UJ students get practical training with DWR
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“UJ Arts & Culture's partnership with DWR grants us access to valuable professional skills and knowledge we would otherwise not be able to make available to our crew and students interested in developing these niche skills,” comments Pieter Jacobs, head of UJ Arts & Cultural. “The results speak for itself with some students now being able to work on our productions as junior technicians, which in the long-term will also benefit the industry."
The aim of the course was to create a basic, hands-on introduction to lighting and audio, and was targeted at students from the University of Johannesburg. The students are involved with theatre as an extra mural activity and participate in shows and festivals.
“We found a massive need for practical training existed for both the technicians at UJ Theatre as well as students who just wanted to get involved,” says Jannie de Jager, who heads training at DWR. “Earlier this year, Michael Taylor-Broderick from our team presented a theatre lighting workshop that focused on the theory of lighting. We were then asked to present both a practical lighting and audio session to the students as a follow up course.”
On the lighting side, Jannie and Michael went back to basics. “We drew an uncomplicated lighting plot,” Jannie explains. “Included were channel numbers, fixture numbers, positions, and gel allocations. The task was simple. Read the plot and populate the bar as per the plot.”
Meanwhile on the audio side, DWR’s Jaco Beukes took the reins. “I decided to take on a more complicated topic, or less understood and even less taught aspect of sound,” says Jaco. “My hope was not to transform everyone into super system techs, but rather to get them to think differently about speaker placement, be consciously aware of how every speaker in a system interacts with each other, and that placement is a vital part of a good sounding system.”
(Jim Evans)
