For the past week at Stage Crew, I have done almost nothing but focus lights. This is both an annoying and interesting job to do, especially for people like me, who have had little to no experience in the impressive field of stage lighting. I focused my first light about a week ago. I hadn't focused one before because I had been terrified of it. It seems incredibly complex and scary the first time you do it. I constantly wondered, "Holy crap, did I just break a $300 light because I loosened one screw too much?" It's absolutely nerve wracking! There are so many knobs, buttons, bolts, and screws that you almost can't wrap your head around it. I had tried for the entire year that I had done Crew to figure out how to use these lights, but it was to no avail. Rich, the head of Crew, had his "lighting team" last year, where everyone was already trained, and they were all fantastic at working with lights, so an itty-bitty Freshman like me had no chance of actually getting to work exclusively with them. I picked up bits and pieces of information from upperclassmen, but nothing very extensive. The "information", if I can even call it that, was more like, "To turn the light off, you have to unplug it" and "Don't touch that! You'll burn your hand!". So, I had no experience with these fixtures until this year rolled around.
This year, Rich had to make new teams because almost all his skilled workers were gone. However, we're all still trying to figure out our place in Crew, so Rich had to teach us all everything he could. There was so much to learn in four or five days! With the upperclassmen from last year gone, we had a whole new ballgame to learn, and not much time to do it. I was put in the category of "Knows just about as much as the Freshmen" when it comes to lighting and sound, two incredibly important parts of theatre, so Rich took me aside and taught me a little about it. He read it to me off the top of his head while I tried to take mental notes. There are tons of different types of stage lights, like PAR lights, floodlights, Fresnel lanterns, and Source Four ERS's just to name a few. Different kinds of lights are used to different jobs during a show--floodlights illuminate large areas, while Source Fours are used to profile, or highlight, one particular area or thing. He showed me the different knobs and what they were used for, and how to open and close the shutters and such. At that point, I thought that Rich was just showing me the lights to show me. I thought. Suddenly, I get a wrench and a harness thrust into my hands and am told to harness up and go in the catwalk. Rich shows me how to put on the harness, makes sure everything is okay, and shows me how to climb up the ladder safely. Then I'm on my own. My mind was racing. I had been waiting for a whole year to do this, but I was nearly shaking in my Vans when I was put on spot like that. I wasn't sure that I could do it. Thankfully, Rich is a somewhat-patient man, and was very good at explaining what I was supposed to be doing. I hung lights, focused them, messed them up, refocused them, took them down, put in gels or gobos, or did whatever Rich wanted me to do with them. Yet I was still confused. It was all entering my head so fast that it didn't process correctly.
I spent the next couple of days focusing and hanging lights for Rich, and doing exactly what I was told. This was all fine and dandy, but I still didn't understand what I was doing. I could focus them, but not without the help of Rich, or Bradley, or Cody. I wasn't self sufficient at all. This bothered me immensely. No matter how hard I tried, I would always have to run to one of the boys, or to Rich, or to one of the upperclassmen for help. I just couldn't process all the knobs and buttons and terminology that were dancing around in my head. That all changed during eighth period a couple days ago.
I reported to Rich during eighth because I'm his lab aid, and I have to check in with him to see if he needs any things done. He sent me on little errands around the auditorium. I got the podium out, cleaned up zip-ties, helped Caeli get the R-FU out, and set up a couple microphones. It was all busywork. Then came the moment of truth--Rich told me to head up to the catwalk to focus. My stomach dropped to my feet. I grabbed my wrench, harnessed up, clambered up the ladder, and waited for Rich's instructions just like always. We were focusing lights on the risers for the choir concert, so Rich had people "model" and told me where to point the light and how sharp I should make it. This time was different, however. Rich would bark instructions at me, and instead of asking, "How do you turn that?" or "How do I do that again?" I reacted quickly, almost mindlessly, and efficiently. I was pleasantly surprised. I had been struggling so hard to master the art of focusing lights over the past week, and even a little bit Freshman year, and I had finally figured it out! Rich also seemed pretty happy that he didn't have to explain where the yoke and the C-clamp were connected for the umpteenth time. I had no idea what had facilitated the transition from royally clueless to decently smart about lighting, but thinking back to it, I realize that I had over-analyzed the entire situation. I had paid so much attention to the terminology and the generally unimportant things that I had shunted the important knowledge out of my head. I thought that I relied upon Rich or Bradley to tell me how to focus these fixtures, while in the back of my head, I knew how to focus them all along. I just had been thinking about it the wrong way.
-Emily of the House of Horvath
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| A Source Four ERS [In case you were interested :)] |
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