Fast Fashion Plays The Boulevard.

Last week was a rough week for me. I'm mostly recovered now, but I'm still foggy most of the day. Soon I'll be back on a proper sleep schedule.

And what took me out of my routine? Depeche Mode. That iconic band from the 1980's played a concert a free concert on Hollywood Boulevard Thursday night. But the week of work began Monday night for me.

Since the concert was going to be outdoors, the only time we could really program the lighting was going to be at night, and Monday night was our first chance. The electricians set the rig up on road cases and fork lifts so we could program them.We weren't going to get set up on the street until the night before the concert (Wednesday) so as much work as we could get done before hand was going to be beneficial.

Monday was a 4PM until 3AM call. I hadn't seen the 3AM in a long time. Lately if I'd seen it, it was because Sean Patrick had woken up and Nicole or I had to go soothe him back to sleep. Now, I'm awake for work. Tuesday night was a little easier since we slammed in most of the programming for the show (they were only doing 6 songs) and we only worked 7PM until 1AM.

Wednesday was going to be the long night. My call wasn't until 10PM. I thought I'd be able to walk in, set up my console on the street, and then wait a couple of hours for the rig to get in the air. Not so lucky. The street wasn't even closed off until 11PM, then the waiting began. Here's little pictorial history of the night:
Midnight. The grips are still coming to grips with getting up the truss towers so we can hang the truss and lights.Almost 2AM, finally all 4 towers are up. Now they just need to raise our truss. We wait for another 1/2 hour and still nothing moves. So we ask the head grip how soon before the truss goes up. "At least 45 minutes to an hour," So we sent the electricians on dinner break.

No sooner do the electricians leave, than the head grip comes over and tells us, "We'll have the truss up in 10 minutes and the stage built in an hour so you can hang your lights," Of course, building the stage would make it much harder to hang the lights, it's easier to do it from the ground. As soon as the truss was in the air, the LD (my buddy Christian), the Gaffer Scott, and myself slapped all the lights on the truss.By 3:30AM, the truss was up, the grips were building the stage, and the electricians had returned from dinner break.

By 4:30AM we had the rig powered up and I was testing fixtures and focusing.

6:00AM, quitting time, 8 hour turn around, back at 2PM to continue with the floor lights.
4PM, sound check. I like this photo I took of M.L. Gore and the video screen behind him.
8:30PM Show go.

This video would be longer if the batter wasn't dying on my camera...




Here's the set list for you fanatics who didn't show up:

Wrong (new album)
Personal Jesus
Walking In My Shoes
Come Back (new album)
Peace (new album)
Enjoy The Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

First two songs were on Jimmy Kimmel:




And now back to bed with me.

...

Too Much Regulation.

When I first started in this lighting business here in Los Angeles, I worked for a great company, Light and Sound Design. I loved it. The atmosphere was sort of laid back. Like a group of friends who owned a bunch of lighting gear and were lucky enough to rent it out on big shows. There was enough regulation and people to keep the business a float, but it never felt "corporate".

A few years later, there were rumours that the business was going to be sold. When the rumours became fact, and Light and Sound Design was going to become Fourth Phase, a division of Production Resource Group, all us old hands were given the rousing speech, "Nothings going to change. We're still the same shop, just new people in the offices."

But it did change. Regulation began to creep into places you weren't used to. The best example; In the old days, you used to be able to walk up to the supply area and grab a couple of Sharpie and Marks-a-lot pens, then walk down to the tape cabinet, have the warehouse manager unlock it, and grab a roll or two of gaff or electrical tape then go label up your cables. When ownership changed, someone decided everything needed to be requisitioned. Suddenly, you had to know how many pens and tape you needed, you had to fill out a requisition form, submit form, wait for people to approve said form (salesman, account manager, expendables manager), have person pull requested items from stock and then you can pick them up at the counter. Is that regulation or what?

I understand why they did it. It was sort of loose and fast, and I'm sure many people took more pens and tape then they needed.

In the old days, most of those items would find their way back. Half rolls of gaff tape in the cabinet, a blunt Sharpie in the supply.

If you have an exact count of pens and tape, you can charge your client an exact amount. Pens and tape (and all expendables for that matter) are no longer complimentary with your million dollar tour.

Then, without warning, Fourth Phase just became Production Resource Group. And corporate sunk in. How corporate? How regulated? Hows this for an example. Here's a bar code from an item on a show I'm doing now.
LSD (Light and Sound Design) like PRG (Production Resource Group) had bar codes on all their lights, their dimmer racks, anything large and valuable. But this bar code I took a photo of? Here's what it was on.A desk chair. PRG has bar codes for desk chairs. It's a $100 desk chair. Who knows how much they charge for it. Some how I get the feeling they didn't even buy the chair. I think at some point, gear came back from a tour, and the lighting director out on the tour spent $100 of his per diem to have a comfortable chair at the console. At the end of the tour, he had no way to get it home so he just threw it on the truck like always. It's just a $100, he'll get another one for the next tour.

The chair gets back to the shop, someone slaps a bar code on it, enters it into the system, and bam! PRG has a new desk chair. Somewhere, there's a line item that says, "desk chair" and with that line item comes a cost, and that cost can now be transferred onto the final bill to the client.

Again, I understand why these things happen. When I started in the business it was still sort of a fledgling. If you think about it, big concert touring has only been around since the late 1960's early 1970's. Sure bands toured before that (The Beatles did shows in arena's everywhere), but no one carried a lighting rig. There were no lighting designers or art directors way back when. It was just a band on stage with some speakers and the sun or the stadium lights for illumination.

Today, lighting is big business. If we continued to play fast and loose like the old days, money would be lost in large amounts.

I've adapted to the new lifestyle of regulation and corporation. But it doesn't change the fact that I miss the ability to go get a pen.

...

Denied.

Last Thursday, cabin fever finally caught up with us, so Nicole and I decided it would be a nice day to take Sean Patrick to Disneyland. He's older than the first time we went. A little more aware of his surroundings. So we thought he'd enjoy looking at all the people and perhaps squeezing onto a few of the kiddie rides like Peter Pan and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

So we packed up the car; stroller, check. Car seat, check. Diaper bag, check. Baby, check. Off we went. It's a long drive down to Disneyland from where we live, about 48 miles or so. But we were leaving mid afternoon, so traffic was light. Of course, a 45 minute drive is still a 45 minute drive and off to dreamland went Sean Patrick.
As we neared the parking entrance, we discussed when would be the best time to wake the boy. Or should we just leave him in the car seat and take that with us. Disneyland is always busy, and there were a few cars ahead of us for the pay gate. That's something we didn't need to worry about, we have SoCal season passes, and mine has parking on it. We just show my pass and in we go. But as we sat in line, the conversation turned to, "I wonder if today is a blackout date?" As we pulled up to the gate, our nightmare was confirmed, it is a blackout date, due to spring break for schools. Dammit. Well, we'll just turn around and go home. "How do we do that?" We inquired with the ticket agent.

Now, I've never had a "walk of shame", but I will say this, we had a "drive of shame". I understand why they do this, I'm sure people often try to not pay the ridiculous fee to park the car by pretending to just, "drop someone off", or "Ooops, we missed our turn." But for people like us, it's like a pink badge of shame.

The dollar is there so you know how big this sign was.

He grabbed the above pink paper sign, shoved it under the windshield wiper, and told us to follow the directions from the parking attendants. Everyone turned right, we were told to turn left, a few turns later and we were heading out onto the public street again.

Before we even got there, Nicole had had enough, this pink sign was a nuisance flapping in the breeze. She tried to reach out the window and couldn't get it, so she pulled over into a little nook under the parking structure to get out of the car and pull off the sign. Immediately, security swooped in on his Segway to ask if we were okay. "Just removing the badge of shame!" I yelled at him (in my head). And off we went, 45 minutes back home, with nothing to show but 100 miles ticked off on the car and a baby rested from a nice long nap.

I guess a rested baby is a good thing.

...