Nick Mallios 

Reflection Paper

Throughout this school year, I have worked on some very complex shows that needed me to show a great leadership role. However, the one that needed the most time, effort, and overall leadership was the concert in December, The Trillogy Student Concert. Throughout the whole process, I had dealt with many obstacles that my team and I had to overcome. In the show, I had two major roles. I was both the sound designer and the talent for the show. Both aspects had obstacles that made me push myself to get the best product out.

My biggest role in the show was being the sound designer. As a sound designer, my job was to design and build the sound system as well as design the stage layout, write up the input/output list and an equipment list. Doing this was a big task for me to do. Not only was this a huge amount of work to do, I also had to deal with time constraints, crew management during build times, and deal with juggling my schoolwork and rehearsal schedule along with this. Needless to say, I needed to manage my work and my team efficiently in order to have my work done on time and in good working order for the show. My first obstacle was coming up with a proposal for my system by the due date given to me, which was one week. So after searching the equipment we had in the theatre and going off of basic designs I used in the past when I built systems for small music festivals, I came up with a preliminary design that was a basis for what would become my final design. With the help of John Huntington, I was able to make a more streamlined system using Dante, making a much more professional and better working system. My main issues were getting all my work done and on time by the deadlines set in place for me. As new deadlines for certain paper trails were created, I had no time to do my actual schoolwork, and fell behind in class drastically. Along with the schoolwork I needed to finish, I also had rehearsals with my band, which took out time that could have been used to finish up my paperwork for the system in order for me to gain more time to catch up on schoolwork. Overall, I managed to get my work done by the skin of my teeth. After all my paperwork was done, my next job was to manage my crew in order to build the system we wrote up. This was fairly easy because the crew that I picked were knowledgeable about sound and were fairly independent. We managed to build this system fairly quickly. The product I have created turned out to be an excellent sounding system that was worked on by a very talented sound crew. However, more of my obstacles came from my second role.

As the founding member of my band, I have to deal with many issues involving the members as well as myself. The first obstacle was dealing with my original guitarist. Trillogy was originally an acoustic group consisting of me, my brother Luke, and my friend Wolfe. Wolfe had to leave the band at the time because as a student of the Sophie Davis Medical Program, he would be dealing with many tests and internships. So I asked a good friend and ENT alumni, Joe, to be my guitarist. We also brought in mine and my brother’s good friend, Josh, on drums, and Joe’s friend, Adriano, on bass, creating an electric group. I also had to deal with managing the band along with my production manager and my overall support, Melisa, to get rehearsals on track and making sure we were ready for the stage. The whole band was ready except for me. Since I was too busy for rehearsals at times, I didn’t get a chance to practice and certain songs showed issues for me onstage.

Overall, my technical prowess showed its strength more so than my musical prowess. If i were to go back in time and change one thing, it would either choose to be either the band or the designer, not both. If I focused on one, the product I would put out would be much greater than what the reality was.