Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1989 - 48

the only one that the producer knew,
and that he had found it invaluable in
every circumstance when called upon
for an opinion.
In order for the maximum impact to
be created, these phrases need to be
accompanied by the correct gestures,
such as shrugs, half-closed eyes, a superior tilt of the head, and a knowing
sideways glance. Practice looking supercilious, as you can often get away
with not saying anything if you can
produce a look that says, "You complete and utter fraud. Your ears are
obviously made of the coarsest clOth,
your musical appreciation is nil, and
your opinions are wortWess. Kindly do
46

TD&T'

SPRING 1989

not sully my space with your continued presence, you appalling
guttersni pe."
This look can be found and studied
in a number of places, most commonly on the faces of sound men in
the larger subsidized companies, and
lately on the faces of West End chief
electricians who have watched countless musicals come and go, and have
decided that, t1uough a process of osmosis, they now know it all. In this
case, the look is accompanied by a
head-shaking gesture, and a clicking
of the tongue. Inexperienced sound
men have been known to weep when
such looks are directed at them, and

have spent the rest of their lives living in solitary cells halfway up
mountains.
So far, so good. You should be getting the hang of things by now, and
you should be well on the way to becoming a respected sound designer.
Note that you have not actually done
any work yet, but that your reputation
is entirely based on your briefcase,
your CD player, and your limited but
expanding vocabular~
Let us assume that someone has
been sufficiently impressed by your
accoutrements, and that they ask you
to do a show for them. Don't panic.
Just ring one of the larger rental companies, and let the guys there specify
the show for you. It goes something
like this.
You: "Hi, I'm doing 'illI!' for Triple
Furnace, there's a 20-piece band and
17 in the cast ..."
Rental Manager: "OK, well, I expect
you'll want ...", there then follows a
long list of numbers, followed by another number which is the rental
price. Ask him for the quote in writing, and for a couple of guys to help on
the load-in, and you will have designed and installed your first show.
But, before you actually set foot in
the theatre, there are a few other
things that you need to do. You must
adopt two pieces of equipment, one of
which will become your trademark,
the other of which will become your
talisman. The trademark can be as obscure as you like, as long as it doesn't
actually do anything important. It is
simply there to advertise your presence to the cognoscenti, and to give
you that slightly eccentric quality
that all successful sound designers
have.
With some, it's a nasty little lo-fi
loudspeaker that gets used for "nearfield monitoring," and with others it's
the use of a particular microphone for
quite unsuitable tasks. Whatever it is,
it needs to be higWy visible, but not to
affect things too much. It is the audio
equivalent of a personalized car license plate.
The talisman is a diHerent matter
altogether. This piece of equipment
will get you alit of more sticky situations than anything else, and the wonderful thing about it is that you don't
even have to use it to get some advantage from it. Let's take an example,
omething that is currently in vogue,
and yet not esseurial as a production
tool. We'll call it a BLT lSY Orbital
Horizon Stretcher.

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