PT positions do exist in the arts and entertainment industries. They range from art exhibit movers to rock show lighting designers. Their association with creative endeavors boosts the jobs' appeal. In terms of numbers, traditional corporations offer more opportunities to hit the road, but the few positions available in artistic endeavors can be very fulfilling. This chapter identifies positions you might investigate.
The paths to these careers are seldom straightforward. In just about all cases, it's vital that you establish contact with those already in the business. If you are industrious, an apprenticeship of sorts follows, although it may not pay a regular salary. While larger lighting companies, for example, maintain full staffs, much of your apprenticeship could be of the free lance variety.
For each project, whether it be a Duran Duran tour, a Mary Kay cosmetics convention, or a feature length film, a crew of specialists is formed. When the project is completed, the team disbands and the members look for new projects. To succeed in this environment you must have total dedication. You must actively and repeatedly market yourself. Sporadic income is common. Rewards include association with creative people and the glamour of being with stars.
Examples of non-corporate jobs
The following jobs may pique your interest and they show the variety of nontraditional positions to explore.
A former maid traveled around the world as rock'singer Ozzy Osborne's wardrobe mistress. She took care of his street clothes only, and another specialist handled his stage clothes. Instead of carrying a briefcase on the plane, she slid a portable sewing machine under the seat in front of her. A traveler in her fifties, this enthusiastic woman from West Texas regards her printed tour itinerary as a valuable item for her scrapbook.
A jewelry designer who lacks a driver's license saw the world through the porthole of a cruise ship. Her specialty was combining natural materials, such as shells, with precious metals. Coupled with her outgoing personality her skill made her a natural instructor for a cruise line.
Conventions frequently require the emotional lift only a multiple-image, multiple-media show can provide. The show's photographer (for both still photographs and movies) travels to those locations whose backdrops produce images meaningful to the audience. A patriotic showcase for a company's products may require a visit to Washington, D.C., followed by an Iowa dairy farm.
A show of this type may play only once, and a producer makes sure it has all the impact intended. The show's producer assembles the visual images and the accompanying sound track into the finished show and then accompanies the show and projection and sound equipment to the convention.
Although none of these positions comes with a guaranteed travel quotient and all involve contract employment rather than full-time positions, they do present opportunities to travel. They may also point you toward job possibilities formerly unfamiliar to you.
Performing art
A necessary element in producing a profitable entertainment package is reaching as many paying audience members as is economically feasible. In many cases, this means taking a show-opera, rock show, or stage musical-on the road. The size and complexity of the show (the number of performers in the cast, the number and elaborateness of the sets and costumes), coupled with estimated market demand to see the show determines whether a Broadway show, for example, ever leaves New York.
When it does, it's called a national touring company. A show at this stage is an expensive production. The cast retains members from the Broadway production and the sets and costumes may be numerous enough to fill half a dozen semi-tractor trailers. A road show of this type stays on the road as long as it earns money. A touring company production of a popular Broadway hit might run in Los Angeles for many months.
When a touring company no longer draws auditorium-sized audiences, it may become a ''bus and truck" show. The complexity of setting up the show each day may be reduced, from six trucks to two, for example. Rather than stay for an extended period of time in one place, the performances are scheduled for one or two nights in one location, then packed and moved to another for a one night run, and so on.
The workers needed to carry out the performances include, of course, the actors, but also all backstage personnel. Stagehands set up and break down sets. A master carpenter and assistants are required for special set construction. Wardrobe personnel care for the costumes. Electricians mount stage lights and lay cable; a sound engineer works alongside. There are prop and maintenance crews as well. The number of people required depends on the peculiarities of the show.
Qualifications for these positions vary. Depending on geographical location, most require membership in a union. Union membership is time-consuming and difficult to obtain. Even with membership, producers tend to seek people who have crewed for them previously. The double hurdle of being unable to work without a union card and being unable to get union membership without work experience has to be overcome. But people do leap that hurdle.
Workers who hold these positions are honest about the difficulties involved and how the glamour can fade. When the Metropolitan Opera tour, two operas are offered on alternate nights. Two different crews are employed, one to set up and break down the set for the first show, the second for the alternating show. Crew members get one day off a week. If you are a beginner in this field, your out-of-pocket expenses while you travel may be higher than you anticipate because the per diem paid for travel expenses may not cover your actual expenses.
A best deal for someone in these jobs, as described by a union business agent, is when you have enough experience to draw a comfortable income, the show is performed by a national touring company, and it plays in each location for at least a month. This doesn't happen often.
Travel opportunities within the United States are provided most often by national touring companies. International travel is more often available for crews of commercial film shoots. In "Independence Produces Films," in this chapter, Nancy McNaughton reveals the working life of film crews.
Other tours. What do rock concerts and business conventions have in common? They both require elaborate lighting and sound systems. Although lighting and sound companies exist in most cities, ten are big, nationwide companies, the largest employing 300 technicians. Half of these large companies regularly land the contracts for big concert tours and industry trade shows and conventions. For these companies popular new acts represent new sales territory. One way to find these companies is to use the yellow pages in the phone book collection of your library, where they may be listed under Lighting, Sound Systems, or Electronics. Successful companies are located in major metropolitan areas where a community of interest surrounds the production of large shows. These companies employ both generalists and specialists.
Roadies are the generalists. They load, unload, and install sound and lighting equipment. They tend to be young, strong, and capable of withstanding rigorous physical demands placed upon them. Though the job is exciting, the burnout rate is high.
Roadies travel to many new places but seldom have the opportunity to look around. They can spend the day and half the night in a hockey arena setting up and then striking the equipment. They've been known to describe cities by the color of the seats in the municipal auditorium. Their constant travel on buses throughout daylight and nighttime alike produces serious discussions about the exact day and date. Still, many former roadies count their trips as highlights in their work lives.
Large tours also require specialists. A lighting designer, who may have theatrical training, is responsible for the myriad of effects created by the lights. Lighting electricians accompany a designer. They usually have a technical-school background, read schematics, and repair electronic equipment if a problem develops. More and more lighting designs are computer-controlled and so electricians are familiar with computer consoles as well.
Sound engineers design the system that delivers the aural portion of the show. Since each auditorium is architecturally different and has acoustical problems to overcome, the sound engineer is crucial. A sound engineer may have experience as a recording engineer, but due to the differences between recording studios and auditoriums, if s more likely that the sound engineer worked up the ladder from the positions described below.
A roadie may set up the microphones on the stage and run the microphone cables to the sound mixing system. Monitor personnel set up the sound system that allows the musician to hear what fellow band members are playing. The out front person sets up the public address system for the audience.
Movers but not shakers
The last decade has seen a revolution for the museums of this country. No longer could they serve as mere storage space for collections and expect active support of the public. Dusty, unimaginative displays didn't stir the interest of a public viewing space shuttles on television and seeing computer-generated graphics in commercials and magazine ads.
For complex reasons, public support became increasingly important at the same time. Older endowments supporting museums shrank with inflation. Energy costs to maintain the climate control required to preserve collections rose at an incredible rate. Growing lack of funds made additions to existing collections difficult, but without new additions, new supporters were not attracted. Museums across the country, whether art, science, or natural history museums, had to increase the monetary support from their local communities or face bankruptcy.
Curators of smaller museums looked at their permanent collections and didn't like what they saw. Science museum curators talked with potential corporate donors who were interested in supporting community concerns, but wanted assurance that the displays would accurately depict current technology. Without the resources to correct the problem/ the curators turned to contemporary design agencies. The agencies, perhaps drawing on their experience in designing exhibitions for trade shows and conventions, developed inviting, attractive displays for permanent collections. Agency designers traveled to the museums to look at the collection on display, and to then oversee the actual construction and installation of the new display.
Several trips are usually required for each display design. Today a dozen design companies have people on the road to meet the needs of their museum clients. Their services are used by smaller museums without design experts on staff. To find these companies, check their advertisements in Museum News, a magazine for museum professionals. Since your library may not have this magazine because if s sent only to members of the American Association of Museums, find it through the staff of the nearest museum.
While some curators made their existing collections more attractive, others realized that attracting new supporters required hosting visiting collections on a regular basis. Pieces in visiting collections are collected from other museums. They are valuable and insured for a great deal of money. The owners of the individual pieces spell out stringent transportation and environmental specifications the host museum must meet.
To service these special needs, new teams of PTs were formed by museum service companies that wrap and crate each piece, provide trucks with climate-controlled trailers, and maintain trained installation crews that put the pieces in place when they arrive at the host museum. Without special handling paint can crack and flake, frames can warp, and pottery can chip. To find companies that perform these services, talk with the staff of your nearest museum.
Qualifications for positions with these companies, which can take you all over the world, are simple but concrete. Previous museum experience with exhibitions, the physical plant, or security is helpful, but not required. What is important is that you have a calm personality. Nervousness is an undesirable trait for people who handle pieces that are both priceless and fragile. Self-confidence and the ability to make quick judgments are also important qualities. A PT who is packing and crating a 1,000-piece collection of Hopi pots, for example, has to be able to rapidly note the structural weaknesses of each and wrap them accordingly. Patience is also a worthy trait. The specifications a host museum must meet can be stringent. They are frequently expressed in the maximum foot candles of light the borrowed pieces can be exposed to and relative humidity rates that can't vary by more than 2 percent.
One final trait of successful PTs in this field is curiosity. If the thought of packing 1,000 Hopi pots seems tedious, you are not the right person for this job. Successful workers in this area find their appreciation for the differences in individual pieces enhances their enjoyment of art in general and specific genres in particular. They also find that in the process of intimately handling pieces of greatness, they come to identify strongly with those who created them.
Rewards in this field include a stimulating education in all aspects of art because you work with experts in each field. Strong bonds of friendship are formed between you and staff members at the museums you serve. Moving exhibits of great value and understanding what a mishap might mean are intense, shared experiences; friendship with people across the country is a fringe benefit.
Summing up. Jobs for PTs in areas outside of traditional corporate commerce are not numerous. Although each has a structure, they're seldom comparable to the scheme of doing business prevalent in corporate endeavors. In some cases the chance to explore the places these non-corporate PTs visit is severely restricted. But the people who have these jobs love them and do not think they could be as effective in the corporate environment.
If you want a job of this type, developing contacts is imperative. Once the trust in your ability is there, they'll call on you again and again. Once again, if you know what you want, are willing to go after it, and don't let fear impede your progress, you can be a paid traveler in this exciting world.
INDEPENDENCE PRODUCES FILMS- Nancy McNaughton
"Being 100 percent responsible that's hard to get used to." Nancy is speaking of the total accountability she shoulders on every "shoot" as a commercial film producer. Working for a film production company in London, she shepherds crews and actors of forty or fifty people to locations all over the world, and fulfills the role of organizer, scheduler, problem-solver and "bank" for all of them.
Why does she shoulder such a burden? "Because it's fun!" The people who travel with her enjoy it too. "The reputation of the company is so good that the jobs we do are tops as well. Technicians who work commercials on a daily basis with all sorts of companies think working with us is a delight. It is more of a challenge here, and it's a nice, relaxed atmosphere. Relaxed for them, that is.
"On a shoot no technician ever has to put his hand in his pocket for anything. When we go out for dinner, I'm responsible for the bill, which is fine because its not my money. But it's my job to keep exact track of what we do and what we're spending. For instance, when the art director, the prop man, or someone from wardrobe needs money, he comes to me. I'm the one who does it out. So I have to have a lot of money on hand for whatever might come up on the shoot. The hairiest time I remember was coming out of a bank in Spain with a co-worker and both our shoulder bags were packed with money. I was in absolute terror knowing I had all that money under my arm. I felt so vulnerable walking down the street."
"Vulnerable" is not the word that comes to mind looking at Nancy. She is an attractive blond woman in her early thirties who gives the impression of being in control. She has both substance and charisma. She has come to her position as film producer from the ground up, without the benefit of formal educational credentials common among her peers.
"People go to school to learn what I do, so I've been lucky to have succeeded so well at the profession. Though it's not all luck. You can't last at anything if you're not good at it. The way you get along with people, your attitude, is really the most important factor. I was willing to do anything, it didn't matter to me what I did. Whether I was there at six o'clock in the morning or ten o'clock at night, or making tea all day long, I didn't care. I was happy to be involved. You can't go into anything like film with a chip on your shoulder. You've got to be willing to do anything that anybody asks you to.
"I'd go in on a Saturday or Sunday and type up things that I didn't have time to do during the week. And people would say 'Oh! On a Saturday, you did that?' I wanted to do it. I didn't do it so people would think I was great coming in on Saturdays. I wanted to get it out of the way. And that kind of attitude shows.
"I think advertising is a terrific area for a woman if she wants to advance and get paid good money. There are an awful lot of women in advertising, and most of them start as secretaries. I don't see anything wrong with that. In fact, if the only skill you have is typing, and you go into advertising and happen to be matched with a powerful man, you have an 'in.' You're his ear. You're privy to an awful lot of information. You also learn a great deal. I know that I did.
"I used to say I'd never be a secretary, and I thought there was nothing worse than bringing coffee to a man. But in fact, for a woman to get ahead, unless she's incredibly creative, I think it works to start as a secretary. If you've got any ambition and personality and drive-and you get involved-you just go from there.
"But make sure you're not just a good secretary. If you listen to what is going on around you and you're competent, the right people sooner or later will recognize that and give you a try-unless you've been so good in that one job that they don't feel they can afford to lose you, that they need you in that position."
Nancy initially worked at a few photographic studios and feels she was almost thrown into the field. "It was a matter of happenstance. I had no training and no desire, no idea that I might end up doing what I'm doing. To me it was just a job. I mean I loved it, but it was just a job. It brought home some money. Then suddenly it developed into a career.
"The first David I worked for-I've worked for three-was a photographer's agent, and I worked as his PA. In film, PA means production assistant, but at that time I wasn't involved in film, so it stood for personal assistant, someone at the other end of the telephone for him. Then I went to David #2 working as his production assistant in a very small film production company. I was there about a year when David #1 insisted I join -him as his assistant. He was going to work for David #3's production company as a producer and needed someone to help him who had an ability to get along well with people. He had always thought highly of me and felt we worked well together. So, frankly, it was personality that got me the job."
As a commercial film producer, Nancy works closely with the director, in this case David #3. (David #1 left several years ago and she now has his job.) When they're approached by an advertising agency, they read the script together and discuss how David would film it. From the information he gives her, Nancy must produce a bid. If the advertising agency okays both the bid and the manner in which they hope to film the script, David's film production company gets the job.
After the initial quoting stage, Nancy organizes the entire production. She hires everyone but the producer and director because film production companies in England are strictly free-lance. She's in charge of every detail that makes up a 30- , 60- or 90-second film commercial, and that includes casting, wardrobes, set-building, and location selection.
Seventy percent of the work is done on location and the other 30 percent in the Soho studio. Over the past five years Nancy has been "all over England and to Spain, Germany, Greece, Scotland, Canada, New York, and L. A.- quite a few times to L.A." A favorite among these is hard for her to pick because she has liked each for a different reason. The job itself in New York made that city special. "Greece was fun!" In Canada "we took over the entire airport-closed it down-and that was great." Every place stands out in her memory in its own way. "It's always terrific to go to a new country."
"A location shoot in a foreign country takes anywhere from a week to ten days, and if it's in the States or somewhere far away, there are a few extra days to recuperate from jet lag. That's a time of relaxation for the crew, but I'm still organizing, looking over sites. Usually, I've already sent a location manager to find the kind of place the director has in mind and to take pictures of it-and David has made a tentative decision based on the photos. But when we actually get to the location, we have to check it for shadows, sunrise, sunset, trees, wires, everything. After the shooting, it is all postproduction work, editing, and meetings with the agency and client. All these components and activities must be kept within budget, and expenses can climb.
"Before I was involved in this business, I was one of those people who would look at a filming in the street and think, 'What are all those people doing? What are they doing?? What possible reason could thirty, forty, or fifty people have to be there making a commercial. Can't it be done with four people?' And, of course, the answer is: Yes, it can.
"It is a luxury to have so many people, but I do understand it now. Strict union laws are part of it. Every single person on a shoot has a particular job, and if you're going to have a professional commercial-and I do think ours are of a high standard-you need them. Every person has his or her specialty, whether it's makeup, wardrobe, props, or whatever to make sure the total picture is sharp. They're so professional that to lose even one of them would jeopardize the shoot."
Pleasure and problems abound on location. The joy of making new friends is sometimes complicated by the power inherent in a producer's job. "Most of my friendships have developed through working with the same people over a number of years, business friends, but I'm in a funny position. I hire my 'friends,' so they may be friendly toward me in order to get hired again, and I don't like the idea of people being nice to me in order to get another job out of it. You have to learn to see through that, and sometimes if s easy to see what they're doing, and sometimes if s not. I've been taken. Twice. It is disturbing to find out that you've been had, that you're capable of being had. It doesn't happen very often, but it does hurt. It is one of the things I'm still learning about power.
"But I do love getting to know people. Working with them in London, in the studio, presents a different atmosphere than the one on location. But when you suddenly swarm out into the world, that is when you turn into a little family, a unit, and if s nice to see how everyone reacts in different situations. I like that a lot."
The "little family" has its "little mother"-Nancy. Nancy's own mother died when she was very young, and she was raised by her father. With three sisters, she took on the role of nurturer and guardian, and today in her profession as film producer she finds herself at times still playing the same part.
"Because of my position, I get a lot of problems of all kinds from everyone. On a shoot, we travel with anywhere from fourteen to sixty people, and every problem that develops, whether technical or personal, comes to me. If someone gets sick, I'm the one who has to get the medicine and make sure there's a doctor. And men ... I don't want to say anything against men (the film industry is a male-oriented industry), but for some reason, when they're away from their home environment, they go mad. It is like taking a school bus full of children away. They're like little kids; they go out at night and get drunk, and I have to go down and say 'Come on boys. Bedtime.'
"For the most part, I enjoy overcoming problems, though, whatever they might be." Taking charge is still new to Nancy, but she's learning more about it all the time. "Most of my life, I've taken a back seat, watching all the time, but never pushing myself to the front to say 'I think it should be like this' or 1 think it should be like that.' As a woman I've spent so many years listening to advice that I'm not used to giving it. But I am getting better. When people come to me for an answer, I have to say 'yes/ 'no,' or 'not now.' - Or they say 'What do you think of this?' and they expect an answer immediately. You have to be on the ball and learn how to give your answers confidently and quickly, no matter what they are, even if you're wrong. It doesn't matter. Their respect for you is involved.
"You need that. You have to maintain respect from the people who are working with you, because if that goes, forget it. You become a joke in the industry. It is a shame in a way . . . because sometimes I wish I could just let go. But I can't, or I feel I can't. And I have to be the one who stops me because there's no one else who's going to say, 'Nancy, you're getting out of control.' I still have fun, though. I don't deny pleasure to myself, but I'm always very much aware of how far I should go and what I should be doing.
"I think coming to terms with traveling with men has been one of the hardest things I've had to come to grips with. They change when they're away from their homes. It's very difficult because there's a fine line to keep between being helpful and staying in a position of authority. You can't let their ... I don't know what to call it. . . enthusiasm? take things over. I still find it happening, after five years, but not so much. Probably I've changed and I'm able to handle it better.
"There's a lot of stress. The nature of my work, the drinking, the smoking, the late hours, everything adds to the tension. I try to alleviate it mentally, but I should do a lot more. I don't run and I don't go swimming. If you want to stay fit, you can always find time, but I just don't do it. I do eat much less on a shoot, though, because I get so nervous."
Stressful or not, Nancy loves the traveling life. She and Keith, who have lived together since Nancy was fifteen, have always traveled. Nancy met Keith in Germany where she once lived with her father. They have since wended their way from Europe to the Bitteroot Valley of Montana to New York City to London. In England they established contacts through Nancy's sister, Jane. Keith worked with a friend of Jane's as a photographer, and eventually they both became involved with people in the photography world.
"Keith was the one who was away constantly at first, so when it was my turn it was terrific. We were at different ends of the world. I remember one year we worked out that we'd spent only two and a half months together. The other months we'd been traveling. But it is not a hardship. He's very capable of taking care of himself. I don't worry about him not eating because he's a better cook and better housekeeper than I am.
"Our moral values haven't changed, but our material values have. We have a TV now, a video recorder, the type of stuff that we never had. I'm still not attached to them, but in our type of business, that kind of thing is very important. I never thought that rushing around and getting films on videotape would be important to me and my career, but it is.
"I hate to admit it, but the extra money makes it possible for us to live decently and take all the holidays we want. Physical comfort does come from money, unfortunately. (Being mentally comfortable with yourself is most important, of course.) I'm talking as though we're making a fortune and we're not, but I certainly never dreamed of making as much in one year as I have. Why, when we first came to England, we sold Mexican gold and silver in a stall to support ourselves. Now when I actually see my income figure, I'm incredulous. 'That's mine?'
"I feel the direction I take from here is crucial. My next position could either enhance or jeopardize my career, but right now I have a career I enjoy and I make money at it. That's great; in fact, if s ideal. I do want to stay in the area of film-probably with advertising a bit longer-before going on to either documentaries or feature films. Advertising is such an excellent training ground for producers. It's fast. You have to think quickly, and you learn how to execute films rapidly because there's so much money involved. But whatever part of the film industry I'm in, just being a producer is always going to give me great personal and professional satisfaction because each time the shoot is over, I'll be able to look at the results and know it all went through me!"
LIGHTING THE ROCK STARS' SHOWS
His job must seem like a fantasy fulfilled to his friends. For a young man in his early twenties, and especially for one who likes music and travel, he seems to have "lucked out." More accurately, however, hard work pays his keep as he does what he enjoys doing most: lighting tours of rock musicians around the world.
"I got in about a week ago. I'll be home now through the middle of January, but something might come up. It usually does. If not, this will be the longest I've stayed home in a long time. My first tour on the road was with a rock band doing a world tour for eight months. We finished in Australia and I stayed there for a month with the same lighting system working with a solo headliner. Then I came back to do a North American tour with an Australian band. That lasted over a month. Then another rock group took me to Japan and Australia again. While I was there the second time I learned I was going to France, and that s where I've been until now. (During all this time, I was getting anywhere from one day to a week between tours, but never more than a week.)
"I had a girlfriend before I took this job, but she couldn't take it the first time I left town for two months. She found somebody else. Since I've been home this time, I've met another very nice girl, and we've been seeing each other a lot, but I keep asking her what she's going to do when I disappear for three months in January!
"I started as a technician, but on this tour I went by myself with the light system. We only used sixteen instruments, which is not many, but enough to do a nice show. You want to make the band look good, not make a light show. People forget that sometimes. Musicians don't play the same way every night, and that can really be frustrating, but it is part of the job and you get used to it. The system is made so you're in control, so you can change things. I've done fashion shows which were technically Very difficult, but as far as the shows themselves, they were a lot easier because everyone moved much more slowly. They're more 'programmable' since they're done the same way every night.
"On this last tour I worked in the same theater in Paris for two months, and then did a tour of France, Switzerland, and Belgium for about a month. I did the lighting for a French singer who is famous in France. The show was very theatrical, much more so than a concert where a band just gets up on the stage and plays. It was the kind of thing people brought their children to, not real rock and roll, and I enjoyed it. The singer had a large band with three chorus singers, drums, guitar, and bass, three key-board players, and a saxophone player. It was quite a band to fit on one stage! In addition to that, she had four dancers who were used for different songs both in groups and singly-and two acrobats! The acrobats were used much like dancers, but in an unusual way. They expressed the lyrics through their actions, like mimes. (It was a large stage so there was a lot of room.)
"I'm twenty-one now, and I've been doing this since I was nineteen and a half. I graduated from high school at seventeen, and went to a technical school. I was recruited from there. They were looking for people who had a deep electronics background in particular, and for people who were young enough to like to travel. They hired four people from our class and all of us were between nineteen and twenty and lived at home with our parents. We had no family, so it's a good time in our lives to travel.
"I'd never thought about travel before I was offered this job. I'd expected to go to work for someone like IBM or Xerox when I got out of school, but the traveling in this job did entice me. That and the fact that it was work in the music business, the business I'd always wanted to be in. I went to school with musicians, and I used to build sound systems for them on weekends when I went to college. I would do the sound and set up the equipment for them.
"In my job now I wear many different hats, unloading trucks, designing lights, being an electronic technician-or a politician. That is the music business. I can handle several jobs at once, I think, because I'm a practical perfectionist. I don't work myself to death over one detail to get the whole picture perfect.
"I think my friends used to envy me, but now they're starting to see that the job has its bad times, never being home, having to unload trucks every morning and pack them up again at night when you're dead tired. I live out of two suitcases, all I can manage to carry. You never know what you're going to need on tour, so I have clothes for warm weather and cold weather, and my Walkman and cassette tapes, of course! I try to pack enough for two weeks, and if I'm not home by then, I find a launder mat along the way. This proved to be difficult in France, though, I could never find a good launder mat. I had to take my laundry in somewhere, and that was expensive. Also, I've been getting T-shirts from the tours I've been on, and they're collectors' items to me. If I take them in and have somebody wash them, I don't always get them all back.
"I don't have any need for exercise outside of my job. With my work there's the technical part, and then there's the physical part. For instance, this last tour had sixteen sets of lights. That's eight tons of equipment. Every morning I had to unload it off the truck and set it up all over the stage. That takes two or three hours with a small system. Then it takes another half hour to an hour to focus the show, depending upon how difficult it is. At night we pack everything back in the truck, get on the bus, go to sleep, wake up somewhere else, and start all over the next morning.
"Working on a tour like this, the whole crew lives on the bus together, eats together, and sleeps together-so we get to be like a big family. A lot of times when we're on a day off in a foreign country, the people there will let us stay in their homes, and we learn a lot about different people. That just happened to me in France. When I don't do that, I stay at hotels. Either way I try to get as much sleep as I can on days off. We only get four to five hours sleep of every night while we're on the road.
"I might skip sleep, but I don't skip meals. We either have someone cater for us at each city, or we have a person go with us and cook for us every day. That usually works best because then they're there first thing in the morning with coffee and breakfast when I get up to unload the truck. The food in France was the best I've ever tasted, by the way.
"The best thing that ever happened to me happened every night on this tour. It was the first tour I'd been on by myself. I did most of the design and operated the lighting during the show. I worked out front in the audience (so I could see) and it was fun. You can get into the music, and I really enjoyed it. I stood on a riser guard rails to keep people from standing over me. At the end of each show, the singer would introduce some of the engineers or some of the crew, but every night she introduced me. They'd put the spotlights on me and she'd say my name and call me 'the young American on lights.' This may sound funny, but that meant more to me than anything else. Then while I was in Paris, I'd go into clubs and bars, and people would know who I was. I found out that my name had been published in magazine articles about her.
"The one thing I wanted when I took this job was to work my way up far enough, to matter enough, to have my name on the albums. Doing things right is important to me and I'm aware that there's a lot more to master, so I'm trying to learn theater and stage lighting. Someday I want to be the best! I'm enjoying the present, though. There's nothing more important in the world than doing what you want to be doing, and being with the people you want to be with."
