Alright readers.
So it's another day off for me today. Completely tidied my room, how dull! Was good to give my muscles a rest and catch up on some sleep though.
We've had a few difficulties recently with the show as an increasing number of FX were being very inconsistent. The moving car hadn't been working for a weeks and the flame grill and collapsing balcony were malfunctioning quite often.
Earlier in the week we started the first show and about 10 seconds in we noticed a problem with the sound track. Shortly after we had all realised backstage the techies gave an announcement that they'd be restarting the show. However the next 3 attempts at starting the show all ended the same way and the show was eventually cancelled. We spent the next few hours of day waiting to see if the problem had been fixed but when it got to 3:30pm, the time they let the next audience in, we were told that there was still no solution and if it carried on then we might not be doing shows until Saturday (the earliest date that the one person who could adjust the sound-board was available). Amazingly though, about 45 minutes later our cheif techie had managed to isolate and solve the problem so we managed to do the 3rd show.
The day after that we arrived to work and were told that all the problematic FX in the show had been fixed, the car, balcony and flame-grill were all functioning well so we had a very good day of shows then.
Unfotunately theres a lot of tension between people in and involved with the show at the moment but that doesn't belong on my blog so I wont elaborate. Hopefully we'll continue to have fully functioning shows and big audiences over the weekend at that might help things along.
Till my next one ya'll!
P.
Thursday 29 July 2010
Friday 23 July 2010
Day off update,
Hello all, so todays my day off and therefore a good time to update!
We've recently lost internet in our greenroom hense my lack of regular updates, hopefully we should get it back soon.
So yeah, we're well into our high-season routine now. 3 shows a day as standard, on the weekends we're on standby to do 4 or more, it hasnt happened yet but you never know. The shows remain pretty consistant, recently though we had a show where the biggest moving part of our set (the "iron" bridge that Storm arrives on) failed to work. What's meant to happen is that she appears, fires a few lightning bolts at Magneto who then lifts the bridge about 8 feet up and tips her off it. It's quite a long procedure, about 15 seconds for the bridge to raise and tilt. Not too long you may be thinking but when the bridge doesn't work it felt like an eternity before we could move on with the show. Anyway, turns out it hadn't been plugged in... nice.
So today I finally got round to opening a German bank account with the help of one of my new German friends from the other Stunt Show in the Park. When I asked if there was anything I could do in return she said "well today I play the girl out of the audience role and I need a pretend boyfriend to sit with". Normally she just asks someone from the audience as they walk in but she says it's always easier if it's someone you know. So I agreed and we went into the park. Met her at the beginning of the show and about 10 minutes in they call for a "volunteer" and she gets selected. She's then asked if she's here with anyone and she points at me and I get told "say goodbye to your girlfriend!" Everybody laughs and the pretence is a good one. That is until people sitting near me start asking questions along the lines of "is she part of the team?" and many things in German. People did get a bit suspiscious when I told them i was English but it becomes pretty obvious it's all a setup when she starts doing dangerous stunts on stage :-p
So that was fun, didn't actually go see the x-men show, the one time I did sit in the audience I was plagued by some of the regular audience members who kept taking photos of me, didn't really fancy doing that again.
Anyway, that about covers it for now, we're on a slightly different schedule for the weekend so im going to chill out for the rest of the day and make sure i'm well rested for then.
Catch you later!
P.
We've recently lost internet in our greenroom hense my lack of regular updates, hopefully we should get it back soon.
So yeah, we're well into our high-season routine now. 3 shows a day as standard, on the weekends we're on standby to do 4 or more, it hasnt happened yet but you never know. The shows remain pretty consistant, recently though we had a show where the biggest moving part of our set (the "iron" bridge that Storm arrives on) failed to work. What's meant to happen is that she appears, fires a few lightning bolts at Magneto who then lifts the bridge about 8 feet up and tips her off it. It's quite a long procedure, about 15 seconds for the bridge to raise and tilt. Not too long you may be thinking but when the bridge doesn't work it felt like an eternity before we could move on with the show. Anyway, turns out it hadn't been plugged in... nice.
So today I finally got round to opening a German bank account with the help of one of my new German friends from the other Stunt Show in the Park. When I asked if there was anything I could do in return she said "well today I play the girl out of the audience role and I need a pretend boyfriend to sit with". Normally she just asks someone from the audience as they walk in but she says it's always easier if it's someone you know. So I agreed and we went into the park. Met her at the beginning of the show and about 10 minutes in they call for a "volunteer" and she gets selected. She's then asked if she's here with anyone and she points at me and I get told "say goodbye to your girlfriend!" Everybody laughs and the pretence is a good one. That is until people sitting near me start asking questions along the lines of "is she part of the team?" and many things in German. People did get a bit suspiscious when I told them i was English but it becomes pretty obvious it's all a setup when she starts doing dangerous stunts on stage :-p
So that was fun, didn't actually go see the x-men show, the one time I did sit in the audience I was plagued by some of the regular audience members who kept taking photos of me, didn't really fancy doing that again.
Anyway, that about covers it for now, we're on a slightly different schedule for the weekend so im going to chill out for the rest of the day and make sure i'm well rested for then.
Catch you later!
P.
Saturday 17 July 2010
must dash...
Hello all, very quick update before I go out. We're going to a party tonight, will be celebrating the halfway point of the contract. 15 weeks out of 30, so time for a knees-up.
Shows have been pretty consistent recently, we had our pyro-technic budget reduced from 90 Euros a day to 60 meaning we've lost some of the least important explosions from the show (in my opinion they were all important but nevermind).
Second show today was fun though, we had another CO2 explosion but this time I was the one holding the cannister. As the "electric transformer" (really a big heavy foam cylinder) explodes off the wall it's meant to land on the stage and take no further action in the show. However, it has recently taken to bouncing off the floor straight towards me and it's a pretty hefty thing too! Yesterday i got pretty good at watching it and then side-kicking it away as it bounces towards me but today it bounced very low and flew into the CO2 gun that I was holding causing the hose to sheer and the entire high-pressure contents of the cannister to start spraying out with some ferocity. I leaped like a startled Gazelle out of the way and kept my distance until it had emptied itself (which took a while!)
The techies have said they'll be altering the angle at which the transformer gets fired so hopefully thats the end of that little problem.
No more 2 day shows for us anymore, it'll be 3 a day from now until we close give-or-take. On the plus side we've had a full crowd on a couple of occasions now so that's always good :-)
Will be updating again next week.
P.
Shows have been pretty consistent recently, we had our pyro-technic budget reduced from 90 Euros a day to 60 meaning we've lost some of the least important explosions from the show (in my opinion they were all important but nevermind).
Second show today was fun though, we had another CO2 explosion but this time I was the one holding the cannister. As the "electric transformer" (really a big heavy foam cylinder) explodes off the wall it's meant to land on the stage and take no further action in the show. However, it has recently taken to bouncing off the floor straight towards me and it's a pretty hefty thing too! Yesterday i got pretty good at watching it and then side-kicking it away as it bounces towards me but today it bounced very low and flew into the CO2 gun that I was holding causing the hose to sheer and the entire high-pressure contents of the cannister to start spraying out with some ferocity. I leaped like a startled Gazelle out of the way and kept my distance until it had emptied itself (which took a while!)
The techies have said they'll be altering the angle at which the transformer gets fired so hopefully thats the end of that little problem.
No more 2 day shows for us anymore, it'll be 3 a day from now until we close give-or-take. On the plus side we've had a full crowd on a couple of occasions now so that's always good :-)
Will be updating again next week.
P.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
and recently...
Hello all, just a brief detailing of the last few shows for you...
As far as I recall Sunday wasn't too bad. I do recall that in one show one of the CO2 guns wasn't working from early on, it was the important gun as well, the one thats used by Gambit to give the other X-Men their powers back. During the show we were exchanging advice to see if we could get it working but to no avail, so about halfway through the show I heard Aidan say "i'll use the other one". Now the other one is left on the wrong side of the stage so like a pro Aidan ran over and left his staff on the ground in time to spray the X-Men with it. A couple of minutes later I go over to where Gambit had left the staff and think "oh blimey, he's going to need this in a bit" so I casually pick it up and throw it to him. Pretty good improvisational skills dont you think? So yeah that was Sunday.
Yesterday we awoke to another scorching hot day but about 10 minutes before the audience were due to be let in the theatre the sky became practically black with a massive storm cloud, within minutes the wind had become so ferocious that there was debree flying all around the park. All the rides were shut down and as a result we lost power in the theatre meaning no first show. There was nothing anyone could do so we spent the day just waiting for the next show which went just fine.
This morning we got off to a usual start, I had a bit of a dodgy entrance as I lost balance on my front handspring and therefore lost my footing for my brief fight sequence, everything went ok but i'm sure it will have looked a little sloppy. The show carried on and we got past Nightcrawlers entrance before suddenly the lights went out. Now we've been told from previous occasions that the lighting is linked with the special effects and once the lighting has reset the pyros and FX simply wont work. We carried on for a few seconds before the soundtrack stopped and we heard our techie calling the show off. Now in England this probably would have lead to a lot of boo-ing from the crowd but German audiences are a bit more respectful than that so they all left without making any fuss.
The second show went well except for Gambit's rising flame grill which got stuck on it's way up and consequently didn't fire (thank god for some of the failsafes we have). Talk of sabotage has quietened down as we now have a heavy security prescence at the theatre but the question of "was it ever sabotage in the first place" is still in a lot of peoples minds. Guess we'll have to wait and see!
It's my day off tomorrow so I intend to have a few beers tonight and chill out all day. Lovely :-)
P.
As far as I recall Sunday wasn't too bad. I do recall that in one show one of the CO2 guns wasn't working from early on, it was the important gun as well, the one thats used by Gambit to give the other X-Men their powers back. During the show we were exchanging advice to see if we could get it working but to no avail, so about halfway through the show I heard Aidan say "i'll use the other one". Now the other one is left on the wrong side of the stage so like a pro Aidan ran over and left his staff on the ground in time to spray the X-Men with it. A couple of minutes later I go over to where Gambit had left the staff and think "oh blimey, he's going to need this in a bit" so I casually pick it up and throw it to him. Pretty good improvisational skills dont you think? So yeah that was Sunday.
Yesterday we awoke to another scorching hot day but about 10 minutes before the audience were due to be let in the theatre the sky became practically black with a massive storm cloud, within minutes the wind had become so ferocious that there was debree flying all around the park. All the rides were shut down and as a result we lost power in the theatre meaning no first show. There was nothing anyone could do so we spent the day just waiting for the next show which went just fine.
This morning we got off to a usual start, I had a bit of a dodgy entrance as I lost balance on my front handspring and therefore lost my footing for my brief fight sequence, everything went ok but i'm sure it will have looked a little sloppy. The show carried on and we got past Nightcrawlers entrance before suddenly the lights went out. Now we've been told from previous occasions that the lighting is linked with the special effects and once the lighting has reset the pyros and FX simply wont work. We carried on for a few seconds before the soundtrack stopped and we heard our techie calling the show off. Now in England this probably would have lead to a lot of boo-ing from the crowd but German audiences are a bit more respectful than that so they all left without making any fuss.
The second show went well except for Gambit's rising flame grill which got stuck on it's way up and consequently didn't fire (thank god for some of the failsafes we have). Talk of sabotage has quietened down as we now have a heavy security prescence at the theatre but the question of "was it ever sabotage in the first place" is still in a lot of peoples minds. Guess we'll have to wait and see!
It's my day off tomorrow so I intend to have a few beers tonight and chill out all day. Lovely :-)
P.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Me and my big mouth.
Well I think I officially jinxed that show, after saying how we'd been trouble-free for some time.
At the end of the show when the snow and rain machines are going, Gambit throws down his stick and 3 huge plumes of fire erupt from 3 manholes in the stage. However, in the last show we noticed that one wasn't shooting any fire up, instead it was just swirling around and when the other 2 shut off the hole remained burning. A brief moment of "uh-oh" occured before Aidan and myself grabbed both Co2 guns and used them as impromptu fire-extinguishers, succesfully putting out the blaze. It's strange, this is my 3rd stunt show ever but the second time that I've had to put out a fire on stage.
Now the main problem we have is that it looks like this was not an accident. There has been talk of Sabotage flying around the park for a while now and we feel we've been the victim of many accidents that just can't have been fluke incidents. There is currently an investigation going on to get to the bottom of this but every time we go on stage now I worry about everyones safety, the people rappelling from the ceiling, those who stand by pyro-technics, everything has potential to be very dangerous especially if it's being tampered with.
As it stands we will be doing the 3rd show today but without the flame jets. Particularly annoying since there are lines in the show about using the fire but what can we do? It's all pre-recorded and the park dont want us cancelling shows.
Certainly hope this is resolved soon, will keep you up to date with any developments.
P.
At the end of the show when the snow and rain machines are going, Gambit throws down his stick and 3 huge plumes of fire erupt from 3 manholes in the stage. However, in the last show we noticed that one wasn't shooting any fire up, instead it was just swirling around and when the other 2 shut off the hole remained burning. A brief moment of "uh-oh" occured before Aidan and myself grabbed both Co2 guns and used them as impromptu fire-extinguishers, succesfully putting out the blaze. It's strange, this is my 3rd stunt show ever but the second time that I've had to put out a fire on stage.
Now the main problem we have is that it looks like this was not an accident. There has been talk of Sabotage flying around the park for a while now and we feel we've been the victim of many accidents that just can't have been fluke incidents. There is currently an investigation going on to get to the bottom of this but every time we go on stage now I worry about everyones safety, the people rappelling from the ceiling, those who stand by pyro-technics, everything has potential to be very dangerous especially if it's being tampered with.
As it stands we will be doing the 3rd show today but without the flame jets. Particularly annoying since there are lines in the show about using the fire but what can we do? It's all pre-recorded and the park dont want us cancelling shows.
Certainly hope this is resolved soon, will keep you up to date with any developments.
P.
Guten Tag
Hello all, blimey has it really been a week since I updated? My apologies. Time seems to be moving quite quickly now that we're so set in our ways.
So where were we last time? Oh yes, the lamp-post had broken and I was going to try something different. Well it went ok but looked really awkward from the audience point of view, I was miles away from the explosions that were going off on the balcony and the whole thing just looked a bit weird. Fortunately everything had been repaired for the next morning and it was business as usual.
It's also been a while since we had to cancel any shows, it was becoming a rather too frequent occurance, every occasion was due to something technical though, still no performer errors.
The heat has reached a pinacle today, we have a lot of people coming up to us after the shows asking if we're hot, the Germans don't seem to understand the premice of "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" so we just have to be polite and say yes, we're very hot indeed!
3 shows today, high season should be starting the week after next. We've been told to expect 3 shows a day all week round with the possibility of more. We're all secretly hoping that 3 will be enough, we're yet to perform to a completely full theatre and would much rather do 3 shows to a full house than 4 shows to a smaller crowd.
If anything exciting or interesting happens i'll be here to let you know!
Px
So where were we last time? Oh yes, the lamp-post had broken and I was going to try something different. Well it went ok but looked really awkward from the audience point of view, I was miles away from the explosions that were going off on the balcony and the whole thing just looked a bit weird. Fortunately everything had been repaired for the next morning and it was business as usual.
It's also been a while since we had to cancel any shows, it was becoming a rather too frequent occurance, every occasion was due to something technical though, still no performer errors.
The heat has reached a pinacle today, we have a lot of people coming up to us after the shows asking if we're hot, the Germans don't seem to understand the premice of "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" so we just have to be polite and say yes, we're very hot indeed!
3 shows today, high season should be starting the week after next. We've been told to expect 3 shows a day all week round with the possibility of more. We're all secretly hoping that 3 will be enough, we're yet to perform to a completely full theatre and would much rather do 3 shows to a full house than 4 shows to a smaller crowd.
If anything exciting or interesting happens i'll be here to let you know!
Px
Sunday 4 July 2010
Alrighty then.
Hello all, update time.
So things have been going pretty well of recent, the weather was really becoming a factor towards the end of last week. This current heatwave has meant that we're tiring out during shows and risking dehydration, particularly those in muscle suits which are essentially padded duvets. No-one has fallen foul of dehydratiuon or exhaustion yet though.
Yesterday I received the employee of the month award which was nice, I got a big mirage entertainment bag and a bottle of Bishops Finger ale, which our show manager had to go to an English shop in Koln to buy. Much appreciated.
First two shows today went very well. The park are doing a promotional day, something to do with one of the German bank groups. The second show today was specifically for people utilising this deal and they got a warm-up guy to get the audience cheering before the show. The crowd were very good and we got a very long round of applause at the end of the show.
However, when I went to reset my lamp-post I noticed that the safety cable attaching it to the set has become severely frayed, to the point that I refuse to use it again until it is replaced. So we were left to devise an alternative, someting that got glossed over when we first mentioned it. After a quick discussion about options it seems the best thing to is climb my way over that part of the set to a nearby ladder. To make it look a little more exciting i'll be jumping from quite high up the ladder into a shoulder roll (I knew that Parkour training would come in useful one day!)
So we'll see how it goes, hopefully it wont be long before the cable is replaced, tomorrow is my day off so if I do break my leg it can have a day to heal :-P
Bye for now!!!
So things have been going pretty well of recent, the weather was really becoming a factor towards the end of last week. This current heatwave has meant that we're tiring out during shows and risking dehydration, particularly those in muscle suits which are essentially padded duvets. No-one has fallen foul of dehydratiuon or exhaustion yet though.
Yesterday I received the employee of the month award which was nice, I got a big mirage entertainment bag and a bottle of Bishops Finger ale, which our show manager had to go to an English shop in Koln to buy. Much appreciated.
First two shows today went very well. The park are doing a promotional day, something to do with one of the German bank groups. The second show today was specifically for people utilising this deal and they got a warm-up guy to get the audience cheering before the show. The crowd were very good and we got a very long round of applause at the end of the show.
However, when I went to reset my lamp-post I noticed that the safety cable attaching it to the set has become severely frayed, to the point that I refuse to use it again until it is replaced. So we were left to devise an alternative, someting that got glossed over when we first mentioned it. After a quick discussion about options it seems the best thing to is climb my way over that part of the set to a nearby ladder. To make it look a little more exciting i'll be jumping from quite high up the ladder into a shoulder roll (I knew that Parkour training would come in useful one day!)
So we'll see how it goes, hopefully it wont be long before the cable is replaced, tomorrow is my day off so if I do break my leg it can have a day to heal :-P
Bye for now!!!
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