LAMDA Rep 4: Lighting on "Journey's End"

June and July 2015 

My final rep at LAMDA was to be a part of the Lighting Crew on "Journey's End" and "The Low Road." As with my Sound rotation, we prepped the hardware for both shows as a team and then I was assigned, with a partner, to operate on "Journey's End". Also, "The Low Road" required Stage LX crew to move practical lights throughout the show, so we ended up working on both shows. 

We began our preparations for the show with a refresher course on electricity via online videos presented by Dave Austin. My Fight Night Flyman joined me on this adventure, and the combination of our very low sleep rating with the brilliance of 80's/90's educational videos was almost too much to take in. When Dave demonstrated the push and pull of electrons, neutrons and protons from within an aquarium, complete with passing fish, we stifled our laughter as best we could until he pulled out a table tennis racket and smashed a proton "through" the glass. Any composure we had remaining was lost! 

This moment will live on as one of my favourite LAMDA memories;
at least our education has been entertaining! 

His methods are different, but Dave Austin managed to teach us a few things...
whether or not I remember any of this is a different issue... ugh. Science. 

Our time with Dave Austin prepared us for the most important part of prep work: cable testing. During Sound, we used a cable tester which ensured that the XLR and Speakon cables were wired correctly, but it does not test for current flow, as speaker cables do not carry power. Lanterns obviously need power, so in Lighting, we perform a Portable Appliance Test (PAT) on each of the 15A/16A power cables. This is a British safety requirement for public spaces and the little green sticker is a common sight throughout Britain. 

PAT Testing the cables consisted of two parts: First, manually opening up each plug and socket to check the wiring is correct and in good condition, as well as checking the overall condition of the cable. Second, plugging the cable to the PAT unit to check resistance etc is within the acceptable range. On the very long cables, 40m+, we often saw confusing results as we didn't have room to completely uncoil the cable for the test! My tutors gave me an explanation as to how a cable could fail one part of the test and pass the other, but I'll be honest, I only remember that it had to do with length. Lighting is basically science, which I was never good at, and added to that, I was trying to wrap my head around it after the insanity of Fight Night. My tutors were very patient with my foggy brain!

In addition to my foggy "Fight Night Brain", I contracted a cold shortly after we got into the venue. Happily, we were at The Greenwood again, where we could fly the onstage light bars down to the floor for rigging. During the focus session, however, we needed to climb up to the lights, in the dark, and point ("focus") them on particular areas of the stage to fine tune the design. I learned that I may actually have a small fear of heights! Actually, it was only on the extension of the Zargess ladder though. I was fine on the Tallescope, so maybe I don't fear heights so much as I need to have greater trust in trigonometry. 

Focus Notes - The lantern, where it is, what colour of gel is on it and where it is pointing. 

My favourite part of working on Lighting was programming on the Lighting Desk. During the plot however, my cold hit full force and I was basically useless. My brain was a fog and I'd lost my voice, which doesn't seem like a big loss for a technician, but it meant that I couldn't shout to my partner during the rig check, and was inaudible over the headsets. . So, my lost voice meant I couldn't be heard from the stage to call out lanterns for the rig check and my foggy brain meant that I was slow to turn them on when they were called to me. See? Useless. 

I armed myself with tissues, cough syrup, lozenges and hand cleanser so that by Tech I felt much better, with a bit of voice. I was happily clicking away at the desk for the rig check, when my tutor came over and said "Well, you're feeling better!" It was great to have the concentration to do the part of the job I really enjoyed. The LD (Lighting Designer) sits between the desk and the director, relaying the creative request into a technical instruction for the programmer. This is when everything starts to come to life; the actors in costume, on a full stage with props, and  Lighting and Sound pulling it all together. Each department brings their best to make theatre magic! (Yep, I said "theatre magic". I like cheese.) 

The set for Journey's End was amazing. The show takes place during WWI and the set creates a series of trenches increasing in height behind a bunkhouse. The main action takes place within the bunkhouse and when the actors leave for the field, we only see the tops of the heads above ground before they disappear into the unknown. This was especially effective during battle scenes, which were never actually seen by the audience. We only hear the shouts and explosions, and see the reactions of the characters left onstage to bear it. Our favourite part as Lighting operators was during 2 large battle scenes, where we discovered the best way to "show" an explosion was not to program a fancy effect, but manually operate a set of lights in time with the explosions created by Sound.  We would listen for the "eeeeeee....BOOM" of particular explosions and flicker the lights on and off appropriately. It was good fun and it also meant that each performance was unique, depending on which Sound operator was throwing the explosions and which Lighting operator was responding. 

http://q2qcomics.com/comic/q2q197/
Our LD had a 15 minute transition that was cut to 5 ... and I still had to check the screen each time. 
We teased him for his "subtle and artistic" vision :-)

Our LD's response to our sass :-) 

Our last day of Technical Rehearsals for Journey was a very special day - my 30th birthday! It feels surreal enough to be 30 years old, but celebrating it in a theatre in London made it even more so. And, the proud Canadian that I am, I made it clearly known that it was an incredibly important day for me AND my country. :) 

Happily for me, I have great friends who humour me, and my LD loves Canada. He made a red and white moving light show effect in my honour. My Fight Night Flyman and fellow LX team-mate even tried out a recipe of Nanaimo bars to give me a Canadian treat. Our LD tried one and said it was the most Canadian treat because it "tastes like kindness." 

I came home to a little pile of gifts from my amazing flat-mates, including a set of "Emergency Moustaches", from the roomie who said "If I know anyone who would actually need these, it's you!"  A friend from church said she went out to buy a cupcake for me and was surprised to find the perfect one! 

I'm very grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. This is not at all where I expected to be at 30. I've always wanted to live overseas; I never imagined it would happen like this. It has been a great way to start my 30s. I'm excited to see what adventures I find in the next 10 years! 

My roles for 2nd year: 

Rep 1: Production Carpenter

Rep 2: Deputy Stage Manager

Rep 3: Production Sound Engineer 

Rep 4: Placement 1 

Rep 5: Production Manager 

Rep 6: Placement 2 

My home away from home - hopefully we'll be back next year!