TheatreArtLife: Programming lighting for a big show takes time. It requires several days of long hours being chained to a console smashing buttons, flipping faders and twisting knobs. There are endless tweaks and teases that will haunt our creative conscious right up until doors. If given three days and twelve hours to program a show, we will take three days and thirteen hours whenever possible.
2 comments:
I. LOVE. THIS. ARTICLE. I love programming and everything that comes with it! Expect being treated like a machine. I had an experience as a programmer in high school and it was awful. When the creative license is taken away and when you are seen as the button pusher IT SUCKS! There is an art form to programming a show and when you take away that aspect of programming it makes programmers feel awful! Programmers are there to get the designer's vision onto the stage, but after sitting behind a bored and seeing some pretty awful visions… programmers tend to know how to make a show look better than the designers had envisioned. No, I don’t think that it is the programmer’s job to design the show and say what is or isn’t good, but there should always be a balance of input and creative discussion between a designer and a programmer. I think that once a lighting designer finds a good programmer that they work well with they will never want to let that person go.
This is a very important article for programmers and other disciplines alike. I really appreciated the note about the right to take a break because I firmly believe it increases productivity. Yes, the console likely does not need a break, but that does not mean the programmer should be treated as the console. I do see the struggle with the right to provide creative input because one needs to work out the legalities of that when they are not an assistant or associate designer, but I have been shut down for trying to provide input or feedback. The note early on about being haunted by endless tweaks was quite accurate. I like that it is formatted as a declaration of independence. I think it is incredibly important to remember the sentence about respecting each other as humans for every discipline and ensure that we are upholding it to the highest standard.
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