The Official Bulletin - Quarter 2, 2019

with our fellow stage, film and tradeshow Locals in each market.
This has proven to be one of our more successful training
programs.”
Madison is a lead trainer for the fiber optics course. “We
teach the basics,” he said. “The kind of information you can use
on a show-by-show basis. Best practices and basic troubleshooting,
handling and identification abilities. How to make
yourself and all your IATSE brothers and sisters look good to
any employer.
“The approach is hands-on,” Madison explained. “I remember
sitting in an office one time waiting for a meeting and I saw
a quote from Benjamin Franklin on the white board. It said, ‘Tell
me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I
learn.’ Ever since, I’ve tried to follow that adage.
“So we test how much signal you start with and how much
you end with, using light meters,” he said. “We use microscopes
to see the quality of the image at the end. We go over
how to clean and view it. It’s a lot more complicated than you
might think — fiber optic is essentially a long glass pipe that’s
hollow and the width of a hair. Light bounces down the pipe
thousands of times a second. It’s very delicate, requires great
care, and the connectors are fidgety. This training is very important
to keeping our competitive edge.
“As the owner of a crewing company, when you hire me, I
want to be proud of my crew,” Madison said. “I want my crew
not only to be confident and able to handle anything they face
— I want them to show you a thing or two. Too often in our society,
there’s an onus placed around union members. I want to
change that conversation. That goes to my past as an IATSE
organizer, something I am passionate about. I believe in the
cause and the better the knowledge base of our members, the
more our cause is advanced.”
While discussing how he has worked to address technological
change in the Broadcasting Department, O’Hern aptly summarized
IATSE’s union-wide approach to this dilemma. “We’ve
learned over the years you can’t fight technology,” he said. “It will
be utilized one way or another and it’s in our best interest to work
with employers to integrate new technologies with the least disruption
to the workforce. We’ve used contractual means to limit
the workload on any one individual and maintain jobs, but we’re
in a growing industry, so the same technology that displaces
jobs in one area often creates new jobs in another area.”
STAGE
King Kong might represent the largest single piece of the
technological revolution in theater — but he’s one of many.
Actors — and scenery — flying three-dimensionally, computerized
audio and lighting, laser projectors and LED walls are
now common on higher-end shows not only on Broadway, but
around the country.
“When an actor had to fly across the stage, it used to be
guys with ropes pulling the actor from left to right, and up and
down,” said Brian Munroe, a member of Local 74 who recently
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