Tech can be nice too…
Along with my ‘day job’ I also work part-time in a theatre. We have two stages; one main stage with nearly a 600 seat auditorium, and a studio stage with about a 90 seat auditorium – so it’s a reasonable size. Consequently, to put on a production we have a reasonable size company, containing ‘production’ people such as cast, director, assistant director, prompt etc, and also ‘backstage’ people like set design and construction, wardrobe, lighting, sound, stage management, props and lots of other people. The backstage crew are often called ‘techs’ and it was always considered that they’re doing a technical job, whereas the production staff do the ‘creative’ part.
Maybe historically techs would have come in at the last moment before a run, and put some lights up and rigged the sound etc, but we take a very different approach and form part of the ‘creative’ team from the very start. During rehearsals, the lighting designer (me for the last production), stage manager, wardrobe, sound etc will attend rehearsals and provide creative input from the start. It’s true that we need to operate in a technical environment, but the real work is in using the technical environment in a creative and artistic way.
Take lighting design for example… The principle is for ‘illumination’, ‘area selection’, ’sculpture’ and ‘atmosphere’. Illumination to make sure your actors are seen, area selection to draw the eye of the audience to the areas you wish to, sculpture to provide good shadow detail on an actor’s face to aid the audience to be able to read expression better and atmosphere to create the mood, feeling and ambience of the design.
Of course, you could just follow the prescribed ‘rules’ and point a load of lanterns at the stage, but lighting designers follow a creative process to put in emotion, feeling, aesthetics and a lot more into the design. it’s true that a lighting design can move people emotionally, and using subtle ’subconcious’ changes in lighting, you can make an audience member feel more anxious, happy, sad and a lot more.
‘Tech’ is often used as a catch-all for this kind of work, and similarly software development, but it’s only part of the real whole. Considering a tech to just be doing ‘technical’ work is a mis-representation of what they really are or should be doing. In the same way, considering that developing software is an entirely technical task is the same. We should still be using the same creative skills in technical tasks.
The difference is when a ‘tech’ uses their technical skills as a method to deliver a creative solution…
It is important for tech to be nice.
