From StarNewsOnline
By Amy Hotz
Amy.Hotz@StarNewsOnline.com
Published: Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 6:34 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 6:34 p.m.
To a layman sitting in the crowd it looked like a magic trick.
Kent Jorgensen, I.A.T.S.E. Local 80 safety coordinator, held up a metal cable made of three woven strands. He separated the strands, bent them into an oval and rewove them into a seamless loop.
To the men and women sitting in the class, though, this “trick” was everyday work. And a back-and-forth discussion about the loop’s strength and its safety began.
More than 80 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees attended a 16-hour stage rigging fundamentals workshop Saturday and Sunday on Stage 10 at EUE/Screen Gems studios. Many more local film professionals wanted to take the course but were working on “Army Wives” in Charleston and the untitled medical pilot in Wilmington. Those who did make it came from the Wilmington area as well as Raleigh, Winston-Salem and Charleston to brush up on rigging skills they use in grip work, electricity, special effects, construction and set dressing.
“We go into a dark stage. It’s black,” said Jason Rosin, I.A.T.S.E. Local 491 business agent. “We have to know where to put the lights, fix them safely and be artistic.” Rosin’s union serves “below-the-line” technicians such as set designers, construction coordinators, wardrobe assistants and others in the region of North Carolina, South Carolina and Savannah.
Much of the rigging workshop was held in a makeshift classroom on Stage 10 and involved math as well as physics. A white board at the front of the room showed primitive dry erase drawings of loops, brackets and numbers to describe different techniques and where the weak points of certain rigs are. But part of Sunday was devoted to hands-on demonstrations.
Rigging includes anything that hangs. It could be something as simple as an empty Coke can hanging by fishing line from a ceiling, to something as heavy and as complex as a series of 100-pound lights – whatever the scene calls for.
Either way, riggers are responsible for the safety of these suspensions. And from the enthusiasm shown by those in attendance, they take their work very seriously.
“Our main foundation is safety,” said Henry Ezzell, best boy grip.
Ezzell has lived in Wilmington since 1991, when he took a job on “Mario Brothers.” Recently, he’s worked in Michigan, Savannah and Charleston. Now he’s working on the untitled medical drama pilot filming in Wilmington.
From moving around the country, Ezzell said he’s noticed that in different regions riggers use different techniques and have different language for many of the same things. It’s not unusual for a knot used on a set in Louisiana to have a different name in New York.
This class, he said, is helping to bring a universal nature to the industry so that everyone can understand each other better and cross-educate.
“The one thing I like is it’s not very often you get film and television, rock ’n’ roll rigging and theater rigging all together at one time,” he said.
The instructor, Jorgensen, is based in Los Angeles but was invited to Wilmington by Rosin as a part of what may become a series of training opportunities here.
According to the I.A.T.S.E.’s news bulletin, Jorgensen has been a member of Local 80 Grips since 1990 and has been the safety and training representative since 1996. He is responsible for executing the local’s safety program and managing and developing its training program.
Rosin said he hopes this will be just one of many classes he can offer in Wilmington. He also hopes to organize instruction in programming moving lights, dive certification, fire safety, electrical safety and other specialties.
“This is an effort to work with labor to make us a better place to bring productions and have our labor force right here in our backyard,” said EUE/Screen Gems Vice President Bill Vassar. His company donated the space for the instruction.
Amy Hotz: 343-2099
On Twitter.com: @AmyHotz
