No great skills are required for the job. The only gift needed is the spiritual gift of showing up. And paying attention.
''I do not know everything; still many things I understand.'' Goethe
Observations by me and others of our tribe ... mostly me and my better half--youngsters have their own blogs
Tuesday, May 07, 2024
Complicated job?
The other Sunday a gentleman stepped over to the corner where I was running the sound and slides, and noted with a little awe that the system was complicated. The sound board looks daunting, and the cabling behind the scenes certainly is, but I let him in on the secret. The experts set it up the day before; I just tweak the thing. (In a pinch I can add microphones, but the infrastructure is given.) And the slides and video and slip-stream video--likewise. (In a pinch I can make some changes, but they upgraded the software and a lot of the stuff I used to know, I don't.)
My younger brother was a lighting designer in SoCal after having been a roadie and a lighting tech in the 80s. He had a friend who did the lights for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, including the shows between periods. When he wanted a vacation or had to be away, he arranged for my brother to do the gig. "Easiest money I ever made," he said. They needed someone who could do something if there was an emergency or a problem. I had those skills. But there never was an emergency or a problem, and they just sent me a nice check when it was over."
ReplyDeleteWhen my granddaughter was learning lights for the middle-school play I let him know that she wasn't doing much, just turning the lights on at the beginning and turning them off at the end. "Turn the lights on; turn them off; that's pretty much the gig," he answered.