate generally does not get re-cast. Perhaps a friendly face and a kind ear would help calm him some (degenerative memory issues are often compounded by the stress and frustration that the issue is causing them - they get panicked and up tight, causing them to get flustered and forget and the cycle continues), it may also give you some insight into how to manage him and hopefully come up with some strategies he can use to aid his memory.

To a certain extent this is not your problem - it affects you significantly obviously, but at the end of the day this is a directorial issue at this point in time - obviously as you move into tech and then show this becomes your problem more and more.

All you can do is be supportive and offer assistance whilst trying to keep the rehearsal room from boiling over at the moment. I would also be ensuring that as you tech no cues are based verbally on his lines and just keep a cool head, no matter how much it stresses you out.

37

Employment / Re: Application Rejection, Replying Email

« on: Feb 04, 2015, 11:01 am »

If you did not get through to the interview stage I would probably leave it well enough alone. If you get a reply it will probably be hugely generic and not really helpful. It may have just been that they wanted to conduct X number of interviews, and grabbed the top X. So it would not be that you were not qualified, just that there were people that were more qualified or in line with what they were after. Or it could have come down to not liking the font on your resume.

If you had been put through to interviews, perhaps an email to say "Thankyou for taking the time to interview me, any advice you could give me for future applications would be most welcome" is okay.

38

The Hardline / Re: Facebook Postings

« on: Feb 03, 2015, 06:34 pm »

It depends on soooooo many factors. The performance rights contract, the actors union contract, the venue's contract. Then there are the ethical questions.

IF: All the cast and crew are aware and okay with it, and the performance rights contract allows video taping (and distribution) and the actors union permits recording and distribution and there is no venue rule against it... sure.

Closed facebook does not mean the video cannot get out. I have some back stage technical clips of a big international musical which were created for the purpose of demonstrating specific stage effects - when I want to share the clips with some friends/collegues, I go over to their place with my laptop or a USB key and I show them the clip. Then I leave - with my laptop/USB key and the clips. I would suggest your friend do something similar if he wishes to show a backstage video. Or place it on vimeo or youtube as a private clip - post the link to the people that need to see it - and delete it a few days later.

39

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: What is a "good" pay for touring gigs?

« on: Jan 27, 2015, 08:07 am »

Generally, tour should pay better than a house gig.

So... I always assume a minimum of 7.6 hours 'worked' per day on a tour (Australia has a 'standard' work week of 38 hours) - that is because my earning potential is at least 7.6 hours a day. So they are looking at an hourly rate of $16.45 per hour on a show day - I would be arguing that a load in day should be paid the same as a show day. Travel days are fairly commonly half days. I cannot advise as to whether that is a decent rate in the US... here in Aus, I would probably laugh at them and ask for a serious offer.

Omitting paying PD's is of concern too - living away from home has a number of hidden costs that PD's are designed to make up for - things like laundry, not being able to cook your own meals each day etc.

What is your travel schedule like? is it fly out from home day 1 and return 183 days later or is it multiple short jaunts? If it is the first, you may need to look at putting everything into storage (costs) but can potentially let your lease lapse - if it is multiple short jaunts you may have to maintain a residence (different costs) - your personal situation may mean that you don't have those associated costs in one or either scenario, so take that into consideration.

40

Employment / Re: Negotiating pay

« on: Jan 06, 2015, 04:20 am »

Be open and honest.

"I think the stipend is a little on the low side, is there any room to negotiate this up a bit? I understand that this isn't a wage and designed to cover my costs, but with the current stipend I run the risk of  loosing money which means it may not be financially viable for me to take the job."

41

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Email signature

« on: Jan 06, 2015, 04:18 am »

I would not include current show if I was a freelancer. It will only cause more hassle than it is worth when company x gets annoyed that you are currently more focused on company y (even though X is not paying you yet) etc.

42

December Madness 2 / Re: FINALS: Excel vs Webmail

« on: Jan 01, 2015, 11:10 pm »

There was email before webmail interfaces though.... Sure webmail has moved towards integrating with cloud based services etc but I would argue that if the only place you access your webmail from is your own devices traditional email would probably be all you need

43

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COMMUNICATION: Communication with the production team/what do they need from us?

« on: Dec 23, 2014, 06:04 pm »

I got asked yesterday in my catchup with my boss when I called my last "head of department meeting" was - he was shocked when I said it was over 3 weeks ago. The way life had been at our venue, I never had all HoD's in at the same time since - and whilst I could have re-rostered to make it so, life would have suffered for everyone. My manager was shocked that everything was running so smoothly. All I could say was that I took about 10 minutes each day that a HoD was in to shoot the breeze with them. I would forward through information like snippets from SM's reports as they come through, then swing by their offices, stand in the doorway or sit on a box of gaffer tape beside their desk and actually talk to them. Not ask for reports and emails (we still did that of course) but just take an interest in what was going on in their departments. I would email out a draft roster once a week and then make sure I headed over and talked about it with each of them, one on one. Was it more work for me? Sure... but it also yielded superior results to the previous administrations method of 1 meeting a week and a barrage of emails.

I guess what I am trying to say - things come out in conversation that may not seem important when you are writing reports. By talking to them you may find out that "truss three has some scrollers are really starting to lag a little bit - not noticeable to the audience but 'ya know... " or that the scenic artist spent the last 3 days painting the fake books for the bookshelf because they realised they could not go full depth and use real books like they wanted to otherwise the 'secret door' wouldn't open (so that blocking where the actor pulls the book and flicks through idly whilst standing in the study that the director improvised last session won't work).

To some, it is chatting, to a manager, it is information gathering.

44

December Madness 2 / Re: APPS Division FINALS: Clock vs Text Messaging

« on: Dec 23, 2014, 05:50 pm »

Apparently in the olden days there was this thing called a waaa-tchh which one could strap about their wrist. There were two main types of waaa-tchh. One which told the time in the traditional way we are all used to when using "clock" - and another which required interpretation of a circular array of numbers with two or three bars which rotated around the face of the waaa-tchh. This second type of waaa-tchh was misleading however - as the numbers only went to 12 - we can only assume that the ancient waa-tchh users had some form of codex for decoding the time from this device.

(My vote is for SMS - without which I would never manage to complete my daily tasks as I would spend it all on the phone calling people one by one instead of shot-gun sms's)

45

December Madness 2 / Re: WEBSITE, Round 2: Doodle vs. Web Calendar

« on: Dec 07, 2014, 04:55 am »

I am fairly lucky in that where I work we are all on exchange. We can all see each others availability.