D2 Production work- Jack and the Beanstalk

Working on panto was an interesting four weeks of my life, I think whilst I was there I hated it, the atmosphere and the people I was working with I really did not enjoy and I came home every day feeling crap. Now, looking back on my time on production work I think I really appreciated it and learned a lot even if it didn’t seem like it at the time! Being put on production work in a venue that we had never designed for but could possible design in one day was a really good way of getting to know the venue and seeing what it could do! I think one thing that I really didn’t like about my time on crew was that fact that at the beginning of our time we were told that no questions are silly and we can ask anything we don’t understand which obviously would be for quite a lot of things considering it’s the complete other side to our course, but if we did ask any questions because we were completely oblivious to most things they use or do we would be told off for not knowing or get treated like idiots. I think one important thing that the technical production students should be reminded of when the designers come to work on their side is that we do not know what we are doing and we are trying to learn, were expected to do things that they have spent however long they have had in the uni or even out with uni learning, all things that we have never really learnt. If it was the other way around and they came into design and didn’t understand something we would explain it to them without treating them like a fool!

Another thing which I thought was wrong about our four weeks there is that we were encouraged to ask questions about why and how that works, but sometimes if we did ask a question we would be told that there wasn’t enough time to explain it and so we would get an answer and would just carry on as clueless as before. The point of us being there working on production work was for us to understand the venue and how things worked together when it comes to the fit up etc. but we weren’t also told which completely gets rid of the point of us being there as we were no longer learning things that could possibly come in handy later on!

So although at the time I hated being on panto crew I would say to anyone from the years below who would be doing it, to stick it through and ask as many questions you can even if sometimes you don’t get an answer it’s worth it! It’s the only time you get in the venue and your one chance to ask questions to people who work on shows in the venue constantly!