Lighting Design Tech Day 4

Is it really only Wednesday? Sheesh.

I went in to fix my cues this morning, then I had rehearsal tonight. My gobos and gel frames came in the mail, so I was able to incorporate those finally. I ended up having to move a gobo light to make the effect work, and it looks pretty cool the way I fixed it. I got to watch the show at rehearsal tonight, take notes, and I had them fixed by 11, so I did my cleanup and went home. It's nice to be done early, and now I can sleep and actually study for my midterm tomorrow!

I'm done with this show. I'm board opping one performance, and that's the only performance I'm attending. I've learned from the designers I've worked with that if you watch your own show too many times, you end up wanting to change things every night. So, I'm done. I won't be there tomorrow, and I won't be making any more changes because it's too late anyway and there's already been an audience.

Designing for the first time has been quite an experience. I realized that I picked up a lot just from hanging out at tech weeks, programming, and being a Master Electrician. Having an understanding of how to manipulate an instrument once it exists was a real advantage, not to mention knowing the board I programmed on.

This week, I noticed myself going through all the emotional states I'd seen my designer friends go through on each process: exhaustion, frustration, apathy, and in my case, anxiety and anticipation. It's not like I didn't accept and understand how they felt, but being the one feeling it rather than seeing it being felt was really different. It was funny to have a certain thought and realize I'd heard a friend say the exact same thing when he was designing.

As far as the future goes, I think I might actually try this again. I really want to have a better understanding of photometrics and how to make a plot rather than have a friend do it in front of me, but that's going to take more time and education than I had for this process. We'll see what happens, but right now I'm just glad to be able to sleep and then go back to being an ME.

This post is rather reflective, but my work is concluding. I'll see the show and have strike, but that's it. This process has been completely different from any other show I've worked on, in good ways and bad, but I feel good about the work I did. I think I have a pretty solid first design.

Today is awesome because I'm done with the hard work of tech week!