Reflection On Essentially Dance

For Semester one of QUT’s Essentially Dance, I had the opportunity to work as general crew. In previous productions I had only ever moved set or set up and operated the sound elements. This exposure to so many new aspects of theatre was an interesting and positive experience as I got to work with almost every department. This consequently provided me with many new learning experiences and new issues which I had not tackled previously.
One of these issues included trying to move the lifter out of the beam of light I was about to focus while still being able to focus it comfortably. On the occasions where we had moved the lifter in place to focus, it was often in the way of where the lighting designer wanted to focus the light. This resulted in us having to adjust our position around the light which lengthened the time it took to focus the whole lighting rig. At the time, I did not consider this to be problem until the Lighting Designer conveyed to me that he needed me to move out of the light so he could focus correctly. For the rest of the lights I had to think ahead as to where I was going to position the lifter so that I could stay out of the light beam. While I achieved this successfully for some lights others were more difficult in the fact that I couldn’t reach the lights and stay out of the light beam at the same time. This was recognised as a problem and I tried to minimise the issue by manoeuvring the lifter with the help of people on the ground in such a way that I had as little of the lifter base in the shot as possible and stretching out from the cage as far as I could to comfortably focus the light. Having analysed this problem I now realise that asking the lighting designer where the fixture will be facing before positioning the lifter would have significantly shortened the time we used to focus lights. I have significantly developed by skills in strategically planning ahead where I want to be when operating a lifter or ladder with light focusing. This will be essential for the future when I am asked to focus lights as I will be less of a hindrance on the Lighting Designer and will be able to complete the task much quicker. Another issue that was prominent in the production for me was not knowing where equipment was stored. When I was asked to fetch things such as G-clamps or gels I readily accepted the task, eager to help and would find myself down in the basement pondering then where the thing I was asked to get was. This resulted in me spending more time than what was needed exploring the store rooms to find the item I was tasked to get and, if I could not find it, I would come up empty handed then ask where …show more content…
I had very little experience mopping beforehand and no experience at all in mopping a tarquet. For me, the most significant pieces of information that made it different to how I had mopped previously was the need to have an almost dry mop and being able to mop in a straight line. Previously I did not notice that mopping in a form other than straight lines left the stage looking worse off than had it been done correctly. I did notice however that water did not seem to dry as quickly on tarquet as it did on a stage or other floor and left the floor dangerously wet if too much water was used to mop it. This was especially relevant when the dancers and technical staff were going to use the flooring as soon as it had been mopped requiring the floor to be dry almost straight away. Having mopped the tarquet numerous times over the season I feel that I can confidently mop a tarquet at a significant pace to such an extent as to have it dry when it is required to be and to be done in straight lines so that it is aesthetically pleasing for the viewers in stage lighting. This knowledge will be essential to me as a practitioner because being able to mop correctly is a skill that everyone in the industry has to have and be able to use. However, I could improve in this by being faster while still maintaining the same or better quality of