In the US today is Labor Day. It is a celebration of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers. I wanted to share with you a brief excerpt from George Izenours chapter on lighting control systems, specifically The Arrangement of the Control Face. From the very beginning of the application of remote-control technology stage lighting there has been a running argument to the effect that the control console ought to be operated by a lighting designer (artist) instead of a stagehand (technician). [...] In retrospect, the notion of a dyed-in-the wool union electrician ever mastering the intricate operation of the Severance Hall console seems rather remote. While in graduate school and writing a thesis for my masters degree, I too advocated the artist-operator approach to console design, but ever since my Federal Theater experience I have been of the opposite persuasion for two reasons: (1) The possibility of a lighting designer ever committing himself or herself to a run-of-the show-contract as a console operator seemed highly unlikely. (2) Both then and now restrictive union contracts preclude other than a union technician as console operator. Izenour, George C., Theater Technology. New Haven, McGraw Hill, 1998. Mr. Izenour then continues on with how the creation of two separate systems, a circuit by circuit manual control and a multiple static analog preset memory control, allowed lighting designers to have their cues repeated correctly more often and with greater precision. By creating a new system, it created a new job and and allowed designers not to run their own shows. But this brings up a new issue. Today, you have a growing number of operator designers. These are technologically savvy people who are able to fill the role of show designer and are able to run what has become an increasingly complicated control system. In my stream of posts, I read more and more about people who are purchasing their own boards and creating their own rigs. It is an investment into their own freelance business and it obviously pays off for the small few. But does it mean that the LD as we once knew it being redefined? Can the vast majority of union technicians keep up anymore? Have we come full circle and what does the future hold?
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 15:01:36 +0000
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