So for one final time this series, let's hear from our designers.

When was the last time you were excited about something you created? Well, I try quite hard to...

Everyone always says to me, like, are you happy on a job? And I always struggle because I never know what that's supposed to mean.

Because I don't attach happiness to how it's...

Because then I'd be a wreck.

Like, when it wasn't going very well, what would I do? I'd be, like, a nervous ruin.

I can't really be like that anymore.

actually probably Peleas now that I think about it, because

Thanks.

I think it was the, as I said, it's the combination of being fearless around technology because as a child I was just left to take things apart.

And they were like, yeah, that's fine because that's an old computer that is broken.

My dad, I'll never forget his shock when I made something work.

He was like, but that's broken.

What? What did you do? That was good.

So I had this kind of thing that I could just go at something.

Who was the first mentor or collaborator that really influenced how you design?

That's how they

see themselves.

There's a bit of a corporate structure.

Well, not exclusively, but with these types of operations, it can become quite corporate, which is fine.

Also, they're your friend until they bite you, and then... you know you're friends but it's also murky you can't have a hard conversation about rates of pay and counting up the days and blah if you're best mates and also it's not appropriate to have a relationship like it's just not really you know your line manager at work is your friend but you're not you know there needs to be a and even like an electrician like whoever like what you know you're all on the same team you're all fine but the director is the director and you're like you know you're not gonna you know the relationship needs to be in that way and that's good for everyone you that's not a powerful that's it's how you want it because like i say to the electrician like Yeah, OK, but if this goes wrong, they're never going to come to you and say, what's going on here? They're going to come to me.

They're never going to say, what's going on with this one? It'll be me, and then I'll filter it.

So you want that.

projects have created massively.

I am Katja Hamilton, and I'm a lighting designer for theater, um, musicals and some opera.

I'm Peter Small, a lighting designer working across any genre, but most recently, opera, musicals, immersive and theater.

How was that? Yeah.

[laughs]

... that come into it.

Um, well, I try quite hard to...

Uh, yeah, everyone always says to me, like, "Are you happy on a job?" And I always struggle because I never know what that's supposed to mean [laughs].

Um, because I don't attach happiness to how it's g- 'cause then I'll, I'd be a wreck.

And yes, you bring in associates and relighters and you farm work out and stuff like that, but I think that that's really hard for producers and directors to get their heads around.

So if you really want to go for it, I like to imagine that where I'm headed with all this is to ascend into a kind of position of doing multiple projects at the same time and doing, I call it, I do it now, I call it project architecting.

I don't call it architecting, so that's a bit much, but it's about staffing the team, the right team for the right job.

It's not just, oh, here's a good programmer.

It needs to be the right person for the right thing.

And then the right hire coming, the right staff, the right budget.

Because quite often I'll come in pre-budget and be like, well, the budget should probably be something like this or something like that.

Not enough.

Doesn't everyone? Oh, no.

Don't you? It's like you always make up language for stuff.

So if you've got set metrics or something, you will always group things by a common denominator that you can all use.

Like, we'll call that the big boy, the little boy, and the square boy.

That was on a recent show.

Someone made that.

And so that's what we've been calling them in the rehearsal room.

The tempo at which you work really impacts on your

So that was great.

So when did they get here? They got here last year, but I had to find a time that Paul Swan and another wool scientist, Dr.

Peter Howe, that they could both get here because there was no point in me looking at them.

I mean, I always say that.

I had to get someone.

who understood this, and Paul Swan had done a lot of research in this area.

Paul, of course, he did his PhD on curvature, which, of course, curvature of wool is associated with the sort of skins that Carter was looking for.

Yeah,

had.

And you didn't know.

And they might have better lights that they'll do cheaper.

But you didn't say that.

You said, I must have this.

Instead of, I need this type of fixture.

Well, or the easy way to do it, I mean, how this actually comes out is I go, you know, I want a Mac Aura slash equivalent, or I just put everything slash equivalent.

Battery, does it work on a battery? Is it wireless? Are we going to have to put a whole run of DMX and power in to do this one unit? Is that where the dialogue changes?

And because that's clearly conceptual stuff for how the lighting is going to work for a production, how are you communicating that with the rest of the creative team? Yeah, it's

really interesting.

I never thought we'd go here, and this is actually very, yeah, you're right, you've found your way to my core very quickly.

So the first thing to say is that I'm constantly out farming for information all the time.

Right now I'm taking in the lamps in the daylight.

I can't turn it off.

It's constantly going in all the time.

yeah

Um, and I sort of knew of some directors and producers who'd gone and studied English, and I liked English, so I was like, "Great, this seems good."

I made a smoke machine work at school in year six.

So growing up, my mum used to leave, uh, me...

While she was going to get my siblings, she would leave me with my dad, who had a, a sort of, I guess you'd call it an office or something.

And in this...

I won't go into it 'cause the podcast will be too long.

In this office was lots of, like, electronics and stuff, um, which is irrelevant for what he was doing at the time, but it was there, uh, from a previous company he did, and I would just kind of mess around with it.

But you love the, the performance and the stories and the, and all of the, like, paraphernalia around it.