Backstage

Geekisness?

Well, I'm not one to take quizes often... They give me negative flasbacks to school/college... This however got me laughing, so it can't be all bad right? I have to admit, that the result seems to be pretty acurate... 'Course, how easy is it to judge your own geekishness?...

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Overthinking Problems

There are times when you are working on a problem, and you simply try to be too clever... Its along the same lines as re-inventing the wheel but you don't notice it as quickly...
The beast of a set we just dealt with will be coming back in June... Twice as a matter of fact... The main issue is, this set does not go in or out nearly as quickly as the set it will be replaceing for these smaller meetings... So, now I have to make it easier/better/faaster... With that simple goal in mind (note sarcasim) I've been going back over the prints as to what I can change... I knew some of these things right after strike, but now they're coming to a head faster than I had anticipated... So after my 3 days off, hiding from work, and relaxing a bit, things are clearer... I can see I was trying to be too clever on certian aspects of the set... I was going for the "swiss army" set when all I really needed was functional... All the adjustment I built into one aspect is most likely out the door since we don't need that... I'll be replaceing that with fixed location setups that go in far more quickly... I had some units built in a way that they could be modified on site easily... Unfortunatly, that made them insanely heavy... They're out the door for next time too, replaced with units that would be a bear to modify, but hell I know they already fit...
What does this all add up to?... Well not much really... Its a matter of time, and labor on the ins and outs... After we're done with these changes, we should be able to shave a good hour off the install... That's an hour for 10 stagehands... Odds are it will take 40 manhours to do these changes, but we're looking at 2 shows in June alone useing this set, so that's 20 manhours saved there alone... This will be a good investment of resources... Ashame I was so tired when I designed everything the first time, I couldn't see that I was designing in headaches...

What's the point?

So yesterday, I sat down with my partner, and we figured out all the additional charges and fees for the show we just wrapped up... Yea... The one where nobody would make a decision, and it came down to the wire.... I got an email back today with some complaints about some of the fees... Now if I got this bill, I'd complain too... Without going in to the real numbers, the total for this show, was just about equal to half of last years gross income for my company... Certianlly nothing to sneeze at in my opinion... The things they chose to argue over hit me strangely though... They picked items that they rent from me almost every show... They also think they should not be paying for the additional custom painted backdrop... They don't like my trucking fee...
If those are their only complaints, I'm in good shape... I'll knock down the usual rental items pretty heavily, since they really don't cost me much, apart from paying for the warehouse space they take up, and occasionally haveing to re-cover them with new fabric... The backdrop, they're going to pay for, as I will not even discuss that with them... They should be happy there was no shipping charge, and rush charge for it... The trucking is a silly arguement, as they could clearly see I had 3 trucks outside the venue, full of their equipment, but I'll comp them one of the trucks, and get on with life...

Hard to accept, but they're already asking if we can do some modifications to the set for next month... I had planned on doing some changes myself just to make our ins and outs easier on the crew, so this will work out nicely... They'll end up footing the bill for the crew to drag everything out of storage for their changes, and we'll do my changes at the same time...

Haveing come from a theatre background, I will never, and I mean never get used to the insanity of corperate production...

Just one of those things...

*WARNING* Non-theatre post about nothing
This is one of those things that drives me nuts... I was lieing in bed last night trying to get to sleep, and not having much luck... I caught an ad for one of those "walk against cause X" adds, where they are trying to raise money for what isusually a good cause... This one however got under my skin as just being wrong... It is to raise money to help women stop smoking... Just women... Ok, what the hell is that about?... This isn't something that only effects women... I have a hard time beleaveing that women have a harder time stopping smokeing than men do... Are the techniques for quitting so much different between the sexes?... Ok how about this, just stop sucking in the smokes... Yea, I know its an addiction... I've watched people try to quit, and some do, some don't... I never once got any sence that the men were doing any better than the women... Why do people decide to chop up the funding for something that should be universal?... This concept has always bugged me... Why do we feel the need to break up groups into their component race/sex/religion?... Why is there the Jewish Veterens of Foreign Wars?... Was it some special war that they fought that the other vets didn't?... (I'm not picking on the JVFW here folks, they're just the group that has always confused me the most and therefor popped into my mind first...) If someone has some simple, sensible explanation, I'm willing to listen to it... Hell I'll accept a complex sensible reason... Just give me something...
Ok... Rant off...

Stats and such...

Well haveing this little break from the schedule I have been keeping, I figured I'd nose around MT and the control panel... I finally found where everyone finds the referals from search engines, and other sites... Most of the list looked pretty normal. A little bit here and there coming in from other Mu Nu blogs, a few google search results for theatre or backstage stuff, apparently a very popular search for "oblivious people" that has me in the top google rank for that... However, also in there are a disturbing number of links from trash sites. Hey, I suppose they're driving up my hit count, but I am somewhat disturbed by who is coming in here from those places...
Also in the stats, I noticed that almost one of my highest referal places, I didn't even know about... So, welcome to the stage, Lizardbreath! I read through most of the archive there, and apparently she worked in some aspect of production prior to her current gig... Add another to the list of frequent reads... Sorry I didn't catch your link to me way back in late Febuary when I should have.

Respect

I was sitting at my pub last night when I ran across someone I haven't seen in 6 months or a year perhaps... I used to work with this person very frequently, but then they got smart and decided to get out of this industry. Now, they are in college again, headed toward a medical degree... We have always had an odd relationship, but it got better after we stopped working together. The thing is, they were a royal pain in the ass back then... Not because of any flaw in their personality, but because they simply worked in a different way I did. There was a time I dreaded haveing to deal with this person...
That whole time we fought like cats and dogs, we both seemed to respect the other which was why we could probably keep working together. We both knew that somehow the other person was going to get the job done regardless of how insane the situation was. Now, since we have almost no likelyhood of being in a work enviroment together, its quite nice to sit and chat over a drink about the past. No animosity has lingered, and I throughly enjoy seeing them when they're not swampped by books and I'm not drowning in sawdust...
Respect is a powerfull thing...

Wrapup...

Well the show is over for another year... Everyone liked the set so much, they are thinking of useing it on other shows we do for them now... This is sort of a good thing, and partially bad as well... This set takes more people and more time to load in than the set we used for their smaller shows in the past... That would seem to be a good thing as I can put more people on the call. Not really since we make very little on labor... We also will be looseing a sizable chunk of our lighting rental because this set includes lights purchased by the client for it. We make a load of cash on the lighting aspect normally... There are now modifications we need to make to the set to speed up the in and out, as much for my sanity, as for the profitability...
On the whole, things went well... Everything that was approved early enough got teched in the shop, and went in pretty much as it should. Things that there was no time to tech, were a little rough unfortunatly... The custom painted softgoods from Sweden came in, and the client wasn't happy, so we had another run done and fed-ex'd to us from Sweden just in time for the actual meeting... (you don't even want to know what that cost... hell I don't even know yet... but its not going to be pleasant...)
This is going to be one of those shows that is going to live on in stories for a long time... The kind of thing that gives you a baseline against which to compare either your misery of the moment, or a clients actions... All in all, it was ok... Not excellent as it could have been, but wholely acceptable considering the circumstances.

And now, let the weekend commence! (yea, I know it's only Friday)

Compleation...

Friends don't lets friends blog drunk right?... Well since there isn't anyone else here, you're all screwed... lol...
The show is over... That's enough said for the moment... (especially since it's about the most I can pull off presently...)
Be wel... More to follow this weekend...

Non-Blogging

Well, as any of my possibly two or three regular readers may have noticed, there ain't much going on here.... The show I've been hammering away on has loaded in, and now the massive number of notes and changes is under way... The days are long, and we go through the night too, so to say the least blogging will be non-existant untill late in the week when this is all over and I can sit back with a beer and let this melt in to the other war stories in the back of my head...

Untill then, please visit some of the other great blogs on the right, and catch some sleep for me...

Happy Aniversary

I've not a moment to blog myself, but I had to say happy birthday to Ambient Irony and our fearless MuNu leader!

YAY!!!

Elvis has left the building......

Well, here it is, 6 days from load-in... 5 really since I'm home for the day... I have now reached the point of laughing at the client to an extent... I know if I don't, I'm going to loose my mind... We still don't have decisions on some major units... We still do not have the video screens to insert in to the custom furniture... We still don't have graphic files to send to the printer...
But wait... It gets better...
The one person capable of making all this happen... The big cheese that actually hires us... The Man... Sent me an email at 4:45pm today after we have been chaseing him on the phone all day, to inform us that he is in Guadeloupe... Now, I've heard the name before, but hell if I knew where that was... Seemed an odd place to have to run off to on business, so I looked it up... Nope... He's just taking it easy I guess... Wouldn't want to stress himself out over this event... Apparently, his phone and his email barely work there... How convienient...
I'm thinking about just adding another zero to the price tag on this show... I wonder if anyone would even notice at this point...

Observations...

So last night, I came across this article, via Rocket Jones, who came across it via someone else... Now I admit, I was dead tired when I read this, but now almost a full day later, the same thoughts are going through my mind...
Here's the article. Go read it, and then come back here... I'll wait...

Welcome back... Ok.. Have any thoughts? Two things jumpped out at me from this article...

First, before these people decided to watch fruit flys fighting, they watched lobsters fighting... They watched lobsters fighting for 20 years... 20 Years!!! That probably means that there were people on that study team that graduated some bio program, started studying lobster fights, and just did that for 20 years before they did anything else... I can't imagine doing anything for 20 years straight, let alone watching lobsters fight... And think, just when you think you might get to do something new after 20 long years, the next project comes in, and it is going to be watching fruitflys fight... I swear I'd snap right there...

The second thing that hit me, was that not only are they going to study fruitflys... The study was used as a control group in this case... They are going to geneticly mutate fruitflys and then study them fighting... Ok, I can accept that they are going to watch the bug version of WWE or UFC, but hello, do they need to mutate them?... Does this sound like a B movie plot line to anyone else?... What happens when one of those little mutant fruitflys gets away... Anyone else heard of the African Honey Bee?... Biologists were messing around trying to cross breed them, and 26 queens got away in Brazil... Those 26 queens have bred and expanded to cover much of South America, all of Central America, and they've been making inroads in the US for some years... Here's a thought... Stop screwing with the genetics of a bug that is already a pain in the ass, they'll somehow, due to Murphy's Law, get meaner, and they'll get away...

Imports...

If you, as a client of a scene shop, specify a product that you know full well they will have to job out, you may want to consider a couple additional things... What is the information pathway from you to the person actually doing the work... How much time will you loose in phone calls having to go through X number of different companies... Where is the product actually coming from...
Let me give you an example... Client calls me, and wants a custom printed scrim... (a scrim is a special weave of fabric, like a fine fish net, sorta, but different, and special in may ways) Well that's no big deal, I call my supplier, and tell them, and then they call the one place in the world that actually seems to have a machine that does this. (its an airbrush system on a huge gantry system... very cool aparently...) They're in Sweden incidently...
Well said client wants a unit bigger than the printer can do in one shot, so they tell me about "invisable"seams... They sent me a sample, and damn, if it isn't virtually invisable.... (I found out today, they glue each string to its matching one by hand... talk about mind numbing...)
So we've been back and forth on several versions, all the time we were getting to and beyond the deadlines I had set, based on the deadlines the printer had set...Well we're past all the deadlines now... The client is still changeing the artwork, and the printer doesn't know if there is actually enough time to do the project now.... I can't even get an answer out of the printer, because, well it was 11:30pm in Sweden when I was going through this at 5:30 here... Why do clients think we live at our shops after normal business hours?
Finally I got them to wait untill the morning before freaking out any more, because it wasn't helping anyone...
Tommorow, we'll try again... never mind the fact that yet another day has slid by without them making any decisions....
The clock continues to unwind...

Standard Kit

So, you want to be a stagehand?.. Ok great... You're going to need a few things, dependant on what area you're working in... Tools!... That's right, you must be equiped to do the work, or what good are you? In the extension, is a bit about what you need to have when you work a road house, or touring house, in my mind... Some places will ask for more, some less, but this is a good base line.

Everyone should have a mini-mag type flashlight (hey, it doesn't have to be Mag brand, but they're cheap, available, and durable), and a multi-tool at the very least. After that it gets a bit more specific to the type of work... For your multi-tool, I am not going to tell you one is better than another except for this. Buy a brand name tool, do not get some knock off... That means Leatherman, Gerber, Schrade (I really don't like these, but some people find them ok), SOG, or Victorinox. There is a wide range of prices on these tools, and you don't have to buy the most expensive one to get a solid performer.... I have carried a Leatherman, Gerber and now the Victorinox tools, and they all have their benifits and drawbacks. Really look at what you do all the time, and get the tool that furfills your needs the best.
Carps... Adjustable wrench, hammer, pencils, utility knife, and gloves if you like gloves...
Electricians... Adjustable wrench, screwdrivers, diagonal cutters and gloves (again, only if you like them)
Riggers... Rope, harness (the venue is required by law to be able to supply you with an approved, inspected harness if you need one, but I don't trust them in the least... Get your own, and make sure it fits correctly!) gloves, hammer, shackel wrench, and make sure everything is tied off to you, so it can't fall and hurt anyone.
Props falls under the same list as carps...
Costumes... I haven't the foggiest what you need here for a road house...
Loader... (the people loading and unloading the trucks) Gloves, lifting brace if you like or need one...

Two more thoughts... You get what you pay for in tools... If you buy a no-name adjustable wrench made in China for $2.00, that is exactly what you will get... Suck it up, and buy a solid tool the first time, and it will never let you down (just don't loose it)...
Come dressed correctly... This sounds silly, but let me tell you how often I see idiots on crews in crappy shoes, or baggy pants on crews... You're there to work, not make a fashion statement, get good footwear, durable jeans, and t-shirts/sweat shirts... Don't wear your nice sweater to work, its going to get trashed...

Most important thing to bring to work call?... Your brain!

Situation Normal...

Wait... You'll never beleave this... Well, actually you probably will... We still don't have any decisions on some of the major units for the show... Let me check... Yep, 11 more days untill it goes in the door, and we're not working on Easter Sunday, so that leaves 10... We've made a nice dent in one of the projects already, but there's a long road ahead... I suspect we'd have no major trouble, but they are still changeing things...

The clock continues to unwind...

Stress Relief... for a time...

Courtesy of Mookie...For those who want to kill a little time, or shoot things, or just try to relieve some stress...
Reflex 2

Control...

I started out the day stressed out... We had amongst other things yet another client with money issues, (read that as a bounced check) 3 suppliers were dragging their feet getting back to me with pricing info on some serious cash items, I had 2 shows to get quotes out for, and I needed to fix 2 large tools, and purchase a couple smaller ones... I have been avoiding the hell that would be today, all weekend, as I know that all this was the begining of an ugly run of hours...
By days end, everything was accomplished with one supplier still holding out on me... My partner took care of the money issue with that client, (I hope) And my new co-author bailed me out by running around to buy a few things I just didn't have time to deal with... The tool fixes went smoothly thankfully, (one of them is a machine that is probably 25 years old, and isn't the best vintage for that brand) and the install of a new cooling system for one of the tools was a snap. The quotes went out on time too...
It was a highly annoying day of fielding phone calls while I was up to my arms in oily tools, or while I was concentrateing on drafting... In the end though, I feel like I have a handle on things... I am quite sure that feeling isn't going to last far in to the week as material starts pouring in and the build begins... But for the moment, as I sit here with a pizza and a beer, life is good...

Another Voice

I'm adding another author here...
Welcome aboard Bob!...
I thought a different perspective might be interesting on some of the posts as Bob is not an owner of my company... He works for me on a freelance basis...

Oblivious People

Ok... Why do large (I'm assumeing) extended families assume the right to the entire sidewalk?... I'm not talking about your typical 4' wide residential sidewalk... I am talking about a 10' wide strip of concrete in front of a strip mall... Typically, I don't much care, and will simply step around them out into the parking lot area... Today I was burdened with two massive laundry bags, and the parking lot looked like the Indy 500, so I wasn't giving in this time... I moved all the way to the edge of the walk, and plowed through them, cutting a swath a good three feet wide due to the bags... As far as I could tell, I brushed aside 4 adults, and a few kids too... They seemed rather upset based on the tone of their voice, but as they were speaking another language, I'm not really sure...
I'm not overly proud of blowing through them like that, but come on folks... I'm 6'2, and I had 2 huge bags... Its not like these people didn't see me headed their way... They simply were not willing to yield any space on that sidewalk, and I had noplace else to go safely... I suppose I could have just stopped and become an immovable object, but I chose the irresistable force path... I did make it a point not to step on anyone, and made sure they were getting plowed away from traffic, so I suppose that makes it a little better...

Theatre Vocab 201

Well, some time ago, I put a vocab primer up on my old blog... That was Theatre 101... Welcome to Theatre 201, where we'll delve in to some more obscure things as well as some I didn't cover in 101... I need to group these as sometimes you will get a repeat term, that may mean something different according to what you are doing.
More in the Extended Entry...

Rigging:
Out - Up... Usually in a fly system since up is "out" of site
In - Down... Also fly related, down is "in" site
Snub - Tied Off... You snub ropes to make sure nothing moves when it should't
Float - 1) Raising the flown scenery just off the ground. 2) Used when adjusting weight on the rigging system, you can "load till it floats" or keep adding weight untill your counterweight starts the unit moveing upwards. This is not the safest of practices, and should only be done by experienced loaders.
Loader - A person located on a catwalk overhead, who adds and removes weight to rigging systems to get them in balance.
Weight/counterweight/pigs/sandbags - this will varry based on what type of rigging system you have, but it all does the same thing. It adds weight to a rigging system to balance the load. (pig comes from pig iron, not the actual hanging of pigs on ropes)
Sunday - An endless loop of rope or cable used in a choker configuration around a heavier diameter rope to either secure the larger rope, or to add more weight in a sandbag situation.
Prusik - A knot used to snub operating lines in rigging systems. There are a few different knots that people seem to group under "prusik", and each person will swear they have the only correct version.
Rail - Any location in the rigging system that runs along the verticle portion of the ropes. They are further listed as Load Rail, Pin/Spot Rail, Lock Rail (some times there is a "show rail" that is simply a second locking rail used during the run as opposed to during the load in.
Lock/Rope Lock/Brake - The device the rope passes through in a counterweight rigging system
Pin - These are the large wooden (and sometimes steel, but those suck) pins that you use to secure the ropes in a hemp or sandbag system.

Ok... That's enough for the moment... I think I'm going to need a visual aid before I go any further... Any questions?

And incidently, as this is my first extended entry "Lay on McDuff" is from Macbeth... If you have ever heard the expression "Lead on McDuff" or "Lead on Macbeth" they are both wrong... "Lay on" is what the bard wrote.

That Darn Clock...

Well after much prodding, I managed to get aproval for much of the show we should already be building... So orders went flying out of my office at the speed of the telephone, held back slightly by resistance from clueless salespeople... By the middle of next week, we'll be tripping over each other in the shop, and stumbleing over piles of raw and finished material... There are still major components of the show that have not been dealt with, but I'm hoping that decisions will come early next week... At least I'll be able to work on something while I'm waiting...

The clock continues to unwind...

This Seems Terribly Logical...

Ran across this over on Snooze Button Dreams... I seldomly discuss politics here, and never do I get in to religion, but this just seems like a decent idea... How much good will it do?... Who knows, but I don't think it could hurt...

Satisfaction...

Ok... I am now satisfied with my surroundings for the moment... I'll throw together a nice header soon, but untill later in the month that will have to wait... Anyone out there haveing problems with my colors, let me know, since I actually have a handle on that aspect now... Madfish Willie must have a lot of time on his hands as he pulled my blogroll from my old digs and handed them to me on a silver platter to drop in here... Many thanks for that Madfish, I was really not looking foward to all that typeing with the associated troubleshooting to follow.

And now, I will make it a point to get back to blogging about something in the realm of the arts...

Success?

Well lets see... I managed to get a couple links in over on the right where they belong... Now, most people would be elated at figureing that out without the help of a manual, or advice, but not me... I've always had a knack for getting things to work for me, the problem stems from the fact that I usually go about it in the "wrong" way... So after my foray in to the template tonight, I am going to stop messing around, and wait untill I actually make sure I'm not doing things some back-ass-ward way... If I find I'm actually doing it "right, I'll make an effort to get them all in place in short order...

When You Have Time

I've seen this page linked to a few times now, from different people... You'd think I'd take the time to make a note of who is was, but no... So now I'll just have to post it, tell you to take the time, and sit through all the pages (there are 24 I think) here... Its a collection of photos from a woman in Russia, rideing around the "dead zone" around Chernobyl... If you've got dial-up, it is worth being patient... (I'm still on dial-up at home where I do most blogging, and that's where I sat through the loading...)

A Simple Request...

So amongst other nightmares associated with the show of the moment, I have to build some furniture grade scenery... This naturally is strange, as I run a scenery shop... Let me explain that a bit... In a scene shop, people spend their time working under insane deadlines creating things that look like something they are not. We also are frequently asked to make something lighter than it might normally be, or more rugged than normal, or any number of things... What we are never asked to do is build "real" furniture... In this case, "real" means solid cherry with a deep, multi-layered finish on it. The vast majority of the people in the entertainment industry wouldn't even know how to do this... Fortunately, I've done a little of this kind of work, and one of my carps has done more, so it's going to be his project. (I'll be welding instead) Minor problem though... I don't really have the ideal equipment desired for building furniture... Fortunately, I think I'll just have to buy one tool, but I'm not sure... Most likely, I'll end up needing more clamps too... I'll have to look into that tomorrow...
So there are layers to the "simple request"... My client seems to think doing this is a simple request, and the price shouldn't be all that high... (boy did they get a shock when they saw the bid) My simple request was to my lumber yard... Get me a price on X amount of Y grade cherry lumber. No big deal... Apparently it is to them for some reason... (no big deal, we called a lumber mill and got direct pricing from them so I could finish the quote) There are other "simple" ideas in this show too... I swear they're going to kill us with "simplicity"

We still have no approval...

The clock continues to unwind...