Internship week 2

Date: Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th February

Total Hours: 15.5

     On Tuesday I followed another actor on a tour. This time I followed Ian (getting annoyed with this no-last-name-thing). He had gentler approach to the children. He still made fun of them and maintained control, he seemed to be more understanding of their questions than Tom. One big difference in Ian's tour was that he had the kids "fire" a cannon, whereas Tom had them raise the anchor. It makes me wonder what the other actors do differently. I was however able to notice the similarities in the facts that the actors conveyed. I think I will be able to start on that script soon.
     On Wednesday I started out helping Aiden to plane the wood on the foredeck. Talk about repetative...it was 2 hours of scraping back and forth, shaving off paper-thin strips of wood. We had to plane a 3 meter long board down 3 cm. We only got one meter of the board flush to the foredeck before Aiden called it quits. Then I really got to get my hands dirty...Troy told me to get out the lights and dimmer, and see what I could do to make them work. YES!! My light design class and theatrical prowess finally was getting put to work, and in only the 2nd week!

      That's where the excitement stops. I'm going to get technical here for a bit, so if you don't know/understand lighting jargon, just skip down until concepts become familiar. Ok? Ok. Here we go: WTF!!??! I thought I was going to be working with something from THIS century. I saw why Aiden wasn't as excited as I was. The "lights" Troy had acquired had been purchased from eBay for a discount. I can see why. They were some of the oldest-looking Parcans I have ever seen. I took them apart to get a better feel for what they could do, and in turn what I could do with them. The lamps were held in place by a metal ring, because there were no lenses. The lense figures you saw WERE the lamps...yikes! And then the plugs were all wrong. They were weird, usually when you have lights and a dimmer, the power source has a girl end and the receiver has a boy end. They were reversed. And at first, the dimmer was working properly. But then Aiden touched it (sorry if you're reading this buddy...you definitely did something to it) and now all it does is dim lights in patterns. Unideal for throwing the kind of light Troy wants.

     Ok, so for those of you who have skipped this far down, what that last paragraph said was the the lights I was given were really old; to the point where they are now officially the oldest stage lights I have touched. The plugs were funny, and Aiden broke the thing that controls the brightness of the lights. You sense my frustration....o well, I guess this is what I signed up for and what I will be facing in the future if I design lights.
     This week was the first time I went to the market for lunch. It was fantastic! I had a roast hog sandwich with lettuce and applesauce (not what the US is used to). The market is so FRESH. I think I will be trying new ethnic foods soon. And that is saying something. I can't wait to go back. Haha maybe I'll even try Asian food and fish...lol (not likely).
     TTFN - Ta Ta For Now!