This article has nothing to do with good system design. Let’s just get that out there first. If you want to learn to design systems, go to school (hard knock U or other) and start designing. Designing is a learned process, and you learn by doing. That said, I’ve been designing a lot of systems lately. I’m a system technician by trade, but for some reason, the phone keeps ringing and I get a line like, “We’re wanting to do this crazy thing, and we weren’t quite sure who to call, but your name kept coming up.”
I’ve fallen into a habit of saying “Yes.” My therapist says I need to learn to say “No.” And for good reason, I think. It’s not that I don’t like work, or that the money is particularly bad (it’s not). It’s that saying “Yes” and becoming “that guy” is habit-forming. “That guy?” I sometimes feel like Harvey Keitel in his tour-de-force performance in Pulp Fiction. “I’m Winston Wolf. I solve problems.”
System Designer. It has such an austere ring to it. You know, when you read in PLSN about which tour is using what, and how much glorious gear they have, and which hot-s*&% roadies they have, and you read the credit lines. There it is — “System Designer.” There’s a perception out there, I think, that designers are some sort of high-power enchanters that can conjure up beautiful things out of nothing and get paid for it. They’re usually hired guns with a rep and a flair for the dramatic. Some even have a posse of assistants and “yes-people” who tend to their bidding. They have to, right? I mean, they have these wildly successful shows that need to be thought out and passed down to the lowly system people. They get flown in and show up to create some dream and everyone scurries to realize that dream. That’s overly dramatic, yes. Most of the system designers I know are actually pretty decent system techs that got lucky. System technicians, on the other hand, are the trained monkeys that put it all together. Tab A into slot B, females in the field, tape here, rivet there. These can also be flown in, but more often than not they’re just very good tinkerers that accomplish the dream. In all actuality though, there is very little difference between a high-end system designer and a good system technician. How, you ask? Because it’s all just problem solving.
You see, that’s all designing is, really. Solving problems. I say “designing,” but what I’m really doing is piecing together little bits of my past experience into coherent rigs that accomplish something. I put together parts of hardware and software that form vastly complex systems that make shows work. That’s what we all do, essentially. The riggers hang the bones, the electricians run the veins, the set dressers mold the beautiful skin on, the programmers give it intelligence, etc. Someone had to see this structure though. And they usually want to be the ones who put it together, but they’re designers, after all, so it usually falls to others. Keep in mind we’re not talking content here. That’s a whole other ball of cluster that I don’t want to approach just yet…
What Can and Will Be
Good designers must have the ability to see through the fog and know what the end result can be. Good technicians see through the fog (and piles of gear and cables) and see what the result will be.
Put on your technician hat for a moment (yes, the foil one with the antennae that you made on a break a minute ago) and think back to a time when you set up a perfectly executed load-in of a really hairy show. Hard, right? They almost never are perfect. There’s the intimate knowledge of specific pieces of gear that have idiosyncrasies that don’t always jive. There’s the ever-present time shotgun staring you in the face. There are the mid-level execs who are casting worrying glances at the crew because time is, well, M-O-N-E-Y. There are the incessant square pegs that need to be pounded and forced into round holes. There’s the fact that a decent coffee place couldn’t be found on the way to the gig, or worse, it was some craptastic kiosk in a hotel lobby. (For the record, I always got teased for bringing a decent coffee maker to a gig…but my coffee never sucked. ever.) It never ends.
But you show up, love what you do, have the skills to make it go, dive in head-first and start ass-kicking. Now, any decent system tech I know is in hog-heaven at this point. Hell yes! Let’s make this thing come ALIVE. Damn all doubters and man the mizzen-mast! Heave to and prepare to be boarded! And you proceed to solve problem after problem until it works.
Now think of the gig from a designer’s point of view. “What did you have in mind?” I say. ”Yes Mr. X, we envision a wondrous playground of virtual video happiness that our executives can romp freely in and about….and can we rasta-fy it by 10 to 20 percent? Oh, and we will also have Beyoncé share a spotlight with our sales VP after the keynote…he’s a really great guy and he and B just really hit it off… and then the conga line will be excellent. Can there be some Coldplay music playing while we I-Mag the execs having a super time, with everyone’s name being scrolled in (or on… we’re not really sure how you people refer to it) the screen, and then resolve it all with the words Resolve To Change in bright orange? And with the company logo? And, of course, we need it recorded and streamed…and duped to file on USB drives that the attendees can take home to study and…Wow! Those lights are really bright! Ooohhh…strobes. We need lots and lots of strobes/flicker-y lights. Can the screens do that too?….We really love Coldplay…”
You get the idea.
No Dearth of Problems
Yep. That’s usually how it starts. And then you have to start the process. The designer solves a problem that leads to another problem that needs solving, and on and on…until the vision is realized. How best to have the Exec and Mrs. Carter rendered on-screen? Camera or graphic? Would that come from central switching, or do I need to remote that? Hmm….screens…1.6mm for a side blend, and 5mm for mains — or can we project? If I project, are there ambient concerns, or can we black out? Does the lectern need to move and, if so, would there need to be a sub-patch? Is the lighting guy capable, or do I have to do that too? Not to mention content…Jesus, will these people actually provide decent content (never in a million years) or do I have to come up with something?
See? It’s all problem-solving. In any case, the one piece of glue that really holds it all together is the tacit understanding between a designer and their system techs. Both know they need each other to survive and succeed. Both parties know neither would exist without the other. Both parties are itching for an ever-better pay grade so the ‘skills’ part never recedes. Both parties are problem solvers, and both need problems to solve. Ay! The phone just rang and I gotta take it…
Reach Winston…er, Jeff Gooch at his blog at www.projectionfreak.com.
