Industry questions

[Bryson]

The problem with those career websites is that their data mining software isn't smart enough to distiguish between similar job titles across different industries. The Technical Manager at a software company propbably earns a very nice wage indeed, so it skews the average when comparing against the TM at a small regional theatre.

[w/robe]

Hi I am currently at the stage of my life where I have to decide on a career.

With all due respect you're not. You are at the stage of life where you need to make the best/most interesting use of the next set of opportunities. Replies #9 & #8 have it right.

Well, to be fair, he is at a stage where he is going to start seriously limiting his possible HE options.

 

I know that I should not jump to conclusions but as Tom is a 16 year old who manages to ask sensible, well written questions and uses spell check I'm just assuming he will go on to HE.

[tbexon]

Hi I am currently at the stage of my life where I have to decide on a career.

With all due respect you're not. You are at the stage of life where you need to make the best/most interesting use of the next set of opportunities. Replies #9 & #8 have it right.

Well, to be fair, he is at a stage where he is going to start seriously limiting his possible HE options.

 

I know that I should not jump to conclusions but as Tom is a 16 year old who manages to ask sensible, well written questions and uses spell check I'm just assuming he will go on to HE.

 

yeah I've had a look a round here at the benefits and drawbacks to uni and I definitely think it's the place for me :)

[Ynot]

Don't forget - many unis have an active theatre/band scene. I know several people who've done a LOT of tech work whilst on an unrelated degree course.

Including one young lass who was on a business degree course in Brum, whilst cassying at the Hippodrome and working on a variety of live events at the uni. She got her degree last year, started a job in 'business' then decided she hated it and gave that up. She's now a full time tech on a cruise liner.

 

 

[Pete McCrea]

Yeap - I'm a case in point. BEng(Hons) Civil and Coastal Engineering - now own an AV rental company...

 

I Spent plenty of time doing stuff at the Union and in the Musical Theatre Group. Gareth Owen, who undertook the sound design for the performances I crewed on, went on to spend several years at Orbital as a sound designer for some serious shows. His number two has also spent plenty of time travelling, both on unrelated courses to this industry.

 

One option is to do the "Completely-Unrelated-But-Useful-For-When-Your-Tired-Of-Tech-Degree" such as I did.

[Paul TC]

Work to live, don't live to work.

 

Lastly, it's only a jobif it don't pay enough to pay the landlord/keep the wife/feed the kids get a different one.

 

The day job enables me to do what I enjoy doing in life. As has been said there is a lot more to life than work, there has been more than one person on the forum questioning their current work choice in this or another industy. As has been advised, look at getting a set of qualifications or experience that give you the opportunity to change direction during your life. You will not be the same person or have the same life goals in a few years time.

[CatC]

Hi Tom,

 

Thought you might like to hear from someone who is slightly older than you, and therefore making similar decisions to you right now.

 

I'm currently in my last year of school before going off to university (well, drama school really). I went into my A levels not really knowing what I wanted to do for a degree, as many people including my parents had asked me to consider doing something other than a technical theatre degree, so that I had something to fall back on if I needed to, or didn't want to be a technician anymore. I therefore chose A levels which I was good at, and not what I needed for a specific degree course at all, my Alevels being Art, Product Design, Maths, Psychology and two BTEC's; one in Stage Management and the other in Theatre Technology. At the end of AS I dropped out of Maths and Art as for a year I had been doing 2 or 3 shows a week, and was also expected to do 20 hours of art, 15 hours of product design and learn all the units for maths and psychology. I was struggling for time. For my AS's I got 3 B's and one E (in maths)

 

The dropping of subjects was one of the reasons that I chose Technical Theatre as my degree course. Another was my parent realised that if I was going to go to uni, then it would need to be a course that I would stick at. My boss, and teacher also reassured them that I was good at it, and that employment was generally quite high in the industry.

 

I've been asked a few times, what I'll do if I want to change career, and I honestly don't know, but I think in a way you have to go for what you think is the right choice for you at the time, and worry about changing careers if and when the time comes.

 

If you do choose to do a degree in performance technology, then theres a lot of things to consider in the near to make your chance of getting in higher. I applied to Central, LIPA, Guildhall, Royal Scottish Academy, GSA, and Rose Bruford. I have offers from Central, LIPA, GSA and Rose Bruford, and am currently waiting to hear whether I have got into Guildhall. The only rejection I have recieved so far was from Royal Scottish, because I was not high enough their waiting list. My point, although long winded, is that each drama school is looking for different things. For example even though I took the same portfolio to each interview, Royal Scottish asked us to design a technical element for one scene of Midsummer Night's dream and take that with us, Central asks for three photos and an object, with which to do a group exercise, and as a result of the different course slants and these tasks the questions you get asked vary widely. I think if I had known what was asked in the interviews at your age, then I would have started reading handbooks earlier, subscribed to LSI earlier, and started collecting photos for my portfolio a lot earlier.

 

I hope this gives you something to think about. Feel free to ask any questions.

[Smiffy]

Cat:

 

As someone who is now 30, and an experienced freelance LD/Programmer, who left school and went straight to work 'in the biz' I don't think I could disagree more.

 

Firstly

 

My boss, and teacher also reassured them that I was good at it, and that employment was generally quite high in the industry.

 

Employment in this industry is not quite high. The various 'Theatre Degree's' are churning out more people than there are jobs available, and if anything, to actually get the gigs that you WANT to do (rather than have to do because you need the money) it is nigh on impossible. I am 'good at this' and I'm struggling to get work at the moment with about 14 years of experience, awards for my work, and knowledge of every major console and experience in almost every genre of lighting design.

 

If I have one single regret, it has to be not having focussed on the core traditional subjects (Maths, Science, English) at GCSE Level and gaining poor grades as a result of not really trying because "hey, I'm going to be an LD, what do I need qualifications for anyway". I also regret not going to Uni and getting a degree in anything. If I could do it again, then I would have actually studied for (and passed) those GCSE's, and gone on to uni and done a course in Electronics or Computing or something so that I had that fall back.

 

Now, if I was me at 16 reading this, then I would be thinking 'yeah, but I'm really good, and I'm going to be really successful, etc'

 

You wont be. Not unless you are in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, every time, throughout your whole career.

 

As I've now hit 30, my thoughts turn towards getting a proper job, with a salary, so that I can start a family, plan for retirement, have a holiday somewhere nice every year, buy a house, feed, clothe, school, educate my kids and so on. In order to do that I need a job that will earn me at least £35 to 40,000 a year before tax. There are jobs out there, however the likelihood of me getting them are slim as competition will be stiff, and while I may have the experience, I don't have the qualifications. So in a nutshell, then your parents are right. GET THAT FALLBACK DEGREE.....

 

Just my thoughts, but I hope that they are food for yours.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[CatC]

Hey Smiffy,

 

I wasn't particularly trying to tell him what to do, just what I am doing, and only because that's what I know.

I know how tough it can be to get a job, but that seems to be with everything at the moment.

I understand why you would want 'proper job' now, but I'm also regularly see it from the other end of the stick, particularly from my parents, one whom has a degree and the other who dropped out of a degree don't like working the jobs that they do, depsite the higher income rates. At the end of the day they now come home and say do a degree that you want to do, because you've got to enjoy your life. I'm not saying that work is the be all and end all of life, but it seems to take up a fair chunk of waking hours.

If I wanted to go and get a degree in something else, then I'd have to seriously rethink my whole life and training up until this point. With the uni fees trebling after this year, and the fact that I would have to reapply to uni to go and do anything else there doesn't seem like an alternative for me, not that I'd want one, especially as I got into Guildhall yesterday.

With every job that I've had so far, and I know that they are small in comparision to what you've done, it's been luck, trial and error, and being in the right place at the right time. I'm well aware of that. I may have been on a fair few shows, but I am always aware of those that I didn't get too.

 

Sorry if I offended or talked out of turn,

 

Cat

[Bobbsy]

Cat,

 

Just to put the other side of the coin...

 

I'm now nearing 60 and am lucky enough to have taken early retirement.

 

I'm originally from Canada and, after high school, I went to university taking a Drama course, majoring in the technical side of theatre. However, after graduation my life took a lurch and I ended up not in theatre but working in television where I used many of the same skills but had to rapidly learn a lot of other ones as well.

 

A few years later my life took another lurch and I moved to London, still working in TV. I stayed there for more than 30 years and ended up in management...and then a senior management job. However, as my day job took me farther from being a hands on technician, I started doing some theatre stuff in the evenings with a youth drama group to "keep my hand in". This led to some professional stuff when I retired and left TV...and I still do some freelance stuff locally to earn a bit of extra cash.

 

As much as 12 years ago, the senior technicians working for me were earning almost £35K per year before overtime...and some took home a lot more than than. My salary was in excess of that.

 

I only mention all this to illustrate that there's no one way to get into "the industry" and also that the best laid career plans can move in directions you don't expect. I certainly have no regrets at all about going to university. It stood me in good stead.

 

Anyhow, good luck in the future.

 

Bob

 

PS I meant to say a couple of days ago that I liked your photos of the A-Z production in the "Show Your Student Show" thread.

[themadhippy]

and gaining poor grades as a result of not really trying because "hey, I'm going to be an LD, what do I need qualifications for anyway

Nothing to do with hanging around the local theatre annoying the house crew and nicking there fags and doughnuts then?

[Smiffy]

In fairness TMH.... They were good Doughnuts :P

[TomM]

With the uni fees trebling after this year,

 

Just to point out to anyone reading, not just you...

 

Yes, the fees are going up, but you won't have to pay it up front (unlike the current system) and repayments will only begin to take payments when your salary is over £25k (currently 16k) and then they will write the debt off after 25 years (at retirement currently), so in real money, you might pay less by deferring for a year, especially as a theatre technician who may spend a good few years on about 18-20k at the start of their career!

[CatC]

Bobbsy: Thank you for all you said. :)

 

TomM: Yeah, although I don't have to pay it up front at the moment either. I've applied for my loans already, and this year I get a £8,375 loan. I get that each year for three years now. I don't have to pay any of that back until I am being paid over £15k, at a rate of roughly £30 a month. If I'm completely honest, I'm slightly scared of having a £25,125 debt at the end of uni, and I don't want it to be any bigger!

[tbexon]

Thanks for all your help guys this has been very beneficial and useful to me I'm currently have a good hard look at exactly what sort of degree I'd like to do as on one hand I'd quite like to do a sound technology degree at Lipa or somewhere similar because I feel it would give me a good base knowledge and show that I have the skills and it would also give access to a great number of contacts. The other thing I was thinking about was doing a electrical and computer science degree which would give me something to fall back on but would be something that would interest me less and require higher grades and probably be more expensive. I can see your side of the argument smiffy about having something to fall back on but right now I can't see any other industry I would rather be in yes I realize it's a hard industry to get into and that the money is crap however it's something I have loved doing for my whole life

 

anyone who has any views either way I would very much like to hear your opinion

 

also just to give you some background (and I say this VERY hesitantly because I know the response I will get about how you have to be VERY lucky and I realize this) but I would like to do some touring some day

 

Thanks

Tom