The Alphabetical Death March.
I haven't been knitting much lately. I was supposed to start on a sweater for my mother; but that has gotten pushed back and back. Then again I haven't been blogging much lately either.
So that begs the question, what exactly have I been doing?
Oh, such a bad question for someone who works in theatre. I have been working on a play (as is to be expected) and that play is currently The Elephant Man. Yeah, the one about Joseph Merrick, who suffered from elephantitis in Victorian England. Actually it's a very good play. Not one for the squeamish, but very well written.
Anyways, the play has titles for every scene. Usually, if a director wants to show the audience the titles, they are projected on a back wall or screen or some such with a slide projector. But our theatre doesn't have enough space to project - the images cannot be sharpened. It also had the problem of being an intimate space, so you can hear the constant whirr of a projector fan. So what is the solution? Make title cards.
Now this would have been a fine solution had someone gotten around to deciding what those title cards needed to look like in a reasonable amount of time, instead of waiting until the last minute. Or if someone decided that we had enough budget to print out the titles on large format paper and simply spray glue them to cards. But, no. They decided we had to print out and tape together stencils, and then cut out the letters, so we could stencil the titles onto cards.
Ever hear the adage: "Cheap; Fast or Effective - pick two." That's theatre to a T. And we already has cheap and fast down, so honestly the signs look rather like ass; but they are readable so I'm not complaining.
This is me, dead in my tracks, after fifteen straight hours of sign cutting. With piles of theatrical junk all around. Glamourous job, no?
Anyways, let me show you the aftermath of almost 21 straight hours of sign cutting (with some sleep and a bit of food in between parts of it). There was one point where it was 10:30 pm, I had seven signs left, and I put on some techno and set my brain on autopilot. For three hours I became a letter cutting, diet coke fueled machine! Yeah, bay-bee!
Here is the weapon of choice, an exacto knife, with the backup of a pack of 100 number 11 blades. Yes, you know you're in theatre when you buy exacto blades in packs of 100...
But look how many blades this project used!!
And the carnage of my workstation. (messtation??)
Look at all them letters! I am incredibly glad that's done with.
I cast on a hat during this whole mess. A plain old beret. Because I desperatly needed some idiot knitting to get me through!
So that begs the question, what exactly have I been doing?
Oh, such a bad question for someone who works in theatre. I have been working on a play (as is to be expected) and that play is currently The Elephant Man. Yeah, the one about Joseph Merrick, who suffered from elephantitis in Victorian England. Actually it's a very good play. Not one for the squeamish, but very well written.
Anyways, the play has titles for every scene. Usually, if a director wants to show the audience the titles, they are projected on a back wall or screen or some such with a slide projector. But our theatre doesn't have enough space to project - the images cannot be sharpened. It also had the problem of being an intimate space, so you can hear the constant whirr of a projector fan. So what is the solution? Make title cards.
Now this would have been a fine solution had someone gotten around to deciding what those title cards needed to look like in a reasonable amount of time, instead of waiting until the last minute. Or if someone decided that we had enough budget to print out the titles on large format paper and simply spray glue them to cards. But, no. They decided we had to print out and tape together stencils, and then cut out the letters, so we could stencil the titles onto cards.
Ever hear the adage: "Cheap; Fast or Effective - pick two." That's theatre to a T. And we already has cheap and fast down, so honestly the signs look rather like ass; but they are readable so I'm not complaining.
This is me, dead in my tracks, after fifteen straight hours of sign cutting. With piles of theatrical junk all around. Glamourous job, no?
Anyways, let me show you the aftermath of almost 21 straight hours of sign cutting (with some sleep and a bit of food in between parts of it). There was one point where it was 10:30 pm, I had seven signs left, and I put on some techno and set my brain on autopilot. For three hours I became a letter cutting, diet coke fueled machine! Yeah, bay-bee!
Here is the weapon of choice, an exacto knife, with the backup of a pack of 100 number 11 blades. Yes, you know you're in theatre when you buy exacto blades in packs of 100...
But look how many blades this project used!!
And the carnage of my workstation. (messtation??)
Look at all them letters! I am incredibly glad that's done with.
I cast on a hat during this whole mess. A plain old beret. Because I desperatly needed some idiot knitting to get me through!
posted by JamieL | 7:22 PM
2 Comments:
Well, for a variety of reasons I am always interested in hearing about your job - so thanks for sharing!
But seriously, I've worked for two different nonprofit organizations over the last few years so I am intimately acquainted with the task of making something out of nothing! (In less than 24 hours.)
I think what you could really use at this point is a NAP!
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