Wenger | J.R. Clancy: In the theater world, few offenses are as unforgivable as coiling a cable the wrong way. An improperly wrapped cable twists its internal conductors, shortens its lifespan, and guarantees a mess of knots, kinks, and crackles the next time it’s pulled from the case. Over-under coiling isn’t just a technique- it’s a sign of respect for the gear, the crew, and the show itself.
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I work for a sound company that does jobs all over New England. We’re hired out for everything from high school graduations to large music festivals, for load in, run, and load out. If there is one single thing I think that high schools need to teach their technical students it’s basic cable management. I can’t count the number of times our equipment has been permanently damaged because high school students have improperly coiled or mistreated it. When you’re running a different show every other day while reusing a lot of your equipment, I’ve found that you pay a lot more attention to the upkeep of the gear you’re using. A busted cable means a trip back to the warehouse and less time on the ground to get a show on its feet. I think basic care for equipment, especially cables and electrical equipment should be the first priority in early technical instruction, along with care for other tools such as the proper cleaning of paint brushes and wood-working tools. You can’t get anything done if you’ve already broken all of your equipment. After years of working around people without the slightest idea how to take care of things I've become mildly passionate about this.
^ Henry Kane
I have found a beautiful and somewhat insane relationship with cable management in the way that I love doing it for anything and everything. It was completely brought on by CMU and learning how satisfying and beneficial good cable management is. I remember seeing cable previously that was not taken care of and the damage to the jacket, connector, and wiring was clearly visible. I was taught the over under method way back in high school but never really understood why it was so necessary or what it was doing for the cable. Over time, I have learned a lot more about cable maintenance and safety. I’ve gotten a lot faster at coiling cable and keeping it neat for the next person who uses it. Understanding the do’s and don’ts of cable management is a fundamental skill for any technician and I hope that I can continue to learn more best practices for cabling and maintenance.
These lessons in cable management and the importance of it are in themselves extremely important to spread the word about. One of the very first things I learned how to do when I started working as a theater technician was how to coil. It was the first thing our theater teacher taught us on the tech crew and he had us practice it every time we had club time in order to get it right. I will always thank him for that, as it has made me way more mindful in how I treat even my own cables back home and it prepared me to be able to properly care for and manage cables during any hours I work, even to this day. I think its one of the first things you should learn and most essential pieces of foundational work in terms of becoming a technician of any kind. It helps with safety, organization, and so much more that is essential to working in as a technician.
As suggested by the “101” in the article’s title, I agree that cable management is essential for all people related to production to learn. When working with smaller productions, like community theatre’s, it is especially important to teach and practice proper equipment care because of budgeting considerations; and also generally people should always try to take the best care of their equipment. To be honest, for me cable management has always been more of a focus on efficiency, but after reading this article I see how safety is one of the bigger concerns. One aspect that I am confused about, however, is how to properly gaff connecters. If you do not put gaff over the connecters then how do you ensure that they do not disconnect if someone accidentally hits them with a set or something adjacent? Would that fall under placing cables in locations where this would be not likely to happen? I hope to have more practice and guidance on it in the future so that I can best respect the equipment that I am working with.
I have worked quite extensively in both the lighting and scenic departments of theater, and I have seen how beautifully cables can be managed, taken care of, and stored. On the other hand I have also seen how awfully these three things can be done as well. Going from one venue or shop to another you have the chance to see the drastic ways that cable management can present itself in both good and bad ways. I really wish there were cable management standards that presented themselves across the world or even just the US, but this is not the case. Due to the fact that each shop or venue has its own standards for cable management that its employees must follow. This at times creates a fantastic cable managing systems, but there are also times where the venue or shops are incorrect in their practices. Which leads to the employees either being force to do things in a way that they know is wrong, or said employees believe that these incorrect process are the correct ones. Which only leads to the spread of misinformation when these employees begin to instruct others to manage cables using the same incorrect practices that they learned else ware.
While at this point I would consider everything in this article to be common sense, it is important to remember that they are not common sense to everyone. I only know how to coil cables properly because it has been taught to me and drilled into my head since I have been in middle school. Whenever I am working with an inexperienced crew I have to remember that they may not know these various techniques that I take for granted just because I have done them so many times. One great example of this is coiling excess cable on electrics. When I was in High School I hadn’t conceived of the idea of dogboning cable, so I left a coil of cable next to every light. Looking back on it this is wildly inefficient, but it took my almost 6 months at CMU to realize that there was a better way. These better ways to take better care of our cables and other equipment may not be immediately obvious, but are important to be taught and become part of our routine.
I remember learning about the correct way to coil a cable during Zach’s sound mini. It was the first time I really understood how the proper method can help the cable last longer. During lighting and sound crew calls last semester, I got to work with beautifully managed cables and awful cable coils with knots. I truly understand the importance of correct coiling and labeling during work. Whenever I need to quickly find and use a cable, I rely on the last person’s cable management work, and it really boosts my efficiency when I encounter a well-managed cable. Being organized should always be in style for work that involves cables that can take a huge amount of work time just to uncoil a knot. I remember cable management during light calls when we were hanging the lights on the line sets. The whole process can get tedious and requires a lot of effort, but the potential unsafe impact it eliminates is crucial to the whole production team.
Summer going into senior year of high school I worked for an AV company doing jobs in massachusetts, the most notable one I did being in boston for a science conference of some sort. While working with this company I learned all about cable management and how important it is. I learned about the safest way to tape cables down and where to tape them down. I did SO MUCH CABLE MANAGEMENT it got a little bit annoying since I had to work in 16 different rooms since it was a hotel. It was really funny coming to CMU and in VMD immediately being taught about cable management and we even practiced taping cables down, and knowing my mini we made it into a little bit of a challenge. After that summer I brought those skills to my highschool and enforced them in my lighting department and the last thing I did in my theatre before leaving was wrap cables on the catwalks and make them safe.
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