Conversations With The Lighting Lady
“Ok so let’s update that to track and can we please put cue 86.5 with ‘at once sweet friend’ and we’re also going to….”
“Hello.”
“Oh. Hello. Sorry, I’m a bit….”
“Are you the Lighting Lady?”
“If by Lighting Lady, do you mean I’m Cat, the lighting designer and woman who’s been in a rehearsal room with you and your fellow cast members for at least twenty hours already… yes. That’s me.”
“Do you know where I go to get my radio mic?”
“Do I… no. No I don’t. Sorry. You’ll be wanting to talk to sound.”
“Okay. Where are they?”
“See that man by the sound desk over there holding all the radio mics, who you got your mic from yesterday and the day before that and on the first day of tech? He’ll be the guy…”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Yeah, thanks, bye… where were we? Okay, so yes, cue 86.5 and now this has a follow on in three seconds which is going to trigger the lightning and if we can get sound to sync up their….”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, yes, sorry I’m trying to talk to the DSM about….”
“Are you the Lighting Lady?”
“If by that you mean… yes, yes I am.”
“Do you know where my props are?”
“Um. No.”
“I’m looking for my props, I thought maybe….”
“Firstly, I don’t know what your props are. You could need two throwing axes, a stuffed ferret and a handbag with a fountain in it for all I know. Secondly, I’m not the assistant stage manager, who’s been in rehearsals with you for the last four weeks straight handling your props and who is stood right over there. Thirdly even though I don’t know where your props are even I know where the props table is maybe you should check there? Finally I’m in the middle of doing the lighting with….”
“Only the thing is, I assumed that because you’re a technician….”
“That’s not how this works. I’m the lighting designer. I care about things involving light, and design. Doing that is a full time job. There are vastly more excellent people standing not five paces away who understand resins and are paid to care full time about your props, and whose apathy towards my choice of daylight correction filter in the fresnels is probably as intense as my ignorance of modern fibreglass techniques. Why don’t you go talk to them and see if they can help?”
“It’s not a very big prop….”
“It could be the Empire State Building, and I’d still suggest taking the problem elsewhere.”
“Okay then! Bye!”
“Bye. Anyway, as I was saying, the auto-follow….”
“Are you the Lighting Girl?”
“…. yes. To save time: yes. I am.”
“I found this.”
“I see.”
“It’s a lighting jelly.”
“I can see that.”
“It was on the floor.”
“Ah.”
“Near a light.”
“That’s very kind of you, I mean, very sweet, but as you can also see it’s been burnt through and so isn’t….”
“You’ve got lighting jellies falling from your lamps.”
“No, no we haven’t, this was taken from a de-rigged unit but I do appreciate how….”
“Your lamps might be broken.”
“They’re not.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. We’re literally in a rig-check cue.”
“Only once I was in a play and some of the lamps kept on getting brighter then darker and I just thought….”
“Thanks for helping out, goodbye!”
“Oh. Bye then….”
“Now this follow-on cue the thing is we’re going to put it into multiple parts so that….”
“Are you the Lighting Lady?”
“YES. YES I AM. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
“I can’t find my pants.”
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t find my pants. Have you seen my pants?”
“Do your pants glow?”
“Uh, no….”
“Do they have a pyro in them?”
“Ha-ha not yet they don’t but just you wait until I’ve….”
“Are they charged with 240V or even 12V assuming that’s a transformer shoved down your trousers and you’re not just pleased to see me?”
“Uh….”
“Do they receive data? Five pin or three pin, it’s all the same to me.”
“Uh. No. They’re just my pants.”
“You should leave now. I say this with the greatest respect. But you should just walk away from the lighting desk.”
“Okay…. um… those biscuits you’ve got can I….”
“NO.”
“Not even a….”
“NO.”
“Okay then. I’ll just go look for my pants… somewhere else….”
