Is "lighting intern/trainee" a thing?

[Toni Vucic]

Hi

 

I work as a gaffer/best boy/electric in a small city in Norway. We only have one other gaffer and the jobs are usually too small for him to bring me along so learning new skills is pretty much only over the internet. We've had one feature filmed here since I started working about a year ago, and I joined for 4 days as electric with full union pay, which was amazing. But there won't be an opportunity like that in a long time, unless, I make one:

This summer I'm going to the capital of Norway, Oslo to hopefully get better at my job. Especially rigging, as electrics in Norway do everything lighting related, including gripping lights.

I'm just wondering, how should I approach this?

 

Ideally I would want to get on sets that are higher budget and more complicated than what I'm used to, so I can learn. It's funny because I can gaff most sets here in Trondheim, but in Oslo I dare not apply to be a light assistant. Could I try to get on a production as a lighting intern? Does such a position exist? Does anyone even want that? I don't want to undervalue myself as I know quite a bit and would function just fine on a big set in most cases, espeically after this feature. But I also don't want to turn up on set on a commercial as the only electric, and not be able to rig the condor, or overhead lighting solution properly.

 

The dilemma :/

 

Here is a picture of one of the rigs we did on the feature where I just stood by and scratched my head trying to figure out what they were doing.

[Brian Drysdale]

Usually it's a matter of making contacts. If you know the gaffer on the large production, they may be worth talking to for advice or assistance, face to face is better than a phone call. Persistence can be key, it may take a year or two before anything tums up.

[Jean Gonzales]

We have interns on almost every job. You have to learn it somewhere and there is no better way to learn it then hands on.

 

OT: That is one shitty rig!

[Phil Rhodes]

I didn't want to be the one to say it.

[Toni Vucic]

Thanks for the replies. What's the shittiest part of it?
Anything unsafe I should avoid? Or does it just "look" shitty becaue of all the straps. Snapped this picture too to try to understand how it works.

 

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

It's just a lot of arms and clamps for the relatively simply task of hanging and supporting a few diffusion frames. Plus you have a big speedrail pipe casting a shadow right thru the middle of the diffusion frame. A good Key Grip would be the person to ask how to do it better.

 

A good rig should be as simple and elegant as possible. But as long as it's safe, produces the the result you want, and can be built quickly, it's fine from my point of view.