TECHNICAL

This page covers the other side of my skill set in the industry. I love to be creative and lighting design is indeed a deep passion of mine, however, I have a deep love of all things production technology and have a vast understanding of a variety of technical production areas with a bias in LX.

I have worked with Charlie for a long time in a variety of capacities. Charlie is a fantastic Lighting
Designer and technician, and very skilled in programming on ETC Eos and GrandMA3. Charlie has a
true passion for lighting design that I have not seen in many other designers, and is a joy to work
with.
I first worked with Charlie at Birmingham Ormiston Academy where he worked as the Venue
Technician when I was a Teacher of Technical Theatre Arts and Interim Head of Department. He was
fantastic when it came to working with young people as he would take the time to explain different
concepts and methods and guide students through practical work.
As a Lighting Designer Charlie is particularly skilled in lighting for live music and dance, however he
has a versatile style that brings to life the productions he designs including plays and ballet.
Outside of design Charlie is also extremely skilled in moving light fixture repair and creative technical
projects – he often builds his own devices and working props including lighting practicals.

¬ Jeannie Fong - Production Technician

A Quick Technical Overview

During my time in the industry, I have had a variety of technical roles and responsibilities. These roles have included intelligent and conventional fixture repair, Duty/venue Tech, lighting maintenance tech, lighting programmer, lighting relighter, lx/snd operator, follow spot operator etc.

Alongside these technical disciplines, I regularly combine both my technical and creative abilities, for example, building custom props (such as a working telephone exchange, live camera television set pieces and animated Geiger counters for use in an immersive experience) or custom DMX devices or LED controllers.

Technical Breakdown

Complex understanding of ETC eos Family Consoles and a good understanding of other mainstream consoles (e.g. MA3, VariLite neo x15, FLX, ORB).
Extensive experience with lighting design, technology and other LX-based duties, e.g., focusing.
Heavy understanding of other lighting design and technical practices. I.e., CAD visualisation, colour theory and rig plan design.
Experience in lighting data infrastructure design.
Heavy prior experience working with young people in an educational setting.
Understanding of industry-standard lighting protocols.
Competent in PAT testing and visual electrical inspection standards.
Excellent ability in fixture maintenance and repair of conventional, automated and other intelligent stage luminaires (Prior repair experience in ETC, VariLite, Robe, Chauvet, Martin, GLP, Claypaky, and Showline to name a few).
Operational understanding of industry-standard software such as Qlab and SCS.
Good understanding of good safe working practices and standards.
Experience in a variety of theatre-based and production technical roles.
Experience in the design and construction of custom-built electronic props and set items, such as stand-alone motion-activated props for immersive experiences or custom-led controllers suitable for use in production applications.
Experience in stage management roles.

Technical Experience - Freelance

During my time as a freelancer, I have been responsible for various roles specific to lighting technician, programming and lighting design positions in both theatrical and event and installation-based settings.
These have included such productions and companies as TedAV, Midland Theatre Ballet, ReadyMealSound, RWS Global, Penelopes Dance and The Lovely Bones as well as freelance fixture repair technician (including running my own stage lighting repair workshop for larger scale repairs). All have a wide variety of different production styles and environments.
My freelance work concerning all things theatre and event lighting is driven by my love and passion for the subject, something I had from a very young age and have been following ever since.
This has also included designing and constructing custom active electronic props for immersive theatre, such as a moving and ticking Geiger counter and custom-led controllers.

Technical Experience - Venue

For over four years I worked at The Crescent Theatre in Birmingham.

In my time, I fulfilled multiple roles including, lighting maintenance, lighting programming and venue/duty technician. These roles allowed me to grow a variety of theatre standard skill sets such as rigging, counterweight flying, follow spotting, dealing with members of the public etc.

For a period of my career, I worked alongside Birmingham Ormiston Academy as a facilitator, and venue technician before moving on as completely freelance. Assisting the technical theatre arts tutor at the time, Jeannie Fong, provided me with valuable teaching experience in a working environment, Jeannie is no longer working for the academy, but they are very active in the industry in lighting production roles and are available as a reference.