Show crews almost always wear black, even when they don’t have to. Any exception to that rule is usually going to be someone very high or very low in the pecking order.
I’ve had this verified many times. Going dark becomes a choice. But until recently, I’d never considered why. Additional “deep questions” along these lines: Why is laundry day the same for production folks? Why do we panic at the smell of bleach? But I digress…
11 comments:
Wow. I think this article just changed my life. All of my waking moments, I have spent wondering why is it that when I go into the theater to watch a tech rehearsal or a dress rehearsal, everyone is wearing black. This question has always haunted my conscious and now I know. Mr. M. Erik Matlock, the Senior Editor for ProSoundWeb has altered my entire existence by exposing these secrets. I had no idea that people wore black to blend in so the audience can’t see them. I always thought that telling people to wear black on run crew was just a way of saying that the theater doesn’t like personal fashion choices, but now I know it is actually so that the run crew can be as stealthy as a ninja. All my life I’ve been waiting for this article, and I think everyone needs to read all about the truth.
I really like this being a part of theatre. Even when it is unnecessary and you are doing a job completely out of view of the audience, say deep in the trap room, I think it is beneficial to wear black. Every job has some kind of dress code that is associated with it, and this allows the people doing that job to feel unified and connected to what they are doing. At the lowest level, I think of it as taking off my normal clothes and putting on my work shirt. It just helps to get me in the right mind set for the job at hand. Kabuki theatre takes this a little farther having stagehands onstage in all black, including hoods and gloves, making the ninja aesthetic even stronger. The way in which this is done is so artful that it really allows the stagehands to completely disappear into the background for the audience. This is one of the most basic of theatre magic tricks that we have in our bags to use every day.
This is one of those articles that get comments because its an issue that we all know and even though its simple almost feels like its a meant as a humorous joke. The two notes that make sense are the fact that it can be repaired with gaff tape and that it blends in with the black of the theatre. The one I have a harder time with is the impedance of black when running a console. the writer of the article is Erik who "worked in a wide range of roles in pro audio for more than 20 years in a dynamic career that encompasses system design and engineering in the live, install and recording markets. He also spent several years as a production staff member and team leader for the largest non-denominational church in central Georgia, and served as an author for several leading industry publications before joining the PSW team." Which at least gives him some decent ground to stand upon.
This is such an interesting idea that i think is important to theatre. To me wearing black during a production of any kind has never come into any question as it is simply apart of the appropriate dress code and has been from an early age. When first asking what a stage hand is we often describe them as those who were black and make all the magic happen behind the scenes. But that's always what I have scene this as a dress code proper for the occasion. Black has been chosen as the invisible color in theatre helping create the illusion and playing with people imaginations. The black gaff comment in the article make me cringe a little just from experience of having such atrocities happen during a production but I think the other points are just if not even more valid in their arguments. It's funny though to as i also am known for being a big advocate for separating things and for me the only time I will wear all black or even black period (with exception) is in a theatre for some sort of event I guess its part of what gets me in the right mindset for a production as a uniform does for anyone else.
I love wearing black, not just while running shows but also in my everyday life. I think it is a very sleek and clean color. I find it so interesting that, in theatre, black automatically signals invisible even though the color is any but. Even if there was a huge line running through the stage picture, it would be ignored if painted black. For this reason, I think that the most valid argument for crews wearing the color is the first one made in this article. The color is an industry standard now. I would like to add two reasons as to why I wear black. The first is that, because I do theatre, black signifies a transition into a professional and focused mindset. Now, wearing black, even when its not called for, is more like a battle suit for me rather than a technical necessity. The second is that it is a very universal and simple color. This is why I wear black as paint clothes. Though this may seem counterintuitive, black is black and very simple to color mix. If I get a spot of colored paint on my black clothes, I can just paint over it with any black. Even if my cover up color is slightly different, it will barely be noticeable. I cannot do this with a colored or white shirt.
This article is great. It is common practice for people in theatre to wear black during performances as not to be seen. Me personally, I hate this as I do not like to wear all black clothing but I do during shows. One interesting point raised was this, “I learned early that the audience normally only knows that we’re in the room when we goof something up”. I found this interesting because its so true, you only notice a crew member as soon as something goes wrong. This is with a lot of depts. You don’t realize sound until someone mic stops working or the speaker creates a buzz. They do there jobs so well that they go unnoticeable. With the help of blacking clothing of course, the show will run smoothly and the audience will never know how many crew members it takes to put on the show until something goes wrong.
This article brought forward some interesting points about why wearing black is so useful in a theatre setting, and it is so true. Backstage, black is the norm, the standard, and what is usually seen as most appropriate I always like the idea of wearing all black because it blends in so well to the audience. Aside from it just blending in well, I also feel like it looks very clean and professional when everyone is in blacks. I think there are parts of this article that seem more true than others. For example, similar to what Jeremy said, I think that non-black wardrobe being an impediment with digital consoles and tablets is not necessarily true- especially when his primary example for this point is based off of the difference between a black screen and a lit screen on electronic devices. Regardless of the reasons, I still believe that wearing blacks as crew members is so important- regardless of you being seen or not, it just creates a uniformity that is so important in creating entertainment. So with that being said, let the jokes continue.
Although the article was interesting and funny, it felt very surface level in content. I mean it seems clear that black is a color that helps you disappear into the background and it is an universal color that people can identify. For example, if you told everyone to wear red, they would all come back with different shades, most likely. I would have loved to learn more about when this tradition, standard, began. Also, the writer briefly mentioned that the exception to the standard all black clothing are usually people higher or lower on the pecking order. I am not familiar with these exceptions, and would be curious to learn more about what they typically wear. I also would be curious to know if there is a common brand of clothing most people wear on shows. I've always loved the "style" (if you could say that) of IATSE members. They always look extremely professional and utilitarian. However, it always does seem like that work wear has significantly less options in women's sizes.
I agree with Marissa. This article is very surface level, which to me is sad because I wish there was some further explanation about why blacks. This article saying we wear blacks to blend in is the most self-explanatory statement of the article but the rest of the article doesn’t giver much more higher-level explanations. This article could have been summarized in Tech Crew wears black because it blends in and hides tech crew from the audience. This article doesn’t mention why some tech crews don’t dress in black/why they are costumed and I think this is important to talk about. I personally don’t agree with the choice to have costumed crew because like this article so blandly points out the crew is meant to be in black and not seen. Every time I have seen costumed crew it has taken me out of the world because it is so rare that this crew is trained actors who can move in character. This takes away a lot from the show and I don’t see a reason for it. I would be interested to hear people’s defense of costuming crew. I think the times I’ve seen crew come on stage in blacks have distracted less from the world than seeing costumed crew members.
Black is my absolute favorite color. When I first joined tech, I was genuinely excited to join an activity that not only accepted that my wardrobe existed of black with a few instances of dark grey, but actually was excited by the fact. I am not familiar with whether or not wearing black to operate a console is actually as much of a game changer as Matlock suggests, but I don’t think he’s wrong. I think that wearing black is also something that brings techies together in a way. Look around a theatre, and, if you’re on the crew, you can kind of find your people. I think that the severity of how much one should be covered in black is definitely a statement, but, in the end, the result is the same: the tech crew is meant to be invisible, and, in a theatre, we are trained to see black as something that is not meant to be seen, so the audience shows an amount of forgiveness towards us in allowing us to maintain the façade.
Reason number one is obvious, as the writer of this article stated. If we were all wearing different clothes, it would look just as unprofessional as a restaurant where all the waiters wore whatever they wanted. Besides being in plain sight, audience members would also wonder who we were, if we were actors, if we were some random regular person who wandered into backstage by accident. Also, we blend in. Blacks are our camo. Reason number two was something I had not ever really thought of, but it is true. It is much easier to see a screen in the dark if you are wearing a dark, non-reflective color. The last reason is more of an added bonus than a reason for why we wear blacks. I am not completely sure why this article was written at all. Now that I think about it, reason number two was also more of an extra convenience than a reason for why we wear blacks. Maybe the writer should have made a list of the perks of wearing blacks instead.
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