Four Things for a Designer to Remember...

A few meetings yesterday reminded me of several lessons from life as a theater set designer and, well, a designer in general.  Four little gems I'll pass on to you:

REMINDERS

(Believed public domain image.)

1) Always, always, ALWAYS double-check the dimensions of the stage.  Why?  Well last season I believed information provided by a venue - dimensions given for their own stage.  As this was an out-of-state theater, I couldn't easily check so chose to believe 'em.  MISTAKE.  Luckily I'd designed a set where one wall flat could be omitted if necessary without killing the design.  (I was a little paranoid.)  In the end more than one flat had to be cut!  (The design survived, luckily.)  But The Venue Lied Big Time.  So... double check stage dimensions.

2) Carry a sketchbook.  And a pen/pencil. Don't have 'em, you'll want 'em.

3) Remember a tape measure.  (See suggestions #1 and #2.)

4)  Bring extra copies of the drawings.  Even if you've already delivered plenty of sets.  Because the theater/director/builder/client will have forgotten/misplaced/lost theirs.

Remember these four basics and... well, you'll at least feel a bit more ready to cope with the real problems.

Copyright Week

Tardy (as often) I'm finally getting around to posting on the topic of Copyright Week.

There's a great, in-depth explanation of the issues of copyright, free speach, and public domain HERE at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  It's a topic I'm very interested in.

Why do I care?

Well... It started out as a matter of self-protection.  I make collages and I wanted to be sure that I didn't create copyright problems for myself.  Sure I wanted to preserve the rights of the other artists who created any images I wanted to "borrow" in my work, I didn't want to steal or abuse... but largely I wanted to be sure I didn't get in trouble.  Brave huh?

Secondarily, as a creator of content myself, I wanted to understand my rights.  I have had a design or two stolen.

So I started studying copyright.

Frankly, the law - U.S. and international - is a mess and too much under the control of ignorant legislators being led around on leashes by Big Media and Big Pharma... by the big-money interested in highly restrictive and overly-long-term rules.  At the same moment, we the public are recipients of a wonderful bonanza of public domain sharing due to the now-ripening of Victorian creativity into our joint ownership (which is what public domain means) and the unprecedented ease and freedom to share that is the internet.

Exciting times.

Tenniel's illustrations for Alice in Wonderland - and that story too - are now in the Public Domain.  So it's fair game for me to adopt Alice as my blog's avatar, then give her a cool pedal car and a Victorian love seat to deliver to a theater for me.  Putting earlier artists' creations to present-day use.  Go! Public Domain!

I believe that as a society we need both robust copyright protections so that creators' benefit from their work AND lively sharing and free use of ideas (written and imaged) so we can go create more cool ideas!  Getting that balance right is the trick.

Look into the topic yourself.  Develop some informed opinions.  Then let your congress people know what they should think, huh?

Earlier posts on copyright: Copyright On Copyright and the Public Domain SNIPPET # 7  Copyright on the Internet Copyright Has Never Been This Cute

Just a Quick Up-Date

Busy, busy here.

I'm in the process of building Venus in Fur at Circle Theatre (handing over paint and oak samples, looking for chaise lounges, set dressing tomorrow); of mailing construction drawings to California for The Great American Trailer Park Musical (still green paint on my hand from that rendering); of creating construction drawings for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (revised the plan at last night's meeting); and misc. errands like returning a chandelier ( from Too Many Cooks) to Kitchen Dog (and getting a script for Gideon's Knot).  Today's misc. errand is a lunch seminar for architectural continuing ed. credit.

Phew!  Just reading all that tires me out.

But it's all good fun: some excellent scripts and I get the added bonus of working with some particular friends and talents on several of them.

And in my spare time, I've been reading The Game of Thrones series (deep into book four) and seeing a few movies.  Her is very good - romantic, yes, but mostly thoughtful about the essential loneliness that is the human condition.  American Hustle is a fun trip to the 80s.  The Hobbit - love The Hobbit.

Gotta run!  Coffee meeting I almost forgot!

Woohoo! Hi NSA!

Image from https://thedaywefightback.org/ referred from BoingBoing

This is not a political blog.  But if you're reading this online (how else?), if you shop online, if you've written an email, or if you'd ever call your Mom...  chances are good that YOU have metadata collected about your life.  Maybe a few emails or phone chats on file.  To be kept for as long as Big Brother feels like it

Looking over your shoulder?  No need.  Look ahead - wave - because other people to turn on your webcam or microphone, y'know?  This is not paranoia.  This is today's America.

Unless we ALL take action.

Read up on "NSA spying," "Edward Snowdon," "Internet freedom," etc.  Knowledge really IS power.  Do you want the government (or private companies) to know everything about you?

"But I don't have anything to hide," you say.

Lucky you! None of us have ever done or said anything stupid in our whole lives.  Even at 15.  Never dialed a wrong number ("How could I know that was Renta-Racist?! I was dialing Rescue-Rover to adopt a puppy!")  Never made a friend later regretted.  And no former acquaintance of ours has ever turned to the Dark Side... joined Green Peace, say.

 The other argument?  "NSA spying keeps us safe."

Well, maybe.  Maybe you trust this present government and every single operative and administrator to use this spying power wisely and only for good... but what about in the future?  What if someday you really disagree with the Administration?  What if another J. Edgar Hoover took charge of your private file?  Another Joe McCarthy?

A few terrorists terrify me less than a future do-gooder armed with my internet history, because what if that do-gooder was another Stalin?  Or a Hitler?

Think about it.  On February 11 let your government know how you feel about internet privacy and government spying.

Post-Holidays...

While that Christmas-present cash is burning that hole in your pocket...

This might be a good time to remind you about my how-to theater set design book that you've been wanting to treat yourself to.

(Of course you have!)

You can find out more about Alice Through the Proscenium HERE on her Squidoo page... or pop directly to the publisher's page HERE.

As one Amazon reader kindly says:

 "Taking away the clouds that often surround the process of what we do, this book offers to-the-point insight and equal amounts of wit. Whether you are an old pro or just starting out, this is a must read."

Designers' Revenge

Any designer in any field has heard their share of, um... unhelpful... direction from certain clients.  Sometimes all you can do is smile until they go away and then you can beat your head on the wall to make the pain stop.

(And don't get me started on that rattlesnake rattle of a phrase, "I'm open to other ideas, but..."  Run.  just run.)

Anyway.

In this amusing post, Irish graphic designers actually illustrate - for charity - some of their more memorable client feedback.

I laughed.  But, to tell the truth, some of the satirized client comments sound kinda understandable points of view to me... I mean don't we all want warmer snow?  And this poster, well, you have to ask yourself if the client doesn't have a real point here:

From Sharpsuits.net (thanks themarysue.com for pointing me to this) 

I believe this is fair use as I'm only sampling, attributing it properly, and all for a more-or-less review.  

If the image's owner objects to this use, please let me know and I'll remove it.

Would the banana chip be capable of driving the chocolate submarine?  Really?  Bananas have a, well, slimy character; a raisin, on the other hand, would seem much more mature to me.  A nut?  That'd be crazy.  Hey! wouldn't it make more sense if the banana were the submarine and a chocolate chip were...?

(If you think this is silly, you haven't sat in on enough production meetings.  I have personally debated the airworthiness of Santa's plane ("Oh no Santa!  We're gonna crash!) and taken part in lively discussions about lobster-phones, egg-suits, and the exact texture of baby-flesh.  Which do you think is closer to the proper onstage "chew": portobella mushroom or tofu?)

The site highlights a bunch of classic client howlers - most designers will recognize their own clients.  (Does, "Just like this... but different," ring any bells?)  See more at sharpsuits.net

Gotta get back to my own banana-boat...

The Ghost in the Theater

Many theaters are reputed to be haunted.

I wouldn't be surprised.

There IS a sensation in almost any theater building that's more than a few years old that performances may sort of... linger... in the space.  To me at least, different stages have different vibes depending on their age and character, but any stage feels anticipatory - as if it waits for the next act - and also a bit whisper-y with past performances.  This is true when sitting in one of the velvet seats in the house, but especially true in the darkness of the wings and backstage.  (Way up in the catwalks?  I wouldn't venture there alone without real business; it just doesn't feel like a place for tourists.)

I'm not getting all Magic 8 Ball TM  here - just making an observation.

Of the theaters in Dallas Fort Worth there is only one that I've heard claims to a haunting.  (There's another where haunting seems faintly possible though.)  The Dallas Theater Center building - the old Kalita Humphreys - is reputed to be haunted now and then by its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

In a very real way his character does permeate the building - as it must any of his designs - simply because his architecture reflects so clearly his personality through his choices.  A short man, his horizontal "Prairie" style of design gives the theater low-hung soffits that feel comfortable to me, but must oppress tall people.  Likewise, the angled stair treads of the Kalita's narrow stairs demand that visitors Pay Attention to the Building.  And their own feet.  (One drink too many and many patrons have fallen down the steps.  In fact the steps to the restrooms were rebuilt to the standard way years ago because so many patrons fell.)  And FLW's floor plan backstage, with its rat-maze corridors and identical stairs that go to different destinations... everyone gets lost backstage at least once.  Try finding the Coke machine!  Twice.  Dare ya.

But besides this very material kind of haunting, there are claims that Frank Lloyd Wright's shade occasionally attends rehearsals.

I haven't seen him.  However the carpenter for my last show there, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, reports that he kept seeing in the corner of his eye a man sitting the front row - house left, 2-3 seats in from the aisle - who, whenever he really looked... wasn't there.  This is where, according to other sightings, FLW likes to sit.  Just watching.  Very benign.

Now, where FLW ought to haunt the building is in its elevator.

There's an old story - how true I don't know - that the master refused to have an elevator in his theater, designing, instead, two switchback ramps to bring up scenery from the basement carpentry shop.  (He didn't really believe in much scenery - his building should be enough.)  The story goes that the elevator was installed secretly - where a second ramp was supposed to go - and hidden from the aged FLW by strategically placed scaffolding etc. during his site visits, only revealed after his death.  Great story.  With all due respect - the elevator IS needed, because the horrible ramp at stage right is utterly unworkable.  If you could successfully roll even an office chair up that thing in the dark between scenes you'd be lucky.  But FLW's posthumous disapproval may well explain why it's such a very cussed elevator.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright does haunt that elevator - some anonymous theater crew made sure of that: "Nooooo ELEVATORS in my Theatre!!!"

Frank Lloyd Wright's face in his theater's elevator - gifted to Public Domain

This photocopy portrait has been riding up and down in the stage's freight elevator for years - as long as I've worked there certainly - so it's getting rather torn and shabby, but many of us have mended or re-taped it in its place.  It seems appropriate.

Sixty Years of Architectural Drafting

How things have changed!  Watch this great video Holiday Card from Omniplan.

http://vimeo.com/81682539

A picture of my own, circa 1970 drafting compass set - gifted to Public Domain