I have a lot of friends who are freelancers. Obviously there are my friends who are designers and directors. I also have a lot of friends in the tech industry; programmers, web developers, graphic designers, and so forth. While we all work under the title of “freelancer” what this means in practical terms varies dramatically.
One of the key differences between being a freelancer and being an employee is that a freelancer is typically given a deadline on a project but is not specified when and where they are supposed to work. In exchange for this freedom of working, there is the uncertainty of when and where new work will arrive to fill in the gaps. The employee takes on an imposed work schedule and place of working for the security of a steady paycheck.
For those of us who work in live performance, the realities of our work is more of a hybrid. While the prep work can be done on our own schedule, the real work of lighting the show happens in a prescribed time and location that we have no choice over. At the same time there is no guarantee of ongoing employment. Should we not find work we have not been employees and are thus not eligible for unemployment insurance and other benefits that regular employees have. This is why I am strong proponent of building a solid financial foundation to your freelance career.
These unfortunate realities are outweighed by a love of the work. If that is not the case I would encourage you to find alternate means of employment immediately. For those of us who love the work enough to overcome these concerns we must put our focus on scheduling and picking projects that make the sacrifices worth it.
I have been offered several pieces to consider designing for next year. It is very flattering to be asked to light these rather interesting projects. 5 operas, 3 plays, and a couple of dance pieces thus far. While this is nothing approaching a full year’s employment, from the perspective of mid-June the year before, it is exciting. And all the projects are interesting. A rare occurrence to be perfectly honest.
I have been finding myself wanting to design more opera recently and the universe appears to be providing for that desire. Next month I will design my third opera of the year. There are a few more potentially happening before the year is out, but no signed contracts yet.
I find it fascinating that while I have been asked to light these rather interesting projects, there is no guarantee they will happen. It is the nature of freelancing. The companies could get into financial trouble, I could get an alternate offer for the same production schedule and have to balance out the two possibilities weighing artistic and financial considerations, or any number of other temporal concerns might arise.
The life of a freelancer is never easy. Even when all the projects are compelling there can still be scheduling and timing issues. When production schedules overlap you need to find a balance between satisfying all of your artistic collaborators, making a living, and creating good work. Being a freelance designer can be like putting together a 3 dimensional jigsaw puzzle where there is no guarantee that the pieces actually fit.
Last March I received more offers than I could take. At least three projects I was asked to design had perfectly overlapping production schedules. Even after eliminating the impossible, I ended up with a schedule where I was lighting a circus show during the day and cleaning up a play in previews at night.
This summer is rather light on the work front giving me a nice stretch of time to relax. I have an opera and a few special events to design. While I appreciate the time off, a luxury often passed up by many designers, I can only hope that I will not face the opposite problem when the projects start coming in and I find myself with five offers, all of which open the same weekend. I have been in that position before and it is not fun.
How the future shapes up is all in the timing. The only control I have over my calendar is the power to say no. Nothing about freelancing for live performance is easy. But I can’t think of another job whose payoff could be greater as far as I am concerned.
I began working my way through the training manual that came with the program and was given a lot of basic exercises to learn different tools. Basic 3D extrudes, 3D reshaping, curves, and so forth. I was blithely working with these simple shapes when I came to the first big project in the training manual. 
The most complex shape to deal with, far and away, was going to be the iron supports underneath the first landing. Not only is the basic outline a complex shape with various curves and corners, but it is cut out and recessed in multiple places at varying depths. This is also what makes for a very good learning project. There is a single, very difficult, challenge and then the rest of the project is working with rather basic skills in a more complex way than the previous simple shapes exercises.
The first thing I noticed was the visual design. It is quite beautiful. The images for tools in the palettes are very clear and distinguishable as well as good looking. While non-essential to getting work done, it does make a big difference when you are staring at a computer screen for eight or ten hours a day. A small change around tools that I found incredibly useful was the fact the the program now remembers your last choice for tool options rather than returning to a program default every time you launch the software. For example, I often use the mirror tool to layout sidelight systems. The system default is mirror mode but I need mirror and duplicate. I can’t tell you the number of times I am racing to get a plot finished and forget to switch modes and then have to redo the work. It’s only a few seconds but it adds frustration to the process. Now that frustration is gone due to the program remembering my settings. Very nice.
The ideal audience for this book is the student, new to lighting, looking to expand their knowledge base. A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting will take the novice and give them enough information to confidently step into the next phase of their development. But this is more than a college textbook. The working lighting designer can find good tips and tricks in here as well and some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny.
