David M Burgess

Actor, Singer, Dialect Coach, Props Master, Designer, Drag Queen, Writer, Academic, Technician

Tag: Technician

Jobs and projects where I was either a computer technician, audio visual technician, stage manager, or consultant.

  • BS Computer Science with a Minor in Music

    BS Computer Science with a Minor in Music

    Also an AS in Computer Science along the way.

    After high school I started college at West Chester University. I actually entered the university as an undeclared student, meaning, I hadn’t picked a major. Without knowing it at the time, this kind of put me behind the other students, who actually knew what they wanted to be studying, by about a semester. I knew that I wanted to be part of the music program, but I didn’t really understand the application and audition process and since neither of my parents had attended college, let alone for the arts, they were no help at all.

    After one semester, I finally made my way into the music program as a Music Composition Major with Voice as my instrument. I managed to get a couple semesters under my belt as a music major before I had to switch schools.

    I wasn’t taking my undergrad education very seriously and needed to withdraw from a couple courses to avoid ruining my GPA. My music education was suffering as well. I didn’t understand how much more commitment these courses would require than regular academic college courses, which remains true to this day. Arts courses often have labs or out of class time required. Think about choir performances for college choirs. The performance itself must be a significant part of one’s grade. So, it made sense to change my major to something else I was good at, I.T.

    For whatever reason, understanding technology is somewhat of a gift. First, before pursuing IT as a major, I had to switch schools. I registered at the local community college in order to knock out as many required courses in my new major as possible before transferring to a new school or back to West Chester to complete the degree. This was a major cost cutting measure since, essentially the first two years of my college education were a wash with the exception of being able to declare a music minor.

    Once I completed as many transferrable courses as possible at community college, which actually granted me an Associated Degree, I returned to West Chester and finished my Bachelor’s in Information Technology in 2003 on my birthday.

  • Press!

    I’ve been featured in various newspapers and publications over the years. Here’s a few of the articles I’ve managed to save.

    The following clips are press from various Philly newspapers from when I was doing drag. This includes playing a socialite in the Dumpsta Players’ production of “Pari$$$ is Burning,” an early performance of Amanda Playwythe in “PromTrash Plastik” and a lady Devil in “Octoberfist V.”

    The following pics are from the Qfest Closing Night Parties when I was a projectionist. The first one is with my former partner dressed in drag, which is a tradition I carried on for many years, that I would dress in drag and work as a projectionist for the final night of Qfest. The second clipping below is from a particular year where the featured film was “Bear City 2” and the closing party was held at Philadelphia’s leather bar, The Bike Stop. For this event, I dressed the part and a Philadelphia Gay News photographer took my picture and later used it in an article about Bears in anticipation of Leather Pride 2012.

  • I was a Projectionist

    I was a Projectionist

    As a teenager, I worked at a movie theater and eventually made my way up to assistant manager. From there, I learned how to thread and operate 35mm projectors and build prints with trailers. This was a tedious process that involved taking actual film, physically cutting off the “heads” and “tails” of each reel, lining them up and splicing them together. Then you have to save all the heads and tails so they can be reattached before the movie can be shipped back to the distributor.

    Because of this I worked as a projectionist for the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, abbreviated PIGLFF, later shortened to QFest. A brief history can be found here. For just under 2 weeks each July, I would set myself up in a small projection room first at the Arts Bank, which is now part of University of the Arts, and later, at the Ritz East. This is where I worked on Philadelphia’s only 4K projector in 2009 or so.

    Below are some pictures of the new process. Films were now delivered super encrypted via hard drive that was then ingested in to the projector. From a pc interface, the projectionist would be able to build the show, graphically, but dropping and dragging programs into a lineup. For my purposes, this was just a projector with my equipment connected to it where I could play films submitted to the film festival on a variety of formats including BetaCam, DigiBeta, Blu Ray, and many more.

    The Projector
    My View
    How Movies Come Now
    Ingested over USB
    The Hard Drive
    More Hard Drive
    Shipped like this
    Fancy Box
    Another Movie
    My Rig interfaced with the 4K machine
    Divine!
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art

    Philadelphia Museum of Art

    For nearly a decade, I worked at the Philadelphia Museum of art. For the first two years, I was an Audio Visual Technician, working in the Audio Visual department. There, I ran lighting and sound for many concerts and performances. During that time, I edited audio used in audio tours, maintained the cell phone audio tour, and produced the occasional video. Upon the completion of the Perelman Building, the first official annex to the PMA featuring Costume and Textiles and Industrial Design galleries, to name a few, there was a need for additional IT support. Then I became a Helpdesk Technician in the Information Services Department were I worked for over 7 years. By the end of my time there, I had a grasp of nearly every aspect of the museum industry as well as the technology used to support a world class museum, its donors, and employees. In the picture, I’m removing microphones from a piano after an event.

    Dressed as Fountain by Marcel DuChamp
    The old West Lobby
    Melting wax on a Rodin
    Planning for an Exhbition
    More Exhibition Planning
    The PMA Tunnel before the renovation
    PMA Tunnel Construction
    Great Stair Hall at Christmas
    The Tunnel at PMA
    Ellsworth Kelly in a crate
    More Ellsworth Kelly
    Out the windows on a rainy day
    A view of the West Lobby
    My Great Grandfather at the West Entrance where he was a guard at the PMA

  • Votes for Women

    Votes for Women

    After working with Beacon Theatre Productions for 2 shows, I was asked to be the assistant stage manager and provide props for an “enhanced” staged reading of 2 plays, The Trial of Susan B Anthony and Letters to Aunt Hattie. I made a bunch of interesting items for use during the performance including a giant cardboard bicycle. Check out the pics below for more examples of props! Check out Beacon’s Votes for Women pages by going here!