My most impactful leadership experience at USC has been in my student job working as a lighting technician for the Department of Theatre and Dance. I have had this job since my first semester Freshman year, so over time as I gained more experience and knowledge I have been able to take on increasing responsibilities. Over the years I have been part of a crew that ranged in size from me and one other student my second year up to seven people this year. As the lighting crew, our goal is to complete all of the technical work required to execute the lighting designs for each of the Department's four Main Stage shows every year.
To reach this goal for each production we follow a fairly standard routine of hang, circuiting (plugging everything in), troubleshooting, focus, and tech/completing designer's notes. I learned this system outside the classroom while working on shows, the steps follow a very common sense sequence that doesn't need much explanation. For example, you can't start troubleshooting problems until the lights are plugged in and can actually turn on. What I learned in lighting classes was the rationale for why we go to so much effort to light a show and different methods of doing it that result in different visuals styles for the productions.
Beginning my Junior year, I began to take on more of a leadership position within the crew when my boss hired several freshmen. For the most part, they knew very little about lighting, so I was responsible for helping to teach them. I also had increasingly frequent opportunities to lead the team during work hours. On those days I was responsible for interpreting paperwork and assigning tasks accordingly, then keeping everyone on task to fulfill each of the steps, usually while also dealing with the more complicated problems that tend to come up. Then as the lighting designer on The 39 Steps and Our Town, my role increased even more and I was more frequently responsible for directing our crew since I was the one making all of the final decisions as well.
My leadership in this position involved detail oriented technical problem solving and day to day, routine sorts of tasks. The job involves the same steps for every show and the problems that come up are mostly the same ones that occur every time we work in a particular space. But that doesn't mean it's not important. Every small job we complete is one necessary component to the success of the overall lighting design and ultimately the artistic value of the entire show. In my key insights I described ways in which light contributes to the success of a production, so I won't go into detail on that again here, but to ensure those effects happen requires me to draw on the concepts I discussed in my key insights and all of my technical knowledge.
For example, I will use my experience working on Our Town to demonstrate what I mean about my leadership. As I mentioned above, I was the lighting designer for this show, which is in itself a leadership position and I was also leading the crew during work hours. In a professional setting these would be two separate jobs, but this is a good example because it was a time when I was responsible for all the leadership tasks I had taken on individually at various other times.
As the lighting designer, I generated paperwork and a computer drafted light plot that provide detailed information about the type and placement of each lighting instrument. Then during work hours I supervised the team in the implementation phase of my design, when we hang, circuit, and focus each of the approximately 200 lighting instruments. I provided instructions on what needed to be done and spent a lot of my time organizing numbers, which is an important but complex part of lighting technology. One advantage to being the designer as well during this stage was that when we ran into unexpected problems, I could make a decision on what to do about it right away. This entire stage of any show is highly collaborative, as I work with both my fellow crew members as well as the other designers and department staff.
Execution is one of the steps involved in the creative process as it plays out in the specific field of lighting. This part is important, because each individual light is an important puzzle piece, a tool that contributes to the artistic possibilities later in the design process and determines the effectiveness of the visual storytelling. If the designer doesn't have the right technical tools in the right places, they can't achieve their artistic goals. Technical mastery is necessary before the higher level of storytelling can be achieved.
My experience in the lighting crew is impactful to me because I have learned much more technically while working on shows than I ever have in a class. But the times I have been able to take on leadership within the crew have been even more impactful, because those are the times when I was able to use the ideas and skills I learned in classes and apply them to a hands on experience in the field I am preparing to pursue.