Ah, Television.

For now, I'm off the road. I'm thinking most of you knew that, and the reason why. For those of you who don't, here's a quick review...

Nicole is pregnant. We're expecting our first child, a boy, at the beginning of October. The "due date" is October 9th, and anyone who's had a kid before, knows this is a guess-timate. But for those of you who know Nicole, the child will be born on October 9th because we must adhere to the schedule.

So that is why I'm off the road. No touring for a while, if ever again. Nicole and I have talked about it and we've agreed that the following terms must be met in order for me to take a tour, or any job really that is out of town:

- No tour or taking a job outside of L.A. until at least next summer, possibly as late as October of next year.
- Tour/time away from home, can be no longer than 6 weeks. Only exception I can think of, is if I'm the actual designer for the show. However, most tours don't do more than one month of rehearsals.
- Any tour must meet all items on my salary/touring requirements sheet. This sheet basically states all the things I expect the tour to provide in order for me to go. Things like travel/hotel, per diem, salary. If they don't meet everything, or negotiate something satisfactory, then I'm just gonna stay home.

That being said, I'm starting to pick up more work in lighting for television. I've essentially taken a step backwards in my career. I've gone from designer to programmer, which is fine I guess. I've not got the experience in television lighting to be a designer/director. So maybe if I stick at it, I can step up the ladder eventually.

I will admit this, television lighting can be terribly boring. With live shows there's no "Cut, back to one," and then re-shoot the scene. If a Blue Man falls on his way out to front of house, 8,000 people including me, get to see it and laugh. I think that's why Jackie Chan movies are so popular, because at the end, you get to see all the mistakes they made during filming, and you get to laugh along too.

Working in television has often been described as 3 days of standing around followed by 5 minutes of panic. That was pretty much the case for this last show I worked on. The show, Clean House, is a big hit on the Style Network, if not their biggest show. For those of you who haven't seen it, 3 designers and their leader go into peoples homes who have a real problem with clutter and messes. The convince the people to sell the crap at a yard sale, and then take the yard sale money and redesign the house. There are lots of tears and "Oh my gods!" at the end. And everyone leaves happy. Nicole loves the show, and I must admit, I rather enjoy watching it myself, because I can look at my messy house and say, "At least I'm not that bad".

It was the 100th show that they were taping, and it was sort of a spoof on awards shows. The Clean House team gave out awards to families from the first 99 shows. Some for the cleanest, some for those who relapsed into their messy ways.

And it was, for me, 3 days of standing around, followed by 3 hours (the length of the taping) of sheer panic. We loaded in on Monday, and I basically sat around until the gear was set up, then I set up the lighting console. Day 2 was a lot of programming of looks, not really in a hurry to do so, but getting enough in the console so when the lighting director showed up, we had a good start. Day three, was rehearsals, adjustments of looks so that the background looked good on camera. Then we sat around for 3 hours while the audience was seated and fed dinner.

Then there was panic for three hours while they tried to tape the show. The director screams at the mixer and the camera operators. The lighting director barks out panicked bursts of orders, "More key light! More key light! OOOOOH!" And then the show ends and we all smile at each other while the electricians run around taking down the lights and striking the consoles.

Still not sure how I feel about it. I guess its work and I can probably make as much money doing this as I could touring. Well see how long before I crack. I did it all last summer, but as Nicole will attest, by the end of it, I was pretty bored and ready to go back out on tour. Stay tuned.

And finally, a picture for Jade. I didn't bring my camera with me so I had to snap this one on my cell phone. I'm guessing Jade is a fan of Clean House, but here's all four of them standing on stage, about to announce the winner for the "Cleanie", the family who kept their house the cleanest.
Quality sucks I know, but it's my phone, not my camera.

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