THE ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER'S TOOLKIT
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If you haven't listened, you're missing out!

2/17/2015

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How fitting that we just passed Valentine's Day because I think I am in love -- with a podcast!

In 1: the podcast is the voice of theatre designers today.  It is the most amazing collection of uncensored conversations with some of the most powerful and influential people in our industry to date.  Each conversation sounds like you are sitting in the room with each designer learning from them and gleaning what you can from each amazing mind.  It's educational, enlightening, and powerful -- I mean, just imagine if this podcast were around when  Tharon Musser,  Jean Rosenthal, or Stanley McCandless could have participated!!!

I discovered in 1 awhile back and immediately listened to the episode with Ken Billington -- someone who I am proud to call one of my mentors.  Cory Pattak, its host and creator, is charming, casual, and asks all the right questions that you want to ask.  Cory, who is a Broadway lighting associate himself, is fully ensconced in the world of his guests and does his apt research.  I appreciate that he brings this informed nature into the room and meanders through the questions with absolute ease while somehow still managing to get to all the juicy bits.  He treats each guest with respect, enthusiasm, and the just the right amount of geekiness we know we all are having while listening.  :)  (I mean, who wouldn't geek-out to sit in the room with all of these amazing, ground-breaking individuals and be allowed to tap into their brains for hours on end!!)

Recently, I was incredibly honored to be asked to be a part of In 1: the podcast.  Although we have never met, Cory and I are proud to both share the coveted position of former KBA office assistant.  Cory likes my book, The Assistant Lighting Designer's Toolkit, and wanted a spot for it on the show.  After a lot of trial and error on his part, I became the first bi-coastal podcast on In 1.  You can listen to Bonus episode #34 here.


With starting a new teaching job and publishing my first book this year, I had somewhat lost track of In 1, but I had such a great time working with Cory on my episode that I have rediscovered the podcast with a vengeance and have been binge-listening ever since!  It also helps that I commute from L.A. to San Diego several times a week -- it helps fill the time, make the commute less painful, and feels like hanging out with old friends.  I love it.

Even further than my enjoyment of it, I would like to say that it is soon to become a mainstay of my students' classwork!  Tomorrow I plan to share part of Ben Pearcy's episode in my Vectorworks class.  It's an excellent episode, but one of my favorite parts is a brilliant 15-minute segment (1:03-1:14:30) that discusses the history of CAD drafting and how the KBA standards came about (which has basically become Broadway standard).  I always tell my students that my book is not Anne McMills' way of doing things... it is basically these KBA standards that have proliferated through the profession.  I am simply the one that wrote them down.  I really think this segment helps to solidify that point as well as provide interesting back story on the modern history of our profession.

I also plan to use In 1: the podcast as a textbook of sorts.  It will help to provide context of the real world for my advanced lighting classes and impart knowledge in a first hand way that can only be accomplished through many a guest speaker (for which I don't have the budget).  :)

Overall, I highly recommend In 1.  It's not just for lighting designers.  Cory is sensitive to spanning the gamut of theatrical designers.  We should all thank him for providing a source of such quality oral history -- something that was once only gained by having the opportunity to assist a designer then buying them a drink over dinner.  In 1 allows us all to have that experience of being a fly on the wall for the crucial conversations that matter for our professions today and provides important historical record for the others that follow boldly in our footsteps.  Thank you, Cory, for recording what matters.


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The Assistant Lighting Designer's Toolkit and ALDToolkit.com © Anne E. McMills
  • ALD Toolkit
    • Table of Contents
    • Synopsis video
  • Press 2nd Ed.
  • About the Author
    • Contact
    • Blog