Well I’ve obviously been busy, as it’s been 12 months since my last blog post and since then I’ve worked over 22 Festivals and Events across 4 countries.

Parachute International was formed with Goose McGrath in December of 2012 to encompass all our festival work.
Please check the website www.weparachute.com

My other Theatre Entity, The Rubix Cube designed and toured Doku Rai to Adelaide, produced The Bee Project in Kuala Lumpur and has some big shows in the pipeline.

Here’s a quick run down of my work over the last 11 months…

UK Tour 2012 included:

- Stock Manager for Peppermint Bars at Rockness Festival in Scotland
- Site Crew at London Pleasure Gardens, London
- Wholesale Stock Assistant for Central Catering Services at Isle of Wight Festival, England
- Site Crew at T4 On The Beach in Weston Super Mare, England
- Crew Kitchen Manager at Latitude Festival for Orange Festival Foods in Suffolk, England
- Deputy Liaison Officer at Secret Garden Party in Huntingdon, England
- Site Assistant at Boomtown Fair in Winchester, England
- Crew Kitchen Manager at Leeds Festival for Orange Festival Foods in Leeds, England
- Traffic Control at Electric Picnic Festival, Stradbally, Ireland
- Site Manger at Brent Celebrates a Golden Summer, London, England

Australian Summer 2012/2013

- Site Assistant at Parklife Melbourne
- Site Assistant at Sydney Motor Show for Ford & Imagination
- Venue Manager at ‘WhereHouse’ for Melbourne Music Week and Marks The Spot
- Art Crew at Harvest ‘The Gathering’ Melbourne
- Decor Manager at Stereosonic Melbourne
- Site Assistant at Summadayze Melbourne
- Heavy Machinery Crew at Rainbow Serpent Festival, Lexton, Victoria
- Site Manager at Moonee Valley Festival for Fruitbowl Productions
- Site Crew at I’ll Be Your Mirror for All Tomorrow’s Parties, Altona, Victoria
- Event Crew at Soundwave, Melbourne
- Site Assistant at Good Life Underage Festival, Melbourne
- Site Assistant at Future Music Festival, Melbourne

And I’ve just returned from Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival where I was Site Crew, straight into the theatre for ‘Song’ by Ranters Theatre with The Rubix Cube.

What an epic season, a real highlights was Boomtown Fair, just the coolest bunch of people, with such an epic festival. Also a massive shout out to the team at Bluesfest, such a pleasure of a festival to work.

I am winding down for a couple of months once SONG is complete. I’m working Bendigo Groovin the Moo and then start at Glastonbury Festival in early June.

Big things to come people!

Cheers!

I created a video (time lapse) of the main stage being built here in Maitland, you can check it out on the Groovin the Moo YouTube page, or below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll be posting a good ol’ story here when I’m not as busy.

Follow my posts at geordiebarker.com/follow

Alan, Abraham, Charity, Gangbang and Datin Saras onstage at Klue, Doh!

On Saturday the 3rd of December 2011, Klue, Doh! opened at MapKL’s Black Box. Representing The Rubix Cube, our team has been instrumental in the realisation of this project by local production company TerryAndTheCuz, providing Technical Direction, Lighting and Sound Design and Stage & OH&S Management.

The concept of this production has been developed over the past 5 years by local company TerryAndTheCuz, bringing myself and The Rubix Cube on board to mount the project. The show is designed to present a family on the brink of collapse following the murder of the Datuk, Jackson Mo, a successful business man, with some questionable money lending practices. The question is not “who done it” but more who did it first.

The play is designed to present to two separate audiences simultaneously, one in the study, one in the living room; essentially perform the play in its entirety twice, swapping the audiences at interval. This poses some challenging but exciting problems for the lighting, sound & vision, not forgetting the cast, set, props and script.

It has so far received rave review, one blog saying “It was genius!!! Whichever side you sit in”, another saying ”Overall, it is exactly what the producer wanted to achieve – to offer theatre goers not just a play, but an experience. I highly recommend that you watch it”.

As well as coverage from Klue Magazine, The Star Newspaper, TimeOutKL,Yuber Active, My Tamil Channel, We Are Malaysian Made (includingPodcast), New Straits Times,

The media reviews are due in midweek.

If you happen to find yourself around Kuala Lumpur, and want to catch some great theatre, head to tix.my or terryandthecuz.com and book a ticket whilst you still can.

The show runs for two weeks from the 3rd of December at MapKL (Solarius Datamas) for more information about tickets and show times, visit www.tix.my

Tech Desk @ MapKL

Concept

The concept of this production is to present a family on the brink of collapse following the murder of the Datuk, Jackson Mo, a successful business man, with some questionable money lending practices. The cast consists of 8 characters, each very unique in their role in the story. There is the almost divorced Datin (former wife of the murdered man), her brother who is a seemly simple and dirty old guy, the hilarious Indonesian maid, the removed son returning to make up with the family, the mistress and fiancé of Datuk Jackson, the young police inspector, and the ASP (Assistant Inspector of Police).

The play is designed to present to two separate audiences simultaneously, one in the study, one in the living room; essentially perform the play in its entirety twice, swapping the audiences at interval. This poses some challenging but exciting problems for the lighting, sound & vision, not forgetting the cast, set, props and script. In the creative development earlier this year in March, I was positioned in the wings, using a series of mirrors to see both sides of the stage. During the creative development we were limited to one audience as we could not sound proof the theatre. This time though, we are playing both simultaneously, so a system of audio foldback and CCTV will give me the cue points for Lighting, Sound and AV.

Operations Desk for development of Klue, Doh! March 2011, MapKL

Lighting

Our lighting rig involves some very amazing practical fittings from ALFO (www.alfo.com.my), and makes use of the in house lighting stock. The venue is not exactly fitted out like a normal theatre, with no patching to speak of, and lights fitted with modified IEC plugs, which is interesting to say the least. The leads are then hard wired into the back of the dimmers, so no re-patching is possible.

Sound

Rob Stewart is the sound designer and is representing The Rubix Cube alongside myself. Rob is designing not only foley sound effects for the show, but a soundscape encompassing the two room concept. Control is to be done by Qlab with some customisation of the standard sound rig in the Black Box at MapKL, including repatching the sound system, much to the horror of the venue tech. We have assured him we know what he is doing.

Vision

There is also some vision that is quite cool, tho I am forbidden from discussing it (by the Director) until the show has launched. More info soon! And probably pics too!

It has been quite an experience so far, and we are about a week away from Bump In where I am guessing I will experience many more funny, horrifying and entertaining things.

Stay tuned folks!

P.S. Thought you all might find entertaining the little security buggy that patrols the centre that the Theatre is located in… I think people will be more scared that the security guards might cover them in pink… Not the most intimidating vehicle!

An awesomely pink security buggy that patrols the centre we are doing the show in.

But first let me acknowledge that it has been a mighty long time between posts on this blog, my last almost 7 months ago from Singapore. This has been due to the sheer craziness of my time since then. A quick recap will now follow:

- Flew back to the UK to work on Leeds Festival
- Moved onto Bestival in the Isle of White
- Ran away in my awesome Volvo (Tony) to Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany (for 4 hours), Austria (for a night in a shack), Italy, Switzerland and France
- Just made it back to England to fly back to Australia
- Worked on three shows at Melbourne International Arts Festival (Stage Crew, Stage Manager, Artist liaison)
- Ran around crazily try to catch The Amazing Race Australia (Production Assistant)
- Worked a 100+ hour week at Stereosonic Festival (Site Crew)
- Surprising enjoyed a metal festival called No Sleep Til (Site Crew & Production Assistant)
- Brought in the New Year on one of the best Festival sites I have ever seen at Falls Festival in Marion Bay (Gates Crew)
- Battled through the dust, mud and sinking ground whilst tractor loving at Rainbow Serpent Music Festival (Site Crew)
- Did a bit of Lighting Sculpture consultancy (Shhh, you’ll find out more later)
- Got nicely sunburnt at St Kilda Festival with an amazing bunch of people (and a record crowd) (Site Logistics Crew)
- And some stuff I missed I’m sure.

My Lovely Set Model

Anyhoo, I’m here in Bangsar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, enjoying the lovely 32 degree heat and 80% humidity whilst I plod through a CAD design and try and fix some problems that have already arisen. Also multi-tasking setting up emails for the company and fixing some links on the website, ah the life of a nerd & theatre worker, endless skillset.

I’ll be posting a few more updates through the process as we have constant internet supply here at the office and in the theatre which is a nice change from the middle of a field at a music festival.

Hope this post finds everyone well, please let me know what your news is by commenting on this post.

Cheers,

Geordie

We were to have 20 publically available toilets in Stone Circle (Kings Meadow) which is the number one spot for late night mischief and nitrous inhalation; 30 at the backstage of the newest area of the festival, The Park. 5 in the VIP Tipi Village, home to Radiohead, K T Tunstall, Lilly Allen, Stings Daughter (and friends), Jarvis Cocker, and a few more celebrities; 10 in the Tipi Village; 2 backstage at Green Futures (the hippy area); 2 at The Bimble Inn (our best mates, cos they give us free cider) and 2 at The Rabbit Hole, another venue in The Park, run by a very crazy man by the name of Hamish.

We met with Lucy, the green initiatives manager who had essentially booked us, and discussed tickets. We were severely understaffed, with only 12 tickets to run 72 toilets, which sucked because that meant we were in for a hell of a weekend.

We had a delivery to site once again by our awesome Tractors and trailers, unloaded our boxes and frames and could begin the build. We had a pretty good team onboard, the absolute A-Team to be exact, consisting of Mattia, Squeak, Hamish, Frances and I.

We had some entertaining stories from the build as usual, my particular favorite involved clearing out some rather large stinging nettle bushes from a location we were to build toilets. I asked the site manger (Roger) and English guy who also worked in Australia for a wipper-snipper and he directed me to “Red Barn”, essentially the Glastonbury stores. So off I drove, up the top of site to Red Barn, located near the site office. I walked into Red Barn to find about 20 guys watching the telly, as England were playing someone in the world cup. It took a while to get some attention, and when I did this is the conversation that followed:
Me: “Hey mate, I’m after a wipper-snipper, Roger from The Park sent me up.”

Storeman: “You want a what…?!”
Me: “A wipper-snipper?”
Storeman: “A wipper-snapper… You want a small boy??! We don’t have those here, don’t know what Roger on about… This ain’t no orphanage!”
Me: “Nah mate, I need something to cut down some bushes… You know, petrol driven, long thing, has two wires on the end that spin around and…”
Storeman: “Oh, a STRIMMER!?!”
Me: “Righto, a strimmer it is!”
Storeman: “They’re both out, don’t know when they’ll be back…”
Silence for a bit
Storeman: “Try Greenpeace compound, they have a bit of kit like that”

After the hilarity of trying to explain to a Somerset man, who supposedly speaks the same language what I wanted, the irony of having to visit the greenpeace compound to borrow something that can hack away the greenery escaped me. So off I went in search of Greenpeace. I eventually found it and was directed to Storeman Steve, a man who would have looked right at home behind the controls of an army helicopter from Vietnam, with full moustache and weathered face. Steve said he had a scythe that would do the job if I had enough “strength and commitment” (his words), but I had to ask Dave who was working in the chainsaw compound. Yes, Greenpeace had a chainsaw compound, actually the only people onsite allowed to use them. I asked Dave and he was fine with it, so Steve collected my drivers license as a deposit and I was off, back to my giant bush of stinging nettles at “The Park”.

I had never used a Scythe before, and quite enjoyed the sheer mental-ness of swinging it nice and low and watching the bushes fall at the stems. Hacking away at a busy of nettles 8m long by 4m deep was no easy task and by the end of the task I was covered in nettle stings from stray bushes falling and was quite exhausted. You can see my handiwork below in my before, during and after photos.

By this stage the festival was very much taking shape, and amazing vehicles, plant and infrastructure was rolling onsite. We saw an amazingly cool 4WD mini, complete with fatty tires and matte paint job. The observation tower, central to The Park was also being erected.

We were down to our final two blocks to build, Bimble Inn and Rabbit Hole when I ran into Hamish, saying he needed help up at Rabbit Hole. I came up to investigate and found Frances and Squeak looking at the Hilux and scratching their heads. It was parked hard up against a fence post, in a big hole on the side of a reasonable hill. Turned out Hamish had directed Frances to back it in there, then realized it was going to be a struggle to get it out, so Hamish threw the keys to Squeak to do some Squeak driving madness/magic on it, and it had just slid along the side of the incline and into the fence post. There wasn’t much damage done, just a scratch really, but now was the task of trying to get it away from the post and up the hill without more damage.

We called in the cavalry, Squeak, in the straight mast forklift with a snatch strap. First we tried to get the fork to pull the Hilux up the hill and away from the pole. It was quickly clear that this was not going to happen and so, the pole had to go. From there, it was a simple task of just pulling the Hilux 2m further uphill and out of the hole. We had only had this car for 2 days and I had already given both Hamish and Squeak the lecture on not trying to actively thrash our vehicles, clearly fallen on deaf ears.

From there, we were built and ready to rock Glastonbury. We had some new additions to the team, Bart & Tim (two more Aussies from Melbourne), Sid (The Farmer), his daughter Anna and her cousin Shannon. I had developed a 4 hour rotating shift system, whereby there would be someone on duty from 6am through 2am, and if needed, like for example a changeover, other team members would come on board and assist. It worked like a dream, and actually meant that we could finish shift, switch off knowing we had passed the duties and information onto the next crew and head off to enjoy the festival.

Squeak and I had done the morning shift and had the evening off, so we met up with and ex poo crew member (Sloanie) and headed off to see Snoop Dog at the Pyramid Stage (the largest at Glastonbury). The main arena is crazy, and apparently can hold up to 140,000 people. It wasn’t too busy as they had created a football (soccer) field where they were showing the soccer, so a fair few people were doing that. We met up with a few more of Sloanie’s mates up the top of the arena under the big tree (shade is GOOD!) and then Snoop Dogg started. I had one of those “Oh my god I hate my job” moments and Squeak and I were squealing like little girls. We all decided to get a bit closer and wondered down the hill to a lovely spot just in front of the disabled viewing platform (big tip for all of you, it’s generally pretty free because people can’t see past it to see the available space). Snoop Dogg finished on a pretty awesome note, with a big speech about how you should be greatful for everyday that you are given and that he has three things he does each morning, finishing on his signature “Smoke weed everyday” and then dropped Bob Marley to walk out to. Needless to say, it got a big response.

We had even more time free and decided to stay and watch the next band play, which was Vampire Weekend. A lot of people headed off to see Florence & The Machine, but we they are on the bill of a few more festivals we are booked to do, so we stayed. There were some guys sitting near us messing with people, using a plastic turd, which we were entertained by for a while and suggested we should get one to mess with people in the loos.

Vampire Weekend started and I have to admit I was quite excited. Squeak and I decided to get a bit closer as the crowd had thinned out a fair bit, and we ended up almost front centre. We were next to a very entertaining fellow who would answer the lead singers rhetorical questions with much gusto. At one point, the question was asked, “Are you guys having a good time?” to which the over excited crowd member replied “F**k yeah, let’s get f**king naked!!!” and sure enough, the next song was “A Punk”, a very crowd pleasing tune, and I look across to my right to see this gentleman completely starker’s, thing swinging in the breeze. Very very funny!

Squeak and I were on the late shift and so we used our very cool hospitality bands to do the short walk behind the main stage to the Other Stage, and headed back to The Park. It was a pretty easy run and we absolutely smashed it. We finished up around 1am and decided to meet up with a friend of mine from last year, and headed to the new “Trash City”, now called District 9 and the Unfairgrounds.

This place was just epic, a full scale set is built throughout the arena, and a range of awesome ‘trash’ is used, such as black hawk helicopters, old army bomber planes and some awesome modified tractors and cars that drive around. I can’t describe to you how amazing this place is, the photos don’t do it justice. We also noticed the amazing dome from Standon Calling last year, hopefully we are bringing this dome over to Australia for summer in the next few years. We headed around the unfairgrounds, finding little clubs here and there and generally thinking it was pretty mental. We then headed up to Stone Circle and had a chillout. Lucy went to bed with a mate and I headed back to find Squeak around the Park.

We enjoyed our sleep in and had a pretty slow day. After work, I met up with Ella, a marshal from Sunrise Festival, a few weeks before. She dragged me to see Shakira, which her mates were very much into. Ella and I were ready for a great bagging session, but as it turned out she was pretty amazing. We were waiting for the backup dancers the first few songs, and eventually they appeared to many cheers from the audience. We had the afternoon shift, so we headed back to The Park, quite a long walk, probably about 45 minutes to an hour including traffic.

We finished around 10 and headed back out to the festival. We met up with Ella and her friends again and decided to experience Arcadia. It is run by a company called Arcadia and they are hired at many festivals throughout the summer, on varying scales. They usually feature a large staging area, pyrotechnics, acrobats and general craziness. It didn’t disappoint, and the area was enclosed in London style street lamps, that were actually flame throwers, that went off to the beat of the music.

As if that wasn’t enough there were girls on each side of the staging area with very impressive flame throwers. The music was mainly electro, and Squeak, Ella, Her Friend and I were in quite an amount of disbelief at the epic scale and general randomness. Then came a crowd favorite, Nirvana with Lithium and they quite simply rocked. We called it a night when Arcadia stopped playing around 4, and headed off to get some well deserved rest.

We loved the shift system, and worked early morning and then again in the afternoon and then it was off to play again. We met up with one of Squeaks mates called Geeza and saw some band called Faithless who we thought we didn’t know. Geeza assured us that we did, and eventually “I Can’t Get No Sleep” came on, and the penny dropped. We cut faithless short and used the sneaky backstage path to get to the Other Stage to see LCD Soundsystem. We missed my favorite song “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”, but never the less was a good set. We headed back to the mainstage for the Sunday night headliner, and joined almost 140,000 people to pay tribute to Stevie Wonder.

Amazingly, we ran into Mattia, Bart and Tim in the arena, which is just pure and utter luck. We worked our way forward and settled in for some magic. Magic it was, and I even shared the love with home (Australia), calling them during the song “I just called to say I love you”. Needless to say, my parents were quite entertained. It was a magical end to an awesome festival, and as this is Glastonbury’s 40^th year, Michael Evis, the man who started the festival all those years ago, and the farmer of the land appeared onstage with Stevie Wonder to sing Happy Birthday to the festival.

We joined the masses heading out of the arena and headed to The Park to have one last beer and chill out. We had absolutely smashed the festival and our loos were a hit. We had worked a very managed shift roster and worked very hard when we were on, then communicated the situation to the next crew and shuffled shifts for bin changeovers. It was just ideal, and gave us an awesome amount of time to actually switch off and enjoy the music. Squeak and I couldn’t believe it, and there were many times in the crowd that we looked at each other and remarked “God I hate my job” HAHA!

Squeak and I were exempt from pack up on the Monday to go on a very important mission, tatting. Now that word may be foreign to you all, but essentially you get to discover the amazing array of stuff left by the punters. Including, as shown in the photo below, a massive amount of beer!

Glastonbury Festival is an amazing festival, you just get lost in it, an it’s not even for the amazing lineup, as you could never get around and see everyone. It’s actually the little things, like Trash City and Arcadia and awesome little secrets like the Rabbit Hole bar, with a secret back room and toilets with the best view of the festival. I will be back, I’d like to make a habbit of this festival, even if it requires saving money and just coming over for the week.

We have a few weeks off now, before the next festival, hopefully some prep time and time to recover! Until then, cheers!

Sunrise Celebration Second Arena @ Sunrise Celebration

We hit the ground running, with Squeak heading to site with Hamish that afternoon. We had been given control of ‘Little Poland’, an alleyway of the farm, with Caravans, lots of vehicles and a lot of crap. It attracted this name due to the large number of Polish workers who had previously inhabited it. We were to rename it ‘Little Australia’. We had been given a large caravan with lounge, kitchen and  double bedroom, as well as ‘Terminal One’, an old racetrack officials building to base our operations out of. We were getting quite a good setup.

Our Awesome Site Ute (Peugeot 306 Hatch) @ Sunrise

My task for the day was to clean out and order these two new buildings, and what a task it was. Neither had power or water or gas, I of corse started with the power, finding quite quickly that it was fruitless and the professionals would have to be called in.

The next day, we moved onsite to Sunrise Celebration, a hippy style festival, located near the very cute and quaint little town of Bruton. We joined Greg and Gabbi (The Hungarians), and Mattia (The Italian). We had 9 blocks of loos, totaling 50 cubicles, spread throughout the site. Our gear was delivered by Sid (the farmer) and one of his workers Leshek (a funny Polish guy) using two Tractors and very, very large trailers.

Unloading the Tractor trailer @ Sunrise Celebration

The previous year, Sunrise Celebration was my first taste of an English Festival, after only just recovering from my dislocated knee cap. This year we had a few familiar faces (Hamish, Greg & Gabbi) and some new additions (Mattia, Squeak & Frances). We also had 25 volunteers who would clean the loos 3 times daily in exchange for a ticket to the festival, so our job was to be very nicely structured.

Geordie Mirror Shot - Sunrise Celebration 2010, Bruton, England

It was quite strange to be back on the festival site, and I reminisced quite a lot, especially driving through the one way streets of the very cute local town, Bruton. Things at Sunrise had changed quite a lot from the previous year; it had grown to be much bigger, had an extended main arena, and a lot more venues.

One of the funnier moments of the weekend involved our Crew Food. We were originally issued food tickets for a very pleasant food venue called Buddafields, a fully vegan café. The food was nice, and serving sizes quite generous, but unfortunately the shift to no meat, and a whole lot of mung beans, meant that the crew turned into more of a marching fart band. At one point, Hamish (the boss) was talking, and Mattia (the Italian) farted so loudly and continually that the boss actually stopped talking, a feat that for those who know him, defies belief.

Great Costumed Patrons - Sunrise Celebration 2010, Bruton, England

Eventually, we were provided food tickets for the crew food tent, catered for by the farm, so a lot of hearty meals were in order. I have a hilarious video, which I will try to upload, featuring our first meat meal in a week. Needless to say, we were quite excited, particularly Mattia, who is obsessed with food, and eats an amazing amount of it.

Our lovely 7.5t Truck - Sunrise Celebration 2010, Bruton, England

Squeak and I thoroughly enjoyed cruising through the festival site in the big seven tonne truck with tunes blaring, usually Australian Artists like Hilltop Hoods, Ash Grunwald, The Cat Empire etc, and entertaining the Green Stewards who were posted on each of the gates and junctions. There were two girls in particular that enjoyed our comings and goings, Ella and (I might have forgotten the other girl), purely due to them having the graveyard shift and us making it pass slightly quicker.

The management of the Volunteer was left to Squeak and myself, and was quite entertaining, with a few members of the volunteer poo crew being on substances 24/7 or just generally being trippers. We were pretty tight on attendance on the first day, but as soon as the volunteer crew realized that they had a pretty sweet gig, the had some love and commitment and wanted to come to work.

Amazing Scissor Lift - Sunrise Celebration 2010, Bruton, England

The gig was a smashing success, with a very high level of service, despite a bit of a lack of toilet paper supply (badly managed by the festval). The only other notable story from the weekend shouldn’t really be documented online, but lets just say it involved a pipe failure, a goldern shower and Geordie joining a very select club… Email me if you want the complete story!

Our packdown was quite smooth, and didn’t require any stupidly long days as we had two weeks to the next gig, Gastonbury. Which is the worlds largest Greenfield festival, around 210,000 people. There was only one hitch on bump out, when Squeak managed to fall onto the back of the truck, bend himself over the bar on the back and was subsequently rushed to Hospital on a full spinal isolation board. He ended up being fine, just muscular damage, and was discharged that afternoon.

Toilet Framed Sunset @ Sunrise Celebration... Fitting Really!

It has been quite nice to be back on the crew, and in the lifestyle of festivals. You don’t want to know the number of days we can go without a shower, but everyone around you smells just as bad as you do, so its not really an issue. Onto Glastonbury Festival next, looking forward to the bands and the craziness of 200,000 people on one festival site.

Photo of a recent dance work @ VCA

As you may know, I have just finished my studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, which I undertook over 4 years. During my time at the college I was exposed to a wide range of artists, giving industry connections and a skillset that I will be eternally greatful for. Recently, the college has been struggling for money, and as such (just before I started), it merged with Melbourne University. This was not much more than a firming up of the finances of the college and was not seen as much of a threat.

Doorway @ VCA

Last year, the college started to bleed; it was renamed the FACULTY OF THE VICTORIAN COLLEGE OF THE ARTS. The Victorian College of the Arts, as an instution did not exist anymore. Recently, the University of Melbourne 2010 Business Plan was released, stating that the Schools of Dance, Drama and Production will be condensed into the “School of Performance” while the Schools of Film and Television and Visual Arts will be diluted into the “School of Exhibition”. (The School of Music has already been amalgamated with the University’s music department as reflected in the College’s recent rebranding as the V.C.A.M.)

This is the first direct hit for the college. You can read more about the changes and cuts to this wonderful arts college at www.savevca.org

Iron gates of the Art School @ VCA

WE NEED YOUR HELP

- Head over to www.savevca.org and take 5 minutes to write to the politicians that could save the VCA.
- Follow the campaign on twitter at www.twitter.com/savevca
- Join the campaign page on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/o8jxwl
- Join the mailing list by visiting http://tinyurl.com/rcsqte
- Write to the media outlining your contact with the college and reference the site (savevca.org)
- Talk to your friends about the changes and spread the word

Together, we can force the state and federal governments to fund this amazing arts college.

If you would like further information, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for your time!

Geordie

A while back, in fact in April of last year, I wrote about my frustration at my local council for a parking fine I recieved in error. See the original post HERE! I just received an email yesterday from my local members stating that the Parking Infringement Notice will be revoked and all monies paid will be reimbursed.

Here is what I did…

1. Wrote to my local member of council
2. Included all my previous appeal information
3. Begged him to have someone with half a brain look at it

So in the most professional way possible…

I WIN, I WIN, I WIN!!!!! DAMN MONEY MAKING PARKING INSPECTORS….

We now return you to your regulary scheduled program…

“don’t give up your day job”, could I now please direct you to the donate link on the right hand colomn.

>>>> >>>

Packing and “Packing”

I did a test pack this evening, and had no idea where to begin, so to procrastinate, I went looking on the iPhone App Store for Travel Applications. I stumbled across one called “Packing”. It’s pretty much what it says it is; it allows you to create packing lists for your travels from pre existing templates, and then add items from the pre-existing / customisable database. The application is great, and it gave me a “general trip” template to work off, which made life very easy for me. I added and deleted things as I needed, and changed the title of some things, like “flip flops” to “thongs” and “flashlight” to “torch”. I had figured it out, so now I had no excuse not to begin.

To give you some idea of how I am travelling I have included a photo of the two (and a half) bags below. I have my Mountain Designs 75L Pack that has a little detachable day pack on the front of it (15L). For use during the day, I have the Lowepro Slingshot 350 AW, which has the ability to carry my digital SLR, laptop and other such goodies. See my earlier travel post for more info.

Mountain Designs 75L Pack with Detachable 15L Daypack,
Lowepro Slingshot 350 AW

Travel Gadgets

Now I am going for 9 months, and unlike my last trip (2 1/2 months) I cant be without my tech gadgets. So this time I have brought the lot.

The Innards of my pack, please click on the photo for an annotated version.

Communication
My black MacBook is coming along, so that I can keep you all up to date with the happenings. Also by my side is my iPhone 16GB (with Crumpler belt holster) which will not only provide me with calls and messages, but also music, games, travel podcasts and localised applications. To keep my information safe from theft, I am bringing along a 320GB Hard Drive to use as a Time Machine (Mac OS X Back Up Utility) Backup. That will also be accompanied by a 120GB hard drive that I will use to move my photos around and free up room on my MacBook hard drive. With these comes all the usual USB leads, iPod leads and a computer lock.

Photography
I am taking the plunge and bringing my Nikon D80 Digital SLR Camera, alongside my Olympus compact digital (the one that the dog eats in the advert). I am hoping that alongside the usual barrage of travel photos I can capture some of the locals, their lives and some arty shots. I plan to keep a dedicated section on my Flickr page to these sort of photos. The Lowepro Slingshot backpack (shown above) is designed to house the digital SLR and slings around to your front for easy access. The compact digital has a belt pouch. Due to these cameras taking different memory cards (Nikon takes SD cards, Olympus takes XD cards), I have purchase an 8 in 1 Card Reader. For security, both cameras have removable batteries, so that I can keep the camera safely locked up in my bag whilst the battery recharges.

Kathmandu Packing Cells

Clothes and such
Now I won’t bore you with my complete packing list, but I do need to mention one amazingly useful thing I found at the Kathmandu christmas sale… Packing Cells. They are pretty simple, just little rectangular shaped bags with zipper tops that come in varying sizes. Very simple, but they allow me to be able to pack and unpack my bag in a matter of minutes. From my test pack yesterday, my bag came to 16kg with a bit of room to spare, although I am looking at packing slightly lighter and then buying some clothes in Asia.

Utilities
This is kind of the miscellaneous category. I am bringing an Australian power board, so that I can recharge a number of items using the one plug adapter. I am hoping to get some work in the UK, so my trusty Leatherman, and Maglite are a must. I have my Kathmandu Travel Alarm Clock with built in torch. I brought this purely so I wouldnt have to leave my phone out overnight (worried about theft). When I travel between airports, I generally don’t use my padlocks, instead I use cable ties, and make sure that when I am collecting my bags, the cable ties are intact. This poses one problem, how do you get the cable ties un-done at the other end? Enter the Swiss Card, that lives in the front pocket of my pack (the only pocket I don’t use as it can’t be locked). This business card sized swiss army knife has scissors, problem solved!

Reading and Writing
I plan to take my Lonely Planet Western Europe Guide, and probably a novel, but that’s to be confirmed (I’m not much of a reader). I am hoping to convince the Lonely Planet people to give me the guide I have purchased in digital form so that I can read it on my computer and iPhone, but it’s not looking likely at the moment. I am also taking a small notebook to fill with random thoughts or things that aren’t worthy of being posted on my webpage. A sharpie is a definate, and a pen or two (that will most likely get lost at the first airport I visit).

Security
Now call me a little paranoid, but when you are taking as many expensive items as I am, you want to be sure your pack poses some challenges to get into. I have managed not to loose my three combination locks from my last trip, one of which includes a cable, giving you the ability to tether your pack to some study item (usually a bunk bed). Last time I went overseas, I didn’t take my computer, but did have a phone and a camera, and these locks kept the theives out. This time, I am going for something a little more hardcore. I am employing the services of a group of small ninja that will follow me around and sleep under my bed. No, wait… that was Plan A, Plan B comes in the form of the PacSafe Exomesh 120. It is essentially a large net of wire that wraps around your bag and then tethers to a pole or bed and prevents access to your bag. It is a very full on solution, and I think I will only use it in backpackers where there is a high chance of theft.

Go Design Padlocks and the PacSafe Exomesh 120

]]> http://geordiebarker.com/archives/391/feed 1 http://geordiebarker.com/archives/391 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Geordiebarker/~3/WjijbfWHeO4/286 http://geordiebarker.com/archives/286#comments Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:14:04 +0000 Geordie http://geordiebarker.com/?p=286

Just uploaded onto my flickr site are a number of shots from Season 2 of the VCA Dance Transmutation Performance at Gasworks in November 2008. It has taken a while for these shots to get here, as they had been lost on an SD card at the bottom of my bag.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIp1H9D4SGE

Various Photos – VCA Dance Transmutation CLICK HERE to see the full set

So as some of you may know I have been working on the Melbourne International Arts Festival this year as a secondment student. It is a requirement of my 3rd year studies at the VCA. I have been periodically posting updates of my work on Brightkite and Facebook, but thought it would be appropriate to give a little wrap up of my time, here on my blog. (this is kind of a prologue to the 1000 word report I have to write for uni anyway, but more interesting!)

My work started about a month out from the festival, at the festival office on Flinders Street in the city. I was inducted into the office by Russ Snelling, the production coordinator for “Outdoor Events, Fed Square, and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)”. Russ was to be my direct supervisor alongside Genevieve Cizevskis, the Stage Manager for the “Opening Night Concert”, and Rus’ assistant (of sorts). I was quite literally introduced to every member of the team present in the office that day, and I mean everyone. I met Pru in the Publicity department, Pia in Marketing, Rachael in Artist Liaison, right up to the director of the festival, Kristy Edmunds. The office is very well equipped, and is on the 5th floor overlooking Federation Square. Russ and Gen were situated in ‘the fish tank’, a room lined with glass bricks next to Reception. I was given my own desk in the Operations end of the office. The other end of the office is the Publicity end. I was signed up to the network, given an email address and encouraged to look at all the documents on the server to get a better understanding of how the Festival runs.

Longing Belonging Land - Birrarung Marr

My first week consisted of me sourcing quotations for various equipment, adding information to the Festival’s database (DataFest), and learning the ropes of the office. DataFest was a big learning curve, but it was created in house, so tech help was never far away. It is essentially a very tailored and amazingly useful database, that is given a massive amount of information, from crew contact details, venue specifications, supplier quotation information, right through to the flight information of the incoming artists. It is all based off a web server, so staff at the festival simply open an Internet browser (in this case only Internet Explorer), log in and are greeted with the home screen, with database news and a number of quick-links to useful places. There are then tabs on the navigation bar to the left of the screen that give you access to the other areas. The power of DataFest is its ability to generate very specific schedules and reports. After a week of data entry I was able to see the efficiency of the system when I was asked to produce a schedule for one of the drivers employed by the festival. It was as simple as clicking, typing her name, selecting the date range, specifying how much detail to use, and then clicking print. It took me under two minutes including the time to walk to the printer. I wasn’t alone in my learning curve on DataFest as this was the first year that Operations had used the system. Each year they port another department onto the system, next year it will be publicity.

The start of the Chris Doyle Ecstatic City Bump In

I was nearing the end of my 4th week at the office, and the festival was rapidly approaching. As the days counted down, more and more people were appearing in the office. I lost my desk about 4 days out from the opening to one of the artist liaisons. We were set to have a very full first few days, and alongside the preparations, we had our first event. It was part of the Ecstatic City project, by Chris Doyle, due to be constructed out the front of the National Gallery of Victoria. The performance piece involved photos of local people, and this filming day was to do just that. We set up nice and early, out the front of Champions Racing Museum, in Federation Square. It was the day before Grand Final, and as such the Square was also hosting a number of other events, such as a live sunrise filming. Our setup consisted of three sets of satellite uprights and black curtains, to make the backdrop for the photos. The camera gear was supplied by VCA Art Students and a hire company called Borges Imaging, and was operated by the artist and VCA Student assistants. Our job for the day was traffic management, making sure the curtains didn’t blow over, and feeding people to the site.

Workers work on a miniplex - National Gallery of Victoria Moat

Chris Doyle’s Ecstatic City Installation was our first day of “real work”. We started at eleven thirty on Sunday morning, securing the parking spaces, starting to set out bollards, and marking up the site. It was interesting to be on site that morning, and just watch the passers by. I never quite comprehended how many people there are in that precinct on a weekend, I am normally charging through there to get to uni on time. We were in for a long wait, as the first set of contractors wouldn’t be arriving until five. The contractors included Element Rigging, who were constructing the scaff towers (projection towers), and OnSet Arts who were building the walkway and the miniplexes (little projection rooms) on the water. Hede Electrics had already installed a catanery wire, and power box in the days previous. We were also to expecting a signage company to install signs on the towers, but it was to be confirmed, as the length of construction was an estimate.

Lighting Test - Chris Doyle

Once the contractors arrived, the work really started. Russ and NGV Security gave us all an induction, we signed the appropriate forms, the trucks arrived, gear was unloaded, and the structures started taking shape. First to be built was the walkway on top of the moat, then access could be gained to the miniplexes, a group of three small three meter by four meter viewing rooms that would feature visual work by local artists. The rooms were complete with external lighting, a data projector, speaker system and playback device, in this case a Mac Mini computer. I was sent home for a break overnight and returned in the morning to find that it had been a very productive night. Two of the miniplexes were finished, and the four scaff towers were almost complete. By Monday night most of the structural stuff was complete and it was onto the lighting installation, to be installed on the underside of the walkway. The lighting equipment consisted of 40 Dichroic Par 16 Birdies, and 24 iLED Multipar units. The lighting test was Tuesday night and was programmed into a DMX Streamer that would be active after 7pm at night. The projection rooms (Miniplexes) would run from 10am until midnight with the external projection starting up at 7pm. One of the highlights of the setup was showing my skills in Automator on a Mac. I programmed the computer to book up before 10am and run the DVD files, then if they didn’t execute, it would load the files from the DVD drive. Ecstatic City opened on Wednesday night coinciding with the Visual Arts Launch, held in the Great Hall of the National Gallery and was received exceptionally well.

Melbourne Ska Orchestra - Melbourne International Arts Festival Opening Night Concert - Fed Square

Our focus now shifted onto the Opening Night Concert, to be held on the stage at Federation Square. There were to be 4 musical acts, a speech from the Artistic Director and the Premier, before a procession heading down to Birrarung Marr for Margie McKay’s Longing Belonging Land. We started early that morning, moving supplies such as water, sunscreen, snacks, chairs, signage, water coolers, passes and t-shirts. We setup the two greenrooms, the side of stage tent, and received deliveries from Billy Hydes (Backline), Optical Audio (Camera Equipment). We then proceeded to sound check each of the bands, the FOH team was supplied by Microhire who are the in-house supplier for the whole of Federation Square. The sound check went well and the concert kicked off. My duties included assisting in the changeover, water distribution to crew and performers, escorting performers and maintaining the backstage area. The concert went exceptionally well, and I even got to escort the Premier from his car to the stage. Once the concert had concluded, I assisted in crowd management leading down to the Longing Belonging site. Once the Longing Belonging performance had concluded we commenced pack up, transporting equipment back across the road to the office and packing things away in the storeroom ready for the performance in BMW Edge and the Echolocation Installation, under Princes Bridge. We then headed to the MIAF Artist Lounge for some well-earned refreshments and some pizza.

Echolocation Rigging - Princes Bridge (Near Riverland)

Our next installation was Echolocation, a multimedia installation to be installed under Princes Bridge and manipulated via the Internet and control gear in BMW Edge. My role was quite simply crowd management, and there wasn’t much of a crowd at 1am. The project was very interesting though and I had the opportunity to have a good chat with Alex Stahl, the commissioning artist. The project centred around live recordings taken from under princes bridge, that would then be sent via Voice Over Internet Protocol to BMW Edge where they were manipulated and sent to multiple sites, including back underneath the bridge, the walkway between the Arts Centre and Hamer Hall, and the Fed Square Screen. It was an amazing project, but not without its delays. There was quite a large amount of soldering to be done to complete the circuit boards that would be mounted under the bridge, and due to the artist being unwell, he and the electronics didn’t get to Australia until very close to the bump in. It was no major problem, and in the end, the installation went up about 4 days late.

My workload during the running of the festival was decreased. I covered a few shifts at the Ecstatic City site, replacing Chis Sanders and Murray Dempsey, the permanent technicians. I also assisted on some events in the BMW Edge and did some office work in between. My role was gradually reduced due to several factors, including my involvement on the end of year dance season, and the decreased need for my work. I assisted on bump out of both Ecstatic City and Echolocation in a very similar role to that of the installation.

Overall, my time at the Melbourne International Arts Festival was an amazing learning curve, working with truly talented and very resourceful people. It showed me the inside or behind the scenes of festival operations, and gave me the opportunity to be involved in new media projects that pushed the boundaries of what art can be. I would like to thank Russ and Gen for being my guides through this time, and for mentoring me and showing me the better, or quicker or more logical way to do things. I hope to work on the Festival, and with any of the Festival staff, in the future.

DJ Spooky rocking out @ Meat Market - Melbourne International Arts Festival

VCA Dance - Transmutation Flier

So it has finally come to the end of my days at the Victorian College of the Arts, and as such, my final show has rolled around… Very quickly actually.

So…

VCA Dance and VCA Production presents “Transmutation” four new works by Brett Daffy, Neil Adams, Anna Smith, and Phillip Adams, involving the 1st and 2nd year Dance Students at the VCA. I am the Lighting Designer for Brett Daffy’s work, The Lockard, and Anna Smith’s work, As Yet Un-Named.

So please feel free to click on the image above to see the full PDF flier or click here to view the VCA website.

Undergraduate Dance Season 1: VCA Dance VCA Production Years 1 & 2

New works by Choreographers: Brett Daffy, Neil Adams, Anna Smith and Phillip Adams

Start date

12/11/2008

End date

15/11/2008

Dates and Times

8pm on Wed 12 to Sat 15 Nov 2008
2pm on Sat 15 Nov 2008

Cost

$20.50/$15.50

Contact

Gasworks Arts Park

Telephone

03 9699 3253

Further Information
Gasworks Arts Park, Cnr Graham and Pickles Streets, Albert Park
(Melways Ref 2J H7)