LiveJournal Idol XX Week 2 - Vampire Load

[joeymichaels]

This is my entry for Week #2 of Season 20ish of therealljidol.

Watch on YouTube

Transcript of Video

So there's two different ways a Theatre lighting instrument can be haunted.

The first way is deliberately - since navigating through dark Theatres can be dangerous, there's often one light deliberately left on at all times. This is called a ghost light.

The other way is annoying. Sometimes, there will be one instrument that stays on when it shouldn't. Like you try to create a perfect blackout and one instrument stays at full illuminating the body of Julius Caesar as the actor stands and heads off stage. A light that does this is said to be “ghosting.”

I've always assumed that ghost lights got that name because they're on when nobody living is in the theatre - hence, a light for ghosts. I could be wrong about this but I don't want reality to dispel my theory so I'm not going to look it up.

Lights that are “ghosting” are labeled that because we Theatre people always assume something that isn't working the way we want it to is possessed by evil spirits.

We Theatre people have a ton of superstitions. The most famous is that you must never say the title of the play “Macbeth” or you'll summon bad luck. I directed Macbeth, so I'll say it as much as I damn well want to.

Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth…

This superstition is because - according to tradition - the local witches in Shakespeare’s time didn't like their portrayal in Macbeth and thus cursed the play.

Double double boil and bubble
Say Macbeth and there will be trouble

Point of order - as I was filming this is realized I needed to trim my nose hair and discovered that I had my first pure white nose hair. THE CURSE IS REAL

Ok so the Brute force way to deal with a light that is ghosting is to unplug it. Most Theatre instruments are plugged in ALL THE TIME when a show is going - like an army of vampire loads.

But yeah unplugging an instrument and plugging it in somewhere else will often solve the problem. So maybe it's not just the instrument that is haunted, but the outlet.

By the way for those of you familiar with The Police album Ghost in the Machine, that title is a reference to the soul in the human body, not possessed flood lights.

But sometimes especially with more modern digital instruments, there's just some dumb bullshit going on that will make your lighting designer and board op tear out chunks of their hair. Honestly an actual ghost would be preferable.

By the way, I've had two ghost encounters in theatres. The first time, I was sitting up in the lighting booth of our large University Theatre at 2am because the computer up there was the only one I knew of that could run Syd Meiers civilization. The building was otherwise empty. From the booth, I could see the whole large empty main stage lit by a ghost light. Frm. the stage, i heard footsteps crossing. There was nobody there. I decided to get the hell out of there. But I was, as I said, playing civilization and thought “one more turn…” you can guess the rest.

The other time, my Theatre classroom was probably haunted by a 19th century looking lady in a black muumuu. Short version: the school pastor led a prayer circle there and it was gone. No ghost lights involved.

Generally we don't use anything as naively superstitious as prayer circles or exorcisms to deal with ghost or curse intrusions in Theatre. We take the very sensible and practical step of running around the Theatre three times and spitting. Everyone knows poltergeists hate spit.

Now those of you not in Theatre who learned what this week's prompt meant may be thinking “most plays I've seen have dozens of lighting instruments! If they're plugged in constantly the vampire load must be astronomical. Why don't you just unplug them when there's not a show on?”

Uh, because that would mean staying in the Theatre late and those places are crawling with ghosts.

All the witches in the house say yeah

Comments

[gardeningatnight]

I'm really digging these theater themed entries! Although I'm still minimally involved these days, due to lack of time and/or energy, I'm now raising a theater kid!!!! and so I get to feel connected in a new, fun (and sometimes nostalgic) way.

[joeymichaels]

Hurray theatre kid! A great way to stay involved. :)

[thephantomq]

"Uh, because that would mean staying in the Theatre late and those places are crawling with ghosts." LOL. Way to bring it back around, hah. I wouldn't want to spend all that time unplugging everything, either.

[joeymichaels]

You know I'm the kind of person who kind of likes repetitive tasks inducing patching lights, but yeah every night is too much.

[humanbeansradio]

My son directed his first play last night. My sis and bro in law worked their whole careers in Chicago theatres... (lighting, sound, set design)... I have heard SO many theatre ghost stories. :) Well done and tons of fun, this one.

[joeymichaels]

Congratulations to your son! He's probably thrilled and exhausted. :)

[humanbeansradio]

He is... thanks for the congrats! It was particularly well done and earned him an invite to direct one of the upcoming plays for his university. I am stoked. :) (Note: He did Ethan Coen's Waiting)

[halfshellvenus]

I got a kick out of this entry, and the references to potential actual ghosts in it.

True story: my high school got a computerized lighting board way back in the day, and it took several months before it stopped being its own nightmare. It would regularly violate its own programming, and one entry in particular was well-known for being a random-behavior generator that might cycle through 2-5 completely different settings before it settled down. It needed some seriously better software!

[joeymichaels]

Oh my god the early digital lightboards were overcomplicated nightmares. I trained on manual lightboards and for the first twenty years of digital stuff, I was still more reliable manual than automatic.

[kandigurl]

Loving these videos! Is your blanket a tortilla??

Also, I was a theater kid but still didn’t know why we weren’t supposed to say the name of the Scottish play, so thank you for explaining it!

[joeymichaels]

Yes! It's the greatest blanket in the world. Shaped and decorated as a tortilla

[krispykritter]

Having been in a few productions I know the superstitions surrounding theater people. And old theaters are definitely haunted, lights on or not!

[joeymichaels]

Honestly most theatres I've worked in are proud of their ghosts

[n3m3sis43]

Former theatre kid reporting for duty! This was a fun post. :)

[joeymichaels]

Former Theatre kids are future Theatre kids in disguise

[bsgsix]

I was a theatre kid, and am now a theatre adult who still works in these circles, so I've really loved these entries! This was so well-written and a lot of fun. Theatre superstitions and spirits are SO very real. Awesome take on the prompt! <3

[joeymichaels]

Fist bump fellow Theatre type!

[imafarmgirl]

This was interesting because I don't think of theater much. Love the ghost experiences.

[joeymichaels]

I think working occasional stretches of 18 hour days make many of us theatre people more prone to just see things in general.

[ofearthandstars]

It makes total sense that the lights would be plugged in and on for the entirety of a production (I do have a little former theatre kid in me), but also it makes my environmentalist heart hurt, but not as much as those godforsaken 24 hour air compressor inflatable tube men that show up at every business.

I've always thought theatres are full of ghosts - the ghosts of the stories they tell, the ghosts of the playwrights, and of course, the ghost of feelings that have come and gone in that space.

[joeymichaels]

I wonder if there are any of those tube men that are actually possessed by ghosts? Who could tell the difference?

[murielle]

No whistling. No quoting The Scottish Play. No calling it anything other than The Scottish Play.

Theatres and churches, I've been in both alone, unafraid. But there is a weird energy. You know?

Loved the read. Now I'm off to watch the movie. 😊

[joeymichaels]

Church ghosts are scarier. Theatre ghosts are just late for their cues. And, you know, just late.

[murielle]

LOL!

I still have nightmares about being late. 😊

[muchtooarrogant]

Fun entry.

Dan

[joeymichaels]

Thank you for reading!

[jake67jake]

I spent some time in theater in high school and worked both the sound board and lights. Never met or saw any ghosts but backstage is definitely creepy at night.

I liked the story and reminder of good times.

[joeymichaels]

I think the rule is there's always a ghost in the theatre and if you can't tell who the ghost is, it's you

[niquildrvr]

That was great fun-and I appreciated the video as a break from reading, although the actual entry is fun to read as well.

[joeymichaels]

Next time my transcript might even fully match my video. No promises.

[scribblesinblue]

Also if you leave it plugged in and it worked last time you already know it works. You can lose an awful lot of time plugging things back in and suddenly they don't quite work right...(I've had that experience back in my theater tech days)

[joeymichaels]

This is so true that it actually hurts to read. You can solve a problem by unplugging it and you can create a worse problem by unplugging it.

[alycewilson]

And of course, your black cat has to get into the action at the end. I loved this, especially the little running jokes like the glasses continually slipping down your nose until they completely fell off. Well done!

[joeymichaels]

I am so grateful you noticed the glasses