what a busy time

The last few weeks have been flat out with the school production of Fame and this is the first time i have had a chance to really reflect upon the amazing show we put together it really has been a memorable experience and it is a shame that it is the last show that people such as Luke, James and Alistair will get to work on, but I’m sure they’ll be back next yr as old boys.

The show went really well except for some sound issues that could not be solved due to the fact the set was made of out metal which interfered with the radio mics. All 3 nights went pretty well except for the curtain closing too early at the end of act 1 on opening night which was not Luke’s fault but Belly’s explanation of when to close it. It has been such a great show to be involved with from from set construction, bump in to bump out, to breaking into Luke’s car, to the XLR-Cat5-VCR-Coax CCTV, to listening to the most annoying feedback ever, to confetti and king cow. There have been so many good moments and it has been a learning experience for me with moving lights and the like.

On the last night the techies gave gifts to the major people involved with Tech Crew vests for Don, JP and Pullyblank. Venue Manager for Pant and Director for Belly, which they all really loved and Pant wore his the rest of the night.

This weekend i have also had Haileybury Aths Champs which consisted of a generally poor turn out from the senior students and it has also been my sisters 21st which was good to catch up with extended family.

I look forward to finishing bump out this week. It amazes me how long it takes to put stuff together but how fast it can be taken down.

All for now

- JD

Fame: The Musical

The main purpose for this post is to talk about the rehearsal for fame but first i will mention x country from yesterday. Yesterday was the second last round of APS cross country which was hosted by Haileybury at Edrington. The head of cross country had put in a load of effort with a digital clock at the start/finish, 2 hay bayles as obstacles, and even had vests for all the officials. One detail he did have though which made the whole team laugh was he has written H2XC on the hill (dont ask about the origin of that its quite sad). Overall we beat caulfield and MGS and if we beat St Kevins next week we will win the premiership. The girls are also in a position to take their premiership.

Today was a rehearsal for fame in which we got alot of work done. We managed to hang the blacks which will need to be fixed with the cougar because some are hung at angles and just cant be fixed from the roof. More of the walls went up on the set. All the remaining lights from Inheritance were lowered. The 2Ks got a well deserved clean and 22/40s were hung on the side perches which was a major task. Lukes rather genious idea for the ladder worked quite well but Belly insisted that we use the harness. After a decent days work i now have some rather severe rope burn from lowering so many lights and hanging blacks. Thursday looks to be a good day because it is our major bump in which means we get all our hired lights which will be my first experience with movers so that should be good fun.

We also found why James failed his P’s the first time, indicate then turn! and yes we can flash our brake lights too. Luke on the other hand is a much safer driver.

It looks to be a short but intense time until opening night but will be worth it in the end. Only 17 days left until opening night.

Bye for now   - JD

Edrington Concert

Today me and monkey were down at Edrington to do lighting for their concert which is on tomorrow night. The day was pretty much a bludge. The lighting rig is pretty much parcan galore with a few borrowed fresnels because Edrington has very few of its own lights. The new hall at Edrington has some really stupid stuff. They have a whole desktop PC set up just to control the temp of the air con, there is a talkback socket on every second wall (eg there is one right under the mirror where makeup is done, theres a heap of them that will never get used) , fire extinguishers behind locked doors with the sign on the outside of the door, and an exit sign that is nowhere near an exit. The house lights have their own sheet with all the abbreviations for the switches and turn turn off the houselights for the concert you need to press seven buttons. The rig is a pain to focus because it is like Newlands where the bar lowers so u have to eyeball it to get it right. Also the patching panel and dimmers have been put under the stage which is like a bloody maze. But other than that it is a pretty good hall for what it is designed for.

Whilst at Edrington we were treated like royalty and it was totally different to what we were used to there. We were asked if we would like tea or coffee and the art teacher who is normally really strict on supplies and cleaning up let us just have some metho and a cloth to clean the profile and she even cleaned it up for us. We are also invited to dinner tomorrow night before the concert. It was a good chance to catch up with staff members that we get along with and haven’t seen in a while. So all in all it should be a good concert but theres like 20 acts so it could go forever.

- JD

House Performing Arts

Well today was house performing arts so from recess onwards I was helping set up some lights and stuff for that. I managed to get out of history(thanks to James, you legend it was so boring) and science in order to help but decided to go to maths in period 5. Performing arts kicked off at lunchtime with drama which was themed Monty Python which was pretty good but got boring towards the end. Sholto Black (my house came 2nd). Next up was house dance and there were some really crap ones like Castlefield and Rendall which hardly involved any form of dance at all. Sholto got jibbed in this as it was clearly better than most of the others but only managed a miserable 7th. There was also a heap of complaints about the projector screen and how people couldn’t read it and they wanted it fixed but its a bit had when whoever made the damn power point used a black background with dark font.  House music was a bit better and some houses were quite good Rendall’s song about Watto was good but I think Sholto was the best with our lead man Kog, we don’t find out the results until tomorrow but I think we will definitely be up there.

school and the undoable ‘wyatt knot’

Greetings,

Yet another boring day at school, double maths was funny as at the moment we are studying factorising and i was sitting next to jack and it was rather entertaining when he was unable to factorize the quadratic trinomials. I also had english, geog and science. and after lunch i had PE where we were in the weights room trying to build nice bulging biceps and then maths tute which is practically a spare.

At lunch in the hall we had to take down the bar that we use to hold up the cyc because we need it for house performing arts and Castlefield (thanks for the correction James) took our other bar. Iain and Christian had funny undoing their knots that held it up as it as known as the “Wyatt knot” and is a bitch and almost impossible to undo.

Tomorrow i have cross country relays at Coburg which will be a bit different. its a 4×4km race which should suit me a bit better than the usual 6km and from the looks of things Haileybury will have some pretty strong teams and be in medal contention.

Well thats all for today, - JD

Bday, school and forgetful teachers

Post #2

Well today was a bit different, it was my birthday. I didnt really want much in the way of present but i did get a new watch which is a nice Nike running one which will be very good and for both cross country, aths and casual running. Its really cool u can store 30 of your previous run times and then look as them later and compare, it also does intervals and many other things. I also got a tool kit which will be handy for my DIY and when i decide to “tinker” with things.

Today was a pretty normal day at school, although throughout my classes i received many birthday txt’s. Wednesdays are a crap day coz i have like every subject. Double english was pretty average so was science math and geog, but history and electrotech remained interesting. One funny thing that did happen was our maths teacher forgot she had class and was 40mins late. Maybe the marshal will give her lines or a Friday because he was going to chase her up about it. We also got the curtain back for the hall which had a tear put in it last week, unfortunately i wasn’t there to see it go back up but im sure it was had work as it weighs a ton.

Well anyway thats about it for now, until next time - JD