#unity 1918

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

Ok so clearly we are getting more and more work since by the end of each day I am too tired or 100% done with the show and need a break. But I accomplished a lot last week, and had my first mini-breakdown of the show.

Last week was all about our kit list and the LS9, which is a digital sound desk made by Yamaha. I don't know which was a bigger learning curve, starting to play with and program on the desk or trying to measure and spec all the cables and other sound equipment we will need. When I started I didn't even realize the cables had to be separated into two different categories (i.e. signal vs power) and probably couldn't tell Powercon from Speakon. I finished with a 2 page kit list, a working knowledge of a variety of cable types, a little more confidence for our get-in and NO HEADACHE! I had to ask about 7 people a million questions but hey that's called learning and it's why I'm here.

I did however have a bit of a quick breakdown over the LS9 at one point. The first day we had it along with some other equipment to play with, I set up everything by myself and everything was working so I started out the day feeling pretty good. Then I played with some of the effects a little bit laid over some vocals and my violin and it was sounding really cool so I felt even more awesome. Then my designer came in and I showed him what I had done with the effects and found out that while it sounded cool that is the exact opposite of what the designer is trying to do. Then he gave me a really complicated set of instructions and left again. While I appreciate that he thinks I'm competent enough to figure these things out on my own, and I'm flattered, I wanted this placement so I could be taught BY someone more experienced than me about the technical end of sound design. Not figure out everything on my own. I like a balance between self-learning and learning from others. I just also feel like I could do so much more with the time I am using to figure things out on my own, I could be shown something in 1 hour instead of me struggling through for 3 if you know what I mean. So I proceeded to play some angry music and just have a quick moment to freak out and be a tad emotional. The I pulled it together and eventually figured out everything I need to. 

We have a few more days of prep work this week, and then our get-in and tech week starts on Friday! I'm split right down the middle between being super excited (because it will be way more exciting than all the stuff I've been doing and a little more fast-paced) and absolutely terrified (since I've never installed or programmed sound equipment before and I'm not sure my designer who has the experience can be there all the time to look over my shoulder and give me help when needed). But like I live the rest of my life, I'm looking at it with a cross-that-bridge-when-I-come-to-it attitude and hopefully the next few days will make me feel more confident about it rather than more nervous.

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

So clearly last week was busy, and so was this weekend, so I'm just writing one master post for what I did last week rather than breaking it down day by day.

The most interesting thing I got to do (and the highlight of my week) was learn to use the program Sibelius so I could transcribe more sheet music by ear for our violinist. I'm still not sure why she couldn't do it herself since she is a much more advanced violin player than I am but I didn't mind because it was a nice break from sourcing sound effects and studying the tech equipment I'll be (hopefully) using. The song I had to transcribe was Vemod by a Norwegian folk group called Majorstuen. It's a gorgeous song, I listened to it for 2 days straight and didn't get sick of it so that alone tells you it's quite nice. Thank god for 6 years of violin lessons, 3 of which I was forced to learn only by ear (which was a nightmare at first but became easier). There were a few rough patches in the song where more violins and other instruments joined in and I know I didn't transcribe it accurately but I just made a note of which bars those were and the violinist can improvise or figure it out herself during those bits. I also highly amused the production office with how pink and sparkly the violin I brought in to practice with is =P But hey I'm not bring the gorgeous 18th century violin to college in the rain where it could get hurt! Plus that one's not even mine so it isn't leaving my house like ever.

Other than that it was the usual reading and watching videos and taking notes to learn the ins and outs of our sound equipment and the principles of the design, and a bit more sound effect sourcing.

Which I am back to for now this week. But hopefully by Wednesday we will have our LS9 and our microphones and some equipment for me to play with. So I can move from the academic side to the practical side and see how many of those note stuck! 

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

The last few days of the week were a nice change from my endless watching of tech tutorials. I finally got to meet the violinist for the show, and spent a day searching for sheet music for a few of the major songs/tunes she's going to play. I was super excited because I love adding to my own sheet music collection and I am usually the queen of finding sheet music online for free. Key word: Usually.

I spent the entire day looking for these 4 songs. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! I found the first song in 15 minutes because it happened to be one I learned in my Celtic Ensemble in my undergrad. But then it took me another 4 hours to find ANYTHING, not even the correct sheet music just anything. In the end I transcribed one of them by ear, laboured over it and took forever, and then finally found the music 10 minutes later. But on the plus side I had transcribed it correctly so yay my ear training still works.

By the end of the day though I'd found all the music we needed, and had time to squeeze in a few more tutorials and some QLab practice. So while I was feeling very defeated mid-day, it ended up being a super productive day by the end. And after overhearing some of the troubles the other shows are having since we share a production office, things could definitely be more difficult so I won't complain.

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

I have probably watched around 30 different video tutorials on my sound desk now, made a bunch of random things in QLab, and taken 15 pages of notes. As you may have guessed, my brain was almost reaching the level of overload where it would have melted out my ears. So I started breaking up those tasks with things that were a bit more exciting like going through sound effects in our library and watching videos to try and figure out what a threshing machine sounds like (yes those are fun in comparison to endless videos on dynamic processing and equalizing a room). 

Our music and sound effects library is MASSIVE and fantastic! Definitely the highlight of my day yesterday. Even though I'm only checking out the cd's that involve things like tractors, trains, and crying babies it was still really cool to flick through the catalogue and see the sheer amount of sounds we have at our fingertips here at Royal Welsh. Have I mentioned recently that I love my school? 

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

Day 2 of my placement started wonderfully, and pretty much stayed that way until the hiccup with the rehearsal room mark-up (commonly referred to back home as taping the floor) at the end. But thankfully our team is so lovely to work with it wasn't as upsetting as it could have been.

I met my designer in person today, and had a chat with him and the director, and now have enough sound work/learning/research/sourcing to do that I will be pretty much occupied until tech. Which of course is both amazing, since this is the stuff I really wanted to learn, and terrifying because I have so much to do and so many new pieces of equipment to figure out. For now I'm leaning more towards the amazing side. This is all the kind of stuff I wanted to learn on my sound placement during my undergrad but my professors made it clear they didn't have the time to teach me that and unlike RWCMD seeking out your own learning opportunities outside of crew hours wasn't heavily encouraged and you had very limited options. Anyways, challenge accepted, I will complete my ever increasing to do list with the normal amount of Canadian enthusiasm and optimism (if you read my posts last year about WSD 2013 then you will know that Canadian optimism is a powerful force and often makes others jealous).

Things I Learned Today:

-basic tasks and functions on an LS9 digital desk such as recording, mixing and equalizing a channel, and adding effects via the board to channels

-after a quick brush-up on my QLab audio and video skills, I then learned how to use MIDI show controls through QLab, and how to add effects with QLab instead of through the desk (a new feature of QLab 3)

-now have a fairly in-depth understanding of dynamics signal processing (which I'd never heard of before this morning)

I also may have mentioned in my last post that there was a violin in the show and I was super excited, being a violinist/fiddle player myself. Well now I've learned we will probably be layering all sorts of cool effects, distortions, and harmonies over our violinist to really give this amazingly macabre, rich, and melancholy tone to the show. However we have 4 ways of doing this potentially, many of which are very high-tech, and I may have to learn how to set up all of them. As per usual, my response was challenge accepted! I'm just incredibly interested to learn those features not only as a sound technician but as a violinist as well. And I offered to bring one of my violins in to college and leave it there for myself and the sound designer to practice and play with once we have decided our best course of action for the violin effects. I personally want all the practice I can get so I'm really glad I have an extra violin lying around. The fact that it's pink and glittery and I get to show it off has absolutely nothing to do with it at all, don't know why you'd even think that. (Teeheehee)

Anyways, tomorrow will be filled with more video tutorials, continuing my learning of the LS9's capabilities, and probably playing around in the school's sound library sourcing some effects for the show. We have one particularly complicated sound cue that no one on the show has heard before so we may get to build it from scratch, any of you happen to know what a threshing machine sounds like? The play does take place in rural Saskatchewan after all.

Show: Unity 1918

Job Title: Sound Technician

Location: RWCMD, Cardiff, Wales

So today was the first day on placement for all the MA students. Our last 6 weeks have been lectures on all topics of theatre, and while we were all sad to not see each other every day (the 14 of us bonded really well over those 6 weeks) it was balanced by our excitement to actually start working on our first show at the college.

Now one thing we have to do this week is write up a formal job description to give to our stage managers and our supervisors/lecturers. Last week this seemed super easy and self-explanatory. Since this is our first show at college our roles will be various forms of technicians for the most part, occasionally helping out the ASM’s. But what this means in actuality, until tech week comes and we all have concrete technical jobs to do as directed by our designers, we are pretty much free labour and here to help the show in any way shape or form. For example, here are the kind of things I did today for my first day on the job:

-build a cardboard coffin (literally the first thing I did at 10 a.m. this morning)

-set up a rehearsal room

-research 1918 telephones

-find out what those shelf/tray things are called that people sell snacks on in theatres and baseball stadiums and other such venues (it’s an usherette tray in case you’re wondering)

-attend a read-through of the show

-coach actors on their Canadian accents

That last one was definitely the highlight of the day. The show “Unity 1918” takes place in a tiny tiny town called Unity in the province of Saskatchewan. Since this is in Canada, and I am from Canada, the director and actors instantly grew much more excited to have me on the team. I then spent a good third of our tea break having actors ask me for tips on how to sound Canadian. Personally I like the director’s suggestion of buy her drinks and have her talk at you. I’ve never been the cool/exotic foreigner before, being Canadian is really fun and exciting at the moment. The most commonly mispronounced words were Regina, Halifax, Ontario, and Toronto. And the scene with the two guys who sound like they are from Newfoundland was spot on and had me almost in tears I was laughing so hard.

But I digress, now I see why our lecturers are having us write this job description. Basically I am going to submit something that says until tech week comes and I have enough sound work from either the director and designer to fill all my time, I am here to just get things done, keep the show running smoothly, and be general support/the hired help. Put into scholarly terms it will probably be something like “support the needs of the show in either a technical or ASM fashion until we get into the more tech heavy dates.” 

So be prepared for the next few weeks of content to be a little scattered and all over the place. From sound to props to knowing how the stage manager likes her tea, I may need to do it all. But I love the show and the text itself so I’m still incredibly excited to be working on it. Not only is it a Canadian work, but it has such a dark and macabre sense of humor, and all the actors seem lovely and very welcoming to all the new MA’s. Oh and the show also has a live violinist, and I play the violin/fiddle so this added to my general love of the show.