School:

I dropped a course, because of a bad class and I need to make up the credit so I can apply to university. So I’m taking night school twice a week. It’s a bullshit course, and I feel bad we’re paying so much for it, but it’s the way it has to be. Hopefully I will be able to finish it as quickly as possible. Regular school is tough as it is with course work from different classes completely colliding in on itself.

Theatre:

I’ve been trying to keep lighting crew together, it’s hard to manage these people without having any time. They’re finally getting the training they’re supposed to get, and we’re almost at the point where they can do stuff on their own. I think. On the other hand I’ve still been doing shows, and I’m finally about to be on the lighting board for a major event, fashion show. I was there today, running through the lights with them, doing that for the next two days as well. God help me… It’s not that I hate fashion show, I really do love the event, but the crappy loud music this year combined with indecisive people and a thrown together crew, on top of other stresses. Sigh, I just want this one to be over.

Social life:

What of it? I don’t see people anymore, I don’t really hang out anymore. When I’m at school I just want to get through the day as quickly as possible and go home. Really, I either have stuff to work on, or I just want to go home and tune out completely. We’re going to an anime convention in Feburary, G-Anime in Gatineau, Quebec. We’re performing a skit, and I’m in it, and we’re making my costume, and it’s frustrating and stress full. I guess I look forward to the con a bit, but I’m thinking of just finding things to do in Ottawa/Gatineau itself and doing that instead. Something about cons that isn’t grasping my full attention anymore. Though I guess it’s nice to be ON the stage for once, I’ve realised I’ve been slowly picking up stuff about acting through my backstage work. Who knew?

University/College/Next year:

Yeah, I’ve applied, and that’s the first step of what seems to be a billion. Stop sending me emails, seriously. I’ve applied to Ryerson but I hate their website full of nonstop links to other pages, to pdfs., to files within files, with links back to their website. It’s crazy, it’s frustrating, but I guess that’s just part of the challenge. I have to get a theatre resume up, I have to make a photography resume because I applied to that as well. Hell, I need to have a portfolio for them of 12 amazing photos by Feb 1st. Help? I want to move out next year, that would be very nice, more stress I guess. I just want to leave I guess, either move out, or go somewhere for the summer for a while. Somewhere far enough away… God, this urge to travel recently has been insane. Get me out of here, get me far away.

I’m ready for school though, I’m ready to go and learn and I want to do all the courses you promise me, and I want to work and do and get into that stage. Come on…

The good things:

I worked on a major film set in November in an abandoned building. Two things I love combined, it was an amazing experience, in both film, and freezing cold weather. This is a building with no heat, and two very late nights of filming. 10am till 4am. Lovely, right? It was, the people were nice, and we were just shooting a few scenes from the opening to a horror film. Film is insane, it’s just insane. It’s a completely different world from theatre and it’s just crazy, and kind of fun. We’ll see if I ever pursue it further. Becoming the only sound person in the span of 12 hours was interesting, and I spent the next day trying to remember what I was taught the day before, learning on the fly, and being crammed into some very interesting spots to get sound. Most of it probably won’t be used, but hey, I felt useful for a bit. That boom mic also gave me some muscle, but man, nothing has tired me out that much. Photos on Flickr…
Exploring, god, I crave it now more than ever. I went into a place last month that I never thought I would get into, and more so I was simply afraid to. In 2008 a man fell from a catwalk and died in the building we were in while exploring it. The place really is a deathtrap, especially at night, when it’s freezing. It was an old power station, the giant generators already cleared out it was simply filled with broken concrete floors, dangerous catwalks, stairwells that suddenly ended. The entire place was one big scary maze. My fellow explorer and I entered a giant air shaft that used to lead to a smokestack. We went in thinking the metal “floor” beneath us would rust and break through, dropping us 30 feet or so to the ground. It didn’t. I still shake a little thinking about that night, it was simply amazing and scary, and I’m completely ready to do it again. The thrill you get is simply unexplainable, maybe that’s why so many of us are photographers as well, it’s an undenying urge to capture the feeling, and it can be so hard to do just that.

What else is really good right now, to me? I don’t know, I’ve mostly been going insane. I want to do things, but I can’t complete. I want to make journal comics, I want to sit down and do hourlies, what happened to the dream of creating comics? It ran away somewhere, and now it just sits in making these long winded blog posts. Because I should be talking about the things I’ve done so far, so way later I can look back and think “what the hell was I thinking?”. Right now I just want to do. I want to go exploring, I want to get out of Toronto for a bit, I want to climb a crane, I want to take more photos, good ones. I want to make actual comics and update this website! I want to stop this cycle of getting more and more crazy, because it’s been really bad lately, I don’t know why it is, but it’s just been terrible. I want it to be over, this “crazy” phase. You know what I mean?

Because he’s racing and pacing and plotting the course,
he’s fighting and biting and riding on his horse,
he’s going the distance.

While I could type out the intricacies of the past and present of my school’s annual plays, and the politics of the people that run and reside within them, I won’t. Simply because I would be here to long. (In fact I think I would need more than a hand full of diagrams as well.) What I want to talk about today is something somebody said to me about the crew, the technical crew. We the techies run the lights, the audio, and anything else that fits within our realm. We construct the set, we rent all the various things we need, and we sit proudly in our booth and work like dogs. We are not always acknowledged, but we’re always last at the set strike.

Today I was told that we don’t really care about the show, that is, we’re not “really” part of the show. We are away from it, we parachute in on the last 2 weeks and do our work and walk away from it. I was told that we make mistakes because we don’t know the show, because we aren’t around. This is simply not true.
Techies work damn hard for the school show every year. In the 2 weeks before the production we spend more time in the theatre than we do in class, or at home. We build wonderful sets, we paint them, we light them, and we make sure you don’t fall off of them. We make sure the actors are heard, and we make sure they can take a breath when we close the curtain. We do not simply parachute in, we take a damn nosedive in. Your actors breathed the show for 3 months, we learn the show in 2 weeks.

What they fail to understand is that what we do is work, and it is hard. We are in high school, the skills we learned were passed on to us by students who have moved on. The skills you want us to have are learned after a few years in post-secondary, studying and breathing technical knowledge. We pick up these skills and do them to the best of our abilities while trying to learn 8 other subjects, while going out with our friends, while doing homework, while doing your show, while freaking out in typical teenage fashion. We do not simply press buttons!

Why do we do this? Why do we jump into a show two weeks before it opens? This is a misconception, because while you are acting we are planning. We figure out what you want the set to be, we go and we rent the perfect lights to go with your show. We rent microphones and we hone our skills because while you are acting we are still working on other things for the school. We work, and we think, and when your actors are ready, we come in. We cannot work until they are ready. We cannot rehearse our tech until we have something to light! Until we have a full show! Until we have actors belting their lines into our microphones. If you cannot have them doing full rehearsals by the time you want them to, that is not our fault.

Tech week is the week before a show, it is when we work our magic. We do not leave the theatre and we work ourselves ragged. We hang lights, we finish your set, we set up our microphones. With the school’s history we only have about 3 days to hone the technical aspects of the show. There is one crazy full day of trying to set every lighting cue, for every scene. We have to stop because the director is not happy with how somebody entered the scene. We wait, the scene restarts, and we set the cue again. Then you’re not happy with it, we change it. At the same time the poor audio people are trying to make microphone levels, but the actors don’t want to project properly. They’re trying to figure out when exactly you want that 3 second sound effect that starts off really quiet, for some reason. Meanwhile a stage manager is trying to call the show, take notes, and write down every single lighting cue, audio cue, orchestra cue, curtain cue, and anything else the director’s heart contents. Then a microphone is in the wrong place, we run and change it. A light just tilted down accidentally, we run and fix it. We have to re-tape, but we can’t do it during the rehearsal, so we stay when everybody leaves.

Then we have a dress rehearsal. This is the first time all the lighting and sound cues are in order, it’s completely hectic. The poor stage manager is trying to call cues they don’t really remember because they’re just damn tired. The audio guys don’t quite know their levels, and the lighting designer just found a blackout in a place there definitely shouldn’t be a blackout. Also, the director isn’t happy, again, so the dress rehearsal stops 6 times. A microphone cable snaps, we have to replace the entire thing, again. We stay after the rehearsal, again.
It’s the day before the show. The stage manager is pumped up on coffee, their cue book is something only they can read, but they’re completely sure they can run the show. But how can they run the show when our clear-com system doesn’t work? The techies come early and fix it, but nobody knows what we’re talking about anyway. Okay, here we go, it’s the last dress rehearsal. The costumes are done, the props are done, everything is set up! We’re going to do this without any stops! Okay! So here we go, the stage manger starts calling the show. They sit up in the booth with the techies, the techies are following the script, and they’re following their cues. But ow, that microphone was loud, and that light was a little late, and the stage manager kind of forgot a few cues. But hey, we did it. We got through a rehearsal. Now we can go… No, no we’re staying late to fix one more light, because it will bug us and we want the show to be perfect.

We go home, we dream of the show, we look at our cues. The week of the show goes by, we make a few mistakes because life just happens. Mistakes happen. We’re not professionals, but we try our hardest. On the last night we’re the happiest people in the world, we know our cues by heart now, and we perform our own show in the booth, because we know every single fucking line. We know every single song, and we make sure you can hear us singing it. When everybody claps at the end, we pretend it’s for us, but we know it’s for those on the stage. It’s okay, we know how hard we worked. Well, we’re not done yet, we have to strike the set the next day. So we do, and we clean up all our cables, we fix our lights, and we’re sweeping up long after everybody else has gone home.

And what do we do on Monday? We get right back in the theatre to run an assembly for the school.

Please don’t look me in the face and tell me we don’t care, or that we’re not part of the show. We are not the old lighting crew you are thinking of. We are damn hard workers, and we love the school show. But we’re not professionals, and we make mistakes. Why can you only remember us for our mistakes, and not our achievements?

I had an upsetting day with somebody who should know all of this. The show goes on and I will be working on it because I love my school, and our school shows are awesome. I’m going to meet people like this in the future, but I just have to learn how to work around this complete and utter bullshit. What’s important is that I know that techies work hard, because they do.

The show goes on! And the only reason it does is because we’re the ones pulling the strings behind the curtains. Remember, without us you perform on dark stage, where nobody can hear or see you, you’re not in costume, you don’t have a set, and you’re not even performing for an audience.

When it’s all done and over, I’m sure you’ll hear about it, and that’s all for now.

July: Working a co-op placement (Free labour in exchange for “education”) I did learn a lot about editing sound files and recording. I also learned how dull 9-5 really is, oh god. Ended the month with a trip to Montreal for Otakuthon with a whole ton of people to promote our own convention, Con Bravo. It was half awesome, half stressful. The convention itself is great but I think everybody was a bit on edge and after a couple days that ended in fights and stress and horrible things. (Too many people in too little rooms, travelling too far, on too low of a budget. Ah!) In the end I did get to see Montreal which is such a beautiful city. We went to old downtown in pouring, pouring rain, but I did get some photos. (Yet to put up…) I would love to live there even for just a few months, even with my complete lack of French.

August: We get back from Montreal at around 4:30am, and in the morning I’m due to start a week of paid work! Now this is sounding good, money is nice, work is nice. We’re setting up for a week long sound art festival for my co-op place. Full days of cabling, hauling stuff, and more cabling. I didn’t do anything else that week, it was wake up, work, wake up, work. Which also sucks because there was no balance. Lots of tylenol was devoured that week. On Saturday the 8th I finished work around midnight and went out for the night! I had just turned 17! Awesome. Sunday morning I picked up various friends from around and took them to a fancy all you can eat sushi place. They have good prices, great sushi, and good service. ($18-$25 a person, depending.) Then we headed back to my place on the subway, and once we got off we looked up the road to my house and only saw dark clouds. Starting raining like mad! Had to hide my amazing Scott Pilgrim painting under my shirt as we ran home. I don’t really have birthday parties, so chilling with my friends playing Nintendo 64 in the basement was the greatest thing. That week I had the most amazing luck with everything, it was awesome.

I also went draining for the first time in August. After lots of deciding and walking and injuries aside we braved our feet into a muddy little thing in Rosedale. So here I am, crappy fabric shoes, jeans rolled up, wading through ankle deep mud, garbage and whatever else in a little drain guiding a creek under majors roads into the Don Valley. That’s were we got out, and found ourselves near the big subway bridge. We walked along the train tracks until we got back to the entrance of the drain. We went to another one, a clean water one thankfully, so I could wash out my dirt filled shoes. This one was a long walk, kind of chilly, but big and dark. A few … “interesting” catwalks. (No floors!) and finally we were heading out through a manhole cover. (Dirtiest part of the drain) Right out onto a small street of Yonge street, in front of a huge group of kids. Oops! “Stop swearing, there’s kids!!” All 8 of us jumped out and headed towards somewhere to dry off. The night finished with more walking, a huge basket of onion rings, and me heading home in wet shoes. (”Why am I wet mom? I was in uh… a river.” Hey, it’s close to the truth.) It was fun! More than a little claustrophobic but I’ve been looking up more and I can’t wait till the next one. Just need to be better prepared.

This week I’ve been preparing for Fan Expo. My friend has a table and I’ve been recruited to help him color some of his work. These past two weeks I’ve been up till 3, 4, 6, 7am etc. We finally finished everything, I just need to print out my business cards to cut out. (Ak!) Then it’s a crazy weekend of Fan Expo, and I’m kind of excited because it really is one of the best dealers rooms in Toronto, and all the great at AA! Going to spend all that work money, damn.

And then on Monday, after all this crap, I’m heading to school a week earlier for an assembly. The grade 9 orientation people emailed me and asked me if lighting crew was going to be there. We’re not lighting crew until school starts! Guess not. Also schedule pickup, looking forward to that. (I kind of want to change into World History though, I have a feeling me and animation are not going to co-operate…)

And that’s summer! I did some stuff downtown, I explored, I went to conventions, I worked! I stayed up really, really late.

Oh, also, remember this? I’m sitting at it. It’s pretty close to my diagram, has a tiny slide out drawer for my scanner, and it’s a lot more than I ever though it could be. I wish my dad could live off the work he does, because he has the skill!

See the top of the page? Where it says “if only I had a monitor to match…” I finally gave up on my tiny crappy monitor (16″ ?) and bought a 22″ wide screen monitor. It’s so choice. Working with Adobe products is just lovely now.

As always, pictures are upcoming. Here’s to the two last weeks, to being one year older, and the last time I have to go back to highschool after what always seems too short of a summer break. Later~

I was thinking of making comics about something very dear to my heart… Lighting crew. Our antics get pretty funny most of the time, or at least I think so. Remember stuff in the past is kind of hazy, and I feel weird writing it, so I’m just going to start fresh with the new school year. (My last!) While I’m excited about leading lighting crew next year, I’m a bit nervous. Also what is with this planning ahead thing? Last day of school was like “Hey, by the way, we’re working as soon as the school year starts!”

The problem with directing this humour is I’m not sure how much of it is purely inside jokes, but I’m going to try to explain as best as possible. Until then, well I might post and I might not. I’ve had a busy summer and it’s almost dying down and giving me some time to relax. We’ll see!

Also, no, I don’t know what to call them yet! I’ll think of something.

This is kind of what I wore to Toronto pride. Kind of. (Actually that corset is more mauve, and that skirt was a school girl skirt with a black ballerina-type skirt…)(And those boots aren’t like that.) … But my button up shirt is purple and shiny, and I wore a hat, and googles, and I do have a bright yellow umbrella.

Apparently my thighs aren’t the same at all? This isn’t a very good sketch.

Too busy for comics, but I like doodling in Illustrator. Think I’m going to post some sketchbook sketches later as well…

Enjoy?

Then there’s co-op. Summer co-op is a chance for me, a student, to work at a place I could not normally work at with my lack of proper age, and lack of any expierience or post-secondary accomplishments. It’s a chance to learn something about the buisness you may want to go into in the future. It’s a chance to show you’re not a complete twit and not a complete slacker. This was my goal, and I think my goal failed. My placement was decided from my resume, my resume is full of sound work I’ve done at my school theatre over the past year. I’m sick of sound, really. I wanted to go into theatre. But currently I sit at the desk of a small sound art studio. Currently I am supposed to be transcribing, a task that is only interesting 4 hours in, and then NEVER interesting again. (I’m on my third radio show, probably a bit over an hour, and the track is only going through the left channel. If that doesn’t spell HEADACHE, I don’t know what does.) The best things I’ve done on the job are the soldering workshops. One of them I did before co-op started, another I did last week. I’m a hands on person! I like learning about little gadgets, and getting to make them. (Though I do not like the burn on my hand from hot solder.) Otherwise I’ve been cleaning and hefting heavy items. The irony of the entire thing is that my job title is “junior theatre technician” No, that is not an apt title for this job. 

I work a 9 to 5 schedule, which means getting up at 7 to take a bus, a train, a streetcar, and a bus. The routine is so engrained into my head I don’t even remember doing it by the time I get to work. I get to take this same way back home, right around 6. At which point I collapse in front of the TV because I can’t look at a computer screen again. And for anything else I have my phone. Oh faithful phone, I had to start using your planner feature. So now the month of July is filled with red squares telling me I have something to do on each and every day. 

My weekends were full at the start of the month. So first weekend is a big meeting for the convention my group of friends is planning for next year. (ConBravo!) On Sunday my parents took me to something amazing, Tree Top Trekking. It’s an incredible workout on your entire body. And the next day at work was “lift heavy shit day, grunt.” Amazing. Next weekend my father really wants to go rock climbing, and so do I. So it’s another early morning to downtown Toronto to learn about belaying and climbing, followed by archery which my mom set up for us at another place. (My parents are great, really.) Sunday we have another meeting for the skit we’re planning to do at a convention in two weeks. (Otakuthon!) These meetings are shouting matches, that I’ve caught myself participating in, unfortunately. They drain me like nothing else, but they get the work done. At least I can mostly sit back and just take notes. 

Where does this leave any time for myself? I couldn’t fall asleep last night because that was really the only time I had to think about life. The stress started pouring back in because I don’t have any breaks to let it settle. Now in less than 2 weeks I have to make a costume for Otakuthon, practice the skit, finish co-op (Including all the assignments we have to do.). On top of those things there’s stuff I want to do for myself. I want to spend time with my friends, I want to go to a Toronto urban explorer meeting. (Only happens once a month!), I want to make comics, I want to play GuitarHero2, I want to watch some damn anime! But I’m tired, and busy. Those little red squares are pouring into August, and then I just go back to school. Ouch. 

I have to start looking at college options, and the scary thought of university options, and the even scarier task of assembling a portfolio. I have to study for my G1, because I’ve been neglecting it all year and want to at least get it before I turn 17. I want to make comics! I want to make promotions for this site. I want to clean my desk, I want to make a painting. I want to stay up past 11, but it’s getting harder and harder. I want to sleep! 

Where is summer? Summer was supposed to be a break from stressing out, but it’s coming back in buckets. I really just want to throw out my phone, and not go to co-op anymore, and get away from all the people and things and tasks that are freaking me out. Little red squares that have boxed me in… Go away.

I’m stage managing the school show and so far it’s been about going to rehearsals and marking down exits and entrances. Not a big deal. The real game started on Friday with figuring out all the technical bits to the show.

While all day Friday was a HECTIC tech day. (All day in the theatre, hanging microphones, hanging lights, running out of cable, chasing around the school for power chords, falling off a ladder, and lots of taping… Not to mention dress rehearsal, setting all the lighting cues, and figuring out all the audio cues.)

Saturday was crazy though.

Had to go in and as quickly as possible fix the hanging microphones, all 4 of them. This involves lowering the pipes by hand and fixing their lengths. I had a crappy morning and dropped 2 of the mics while removing them, and while raising up a pipe I snapped one of the microphone cables.  On with the show! We were doing a complete run through, with lighting and audio cues. Lighting had written down and done all their cues on Friday, but for saturday I had to call the lighting cues. What this meant was copying down the cues from the other binder, while calling them, while following the show, while reading the script, while calling audio cues. I got yelled at very early on because I kept messing up the curtain call. (It really was a bad morning…) The people I have backstage are new and are confused by the house lights, and by the curtain. They’re new to the game, but that was the most frustrating part of my day. The curtain and houselights are the first thing we do, they have to be done right.

Thankfully I’m blessed with an amazing lighting guy, he’s seen the show maybe 3 times now? But he has good instincts. I was freaking out over all the new lighting cues. (There are A LOT, and they’re all pretty specific.) My audio guys left me alone during this, and are pretty much set for their cues, thank god.

I also have an awesome other-stage-manager who kept track of all the lighting for me because I know jack about lighting cues. But she won’t be there for when we do the actual show since she’s doing another show and I’m going to freak out without her.

Today is my break, and I’m going to relax. Tomorrow is another hectic day. 8:30 call for a tech dress rehearsal, and then we’re actually putting on a show for some kids from another highschool!

I’m freaking out, but I think I can do this… It’s been completely overwhelming and I still feel a little thrown into this position, but it’s been the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Given me a whole new look at theatre and spending full days just plain WORKING on something like this gives me the greatest buzz. I’m really, really thinking of going into this at a college/university level. (I kind of even want to do what our tech teacher does, and go back and teach this to a bunch of bratty highschoolers…) Highschool theatre and professional theatre are two really different worlds. We’ll see how it goes.

Rehearsal was long today, and I had a headache + stomach ache all the way through it. My dad was busy and couldn’t come grab me so I got home around 8?

This week and next week are going to be very tiring. Maybe that once a day comic thing will utterly fail. A comic every few days? I’ll try. Hey, I even colored this one. (Though it’s also kind of a cop-out…) Funny things can’t happen every day.

The majority of the time I cannot recite jokes. Funny stories? Mostly hopless. It’s awkward, I try, it ends mostly like this and lots of awkward silences. I can be really awkward.

But I try, and maybe one day I’ll get better at it or give up entirely. I need to learn that I can be funny, but not like this. Ever.

Here’s to trying! Cheers!

It’s really the principle of the matter, usually they go “We got Pepsi, that alright?”. She did not. .v. Otherwise it was a nice day out, and not QUITE so chilly, and there was a sunset.

Trying to do more comics, one a day? Or a couple a week? The more I draw these the more I’ll improve. Even if they’re dumb I’ll think of something. (Or I can just draw out the 10 or so ideas I have floating around…)

Let’s see how far I get!