PTT Program 6 Days 04-06.txt

Probably the majority of sets that are designed for educational theaters are interior sets. Let's talk about interior sets right now, but remember that many of the same principles also apply to exterior sets. There are some obvious differences between houses and sets. First of all, sets are built to...

Probably the majority of sets that are designed for educational theaters are interior sets. Let's talk about interior sets right now, but remember that many of the same principles also apply to exterior sets. There are some obvious differences between houses and sets. First of all, sets are built to be seen from only one side, unlike houses that have functioning interiors and exteriors. Since sets only need to look good and are temporary, especially in educational theater where shows generally run for 1 or 2 weekends. They usually need to be built cheaper than real houses except for high level Broadway and touring type sets. Many plays call for different locations in the course of a show so sets generally need to be as light and movable as possible. And in large theaters sets need to be exaggerated, bigger than life, so people in the back of the auditorium can see the sets clearly. But there are also some differences that set designers need to be aware of that architects designing houses never consider. In most houses or other buildings, the majority of corners and rooms have right angles. But on stage, we need to be aware of sight lines. Let's take a look at the sight lines here at the theater at LeDoux Horton Watkins High School in Saint Louis. We've put up some flats to serve as walls just for demonstration purposes. This is not a completed set by any means, just a few flats we put up and can change around to show different situations. If a set was built on stage that had right angles where the upstage walls meet, the audience members seated in the center of the auditorium would be able to see everything on stage. But watch what happens as we move towards the end of the aisle. We start losing sight of anything in the up left and up right corners of the stage. Audience members seated here pay the same price for a ticket as the people in the center of the auditorium. So the solution is to tilt or rake the walls of the set so the audience can see everything on stage. This is also an issue with theaters that have balconies when a multilevel or 2 story set is being designed. The set has to be designed so the full second story can be seen from the balcony. Now in some theaters, the seating is installed so wide that some seats are just terrible seats. And to make sure these seats have good sight lines, the upstage wall of a set would have to end up being only a few feet wide. Most theaters just sell these seats last and label them as obstructed view or something similar. Except that there may be a small number of seats that are just terrible seats, and decide where you start to worry about sight lines. Confirm with your teacher about what is an acceptable compromise. Another consideration when designing a set is placement of furniture. Many houses have furniture placed along the walls. For furniture that is actually used by the actors in a play and is not there as set dressing, this is probably the worst place for furniture on a set. 1st, if the furniture is placed against the walls of the set, the actors are doing much of their acting on the outskirts of the set, either far left or right, or far away from the audience along the upstage wall. 2nd, actors need to be able to cross behind furniture while interacting with each other, so they can stay opened up to the audience. For example, if the actors are sitting on furniture and another actor is walking around and talking to them, the actor who is walking would have to turn his back to the audience when passing by the other actors whose furniture is against the wall. If the furniture is set away from the wall, the actor can walk behind it and the sitting actors can just turn a little as the other actor passes. All actors are opened up to the audience this way. Another consideration when placing furniture is that pieces of furniture should be angled towards other pieces or should be facing full front. In real life, furniture often directly faces other furniture. But on stage, that would leave many audience members looking at the backs of actors' heads instead of their faces. As a general rule, place furniture pieces facing 1 quarter left or 1 quarter right or full front, so the audience can see more of the actors' faces from the sides of the auditorium. This may seem obvious, but don't place large pieces of furniture downstage where it would block the view of the rest of the set and the actors. And furniture that is used the least, or used just as a set dressing should be upstage or against the side walls. Another consideration for anyone designing an interior set is what the outside of a house would look like. I know we just said that a set is only viewed from one side, but what a structure would look like from the outside must be considered. For example, what's wrong with this ground plan? It's an interior of a living room. Several things pop right out. First, the stairs leading to the 2nd story dead end in an exterior wall. See where the window is? Where would the actors go when they get to the top of the stairs? That would be an impossible situation in a real house. Next, the entrance to the kitchen leads outside too. How do we know that? Because there's a window on the same wall as the entrance to the kitchen. How many times do you see an exterior type window in a kitchen on the wall from the living room? When designing an interior set, be aware of how a house might be laid out in real life. The next thing to consider is if the set really provides a suitable environment for the characters in the play. Would the owners of this property actually live here? Have the place decorated like you suggest? And does your design convey this to the audience? You have to leave personal preferences behind and try to think like the characters. You might never consider having a suit of armor in your house but the characters in the play might think that would be a really wonderful thing to have in their house. Think like the characters. The next thing a designer needs to do is to give the director an appropriate physical environment in which he or she can work with the actors. Theater is not only an auditory art form, but a visual art form. Directors have many things they need to try to use visually and other things that they need to try to avoid like the plague. Many directors like to group actors in certain positions on stage, sometimes called directional compositions. Good directional compositions make an interesting visual picture to the audience and can also help convey a certain mood to the audience. It's the job of a set designer to give the director an interesting place to work with the actors. One of the things a director tries to avoid is having everybody on stage at the same level and in a straight line. Look at these actors standing on stage. It looks like they are ready for a military inspection or a kick line in a musical. Now look what happens when we change the levels or heights of the actors. Actor A is seated in a chair. Actor b is sitting on the floor next to him. Actor c is standing. And actor d is sitting on the top of a stair. This is a lot more interesting visually than the first grouping. Now look at what happens as the actors move into different planes or different upstage and downstage areas. The visual impact is even more interesting. When the actors are in different levels and planes, they visually form natural triangles, which are almost always more interesting than a straight line. Can you see the angles formed by this group? The exception to this rule is when the director is trying to make a statement that all the actors are in a very controlled situation, like we said a minute ago in a military inspection or a kick line. As much as possible, try to give the director some different levels and planes with which to play by using furniture, stair units, and different level platforms whenever possible. By giving the director different levels and planes with which to play and by putting the furniture away from the walls, the designer also gives the director different traffic patterns for the actors. With the furniture away from the walls, notice the possible traffic patterns on this set. The actors can enter, cross to the sofa or the chair, walk to the kitchen, and exit through either door or the stairs. By moving the furniture away from the walls, the actors can cross in front of, behind, or around the furniture in addition to using the two doors and the stairs as an entrance or exit. The last thing to consider is placement of doors, archways, and other possible entrances and exits. If a character enters from a downstage entrance, he or she will probably have to turn his or her back to the audience to go to center stage. Whenever possible, try to put entrances and exits mid stage or up stage. Characters usually have lines as they enter, but less frequently have important exit lines. And if they do have important exit lines, it's very dramatic to have them make the effort to turn, say the line, then exit. But this, like everything else, is up to the discretion of the director. Sorry, Paige. Also concerning doors, in real houses exterior doors almost always open into a house. There are two problems with this on stage. First, if a door opens on stage, it can block whoever is entering or standing behind the door. 2nd, the audience can see off stage which means more scenery needs to be built to mask the wing area. The solution to this is to hinge the door on the upstage side and have it open offstage. This opens the actors on stage and at least partially hides the offstage wing area. Since working or practical doors can be difficult to build, brace, plumb, and get to operate smoothly on a stage set, Many schools use archways or door frames without the doors whenever possible. This works fine on many sets as long as there are some backing flats behind the archway that makes the area behind the archway look like a foyer or hallway. Always note what parts of your set have to be practical. Parts of your set that don't have to be practical can often be done cheaper and faster if they don't have to function. If something is not a practical piece of the set, it doesn't have to be good. It just has to look like it is. Make sure you note how many actors a particular set has to comfortably accommodate at one time. You need to allow enough room for the director to have all the actors in a scene on stage at any particular time. Look at these 2 sets from Little Shop of Horrors produced at Fort Zimwalt South. The scene in the dentist's office is on a small rolling platform called a wagon because only Seymour and Orin are in this scene. But the main flower shop has to accommodate almost the entire cast and one very large, hungry plant. So it's much bigger. Wagons are often reversible, with different scenes on the front and back of the wagon. The reverse side of the dentist office was a building on Skid Row. Another great thing about this set was that the main flower shop was masked by a set of flats that were painted to look like a graffiti covered wall. When time came to move the bigger Audrey twos on stage, these graffiti covered walls came out and scenes were played in front of the walls while stagehands changed over the flower shop with bigger plants and nicer set props. Talk to the director about how he or she sees the mass space relationship of the set to the stage. This means does the director want the set to fill up the stage and be almost a character itself, or does the director want the set to be minimal, like this other set from Fort Zumwalt South? You can see the actors silhouetted against the sike or last curtain, and the characters kind of pop out against the background. For Little Shop, the set was massive, towering over the actors, giving the audience the feeling that the characters were trapped in Skid Row. You and the other designers have to work together with the director so you're all on the same page. Let's sum up everything we've looked at so far. You, the director and the other designers have to work together to decide on a style and overall concept for the play. You have to consider what kind of world the characters would inhabit and through your research, provide that world for the director and actors. Be realistic about your facility, budget and abilities of your crews, but try to find creative solutions whenever possible. Rake walls for sight lines. Carefully think out furniture and door, window and stair placement. Provide different levels and planes. And make sure your set can accommodate the number of actors that are on stage at any given time. Now let's take a look at the plans for a set and the finished product. This is the ground plan for the set. Notice the proscenium opening, the thrust stage that extends out from the apron of the stage, the furniture placement, the walls stage right, upstage, and stage left, the doorways up right center and down left, the archway up left, the window seat stage right, and the fireplace up center. Notice the walls are all drawn with heavy box like lines, and the doors show which way they swing. Dotted lines show parts of the set that are above the stage, that is, they don't touch the floor. And all set props are labeled. Now here's a rendering of the set, which gives the director, actors and technicians a good idea of what the set will look like when it's finished. Now let's go take a look at the finished product. Here we are at the theater at Saint John's in midtown Saint Louis, Missouri. This beautiful building was built in 1928. And the theater space here is a converted gymnasium that is used by 3 different local theater companies. Let's go on in. What we're going to look at is what's commonly known as a box set. As we said earlier, a box set represents a room or rooms of a house or other type of building with the downstage wall removed, so the audience can kind of peek into the house and peek into the lives of the people who live in that house. This set, designed by Gene Weber, lighting by Jim Davis, and tech work done by the Off Center Theater Company is proof that talented designers, directors, performers, and technicians don't need a brand new state of the art facility to do good work. The director and set designer wanted to get the action down close to the audience, So they decided on an extension or thrust, extending from the normal acting area into what would normally be the audience. Pushing the performance space into this area lends a sense of intimacy to the production since the proscenium no longer separates the actors and audience like a picture frame would or a TV or movie screen does. The actors kind of enter into the audience's space and vice versa. This play is set in an upscale apartment that has been vacant for some time. It's a comedy that has a ghost appearing to several of the other characters, a staircase and landing that leads to an outside area, an exit into the rest of the apartment, a fireplace, and an exit to the outside hallway. The main acting area is a living room area, and the largest number of actors on stage at any particular time is 5 actors. Even though the play takes place in modern times, the apartment and most of the furniture are from the 19 thirties. The production team from off center decided to go for realism with this set. Notice the attention to detail with the full set of armor and realistic period weaponry, the period furniture, and other extremely realistic props. As we look at the set, we notice that the walls are raked slightly to allow for good sight lines. Now the stage is small, so the rake of the walls can't be too great, or there would be no room upstage, but looking at the seating, the sight lines are very good. Also, notice how the furniture is set away from the walls so actors can cross upstage of furniture and still stay opened up to the audience. The traffic patterns are very flexible, giving the director many options regarding blocking. There are lots of levels on which the actors can be staged. None of the furniture is in a straight line and all the furniture is raked so the audience can see the actors' faces. The acting area is more than large enough to accommodate the 5 actors that are on stage at any particular time. Next, notice how the set is planned out with thought given to what this apartment would look like if it was a real apartment. The stage right and upstage walls establish that they are the outside walls to the apartment. How can you tell that? Well, stage right is pretty easy. You can see plants growing on trellises through the window down right and through the door upright. Besides the upright door, we see a fireplace up center. Large fireplaces like this are almost always on an outside wall. The rest of the apartment building is off stage left. The colors for the set were obtained by doing research into what colors of paint were used in apartments of that time period, and the designer and director agreed on these colors, which fit this comedy very well. Much of the time, lighter colors are used for comedies, while darker colors are used for dramas. And, of course, the costumer and lighting designer were included in these discussions, so there was a unified color palette for the entire show. Here's the ground plan for the set. Remember that the ground plan is an overhead view of the set. And here's a rendering of the set that was made for the director. There were some minor changes made from the original design, which is not unusual. Often, time or budgetary issues can affect if a set is built exactly like the designer envisioned. As you can see, the rendering is very detailed and gives the actors and directors an excellent idea of what the set will look like. This is important since they will be rehearsing in another area with the ground plan of the set taped out on the floor until the carpenters get the set far enough along for the actors to start actually working on it. Here are 2 other sets that were built in this space. The first is for a 19 thirties drawing room comedy and the other is for a play set in a mental asylum. All three sets look very different, even though they are in the same space. One of the rules we kind of break in this space is the law about exaggerating the scenery. Since this house area is so small, maximum seating for this play is about 90 seats. The audience and the actors are so close to each other that the designers didn't feel the need to exaggerate the size of the set or painting techniques. In a larger house that seats around a 1000 audience members, the set and painting would have to be much more exaggerated. Again, just because you don't have a state of the art theater doesn't mean you can't design some awfully good sets, and this is a fine example of a well designed box set. Exterior sets are a little bit more difficult to make realistic for several reasons. First, you are probably inside the theater unless the play is being performed at an outdoor site like the Shakespeare Festival of Saint Louis. It's easier to establish the willing suspension of disbelief for an exterior set when the set is in the middle of a beautiful park like Saint Louis's Forest Park. A well designed set can work the natural beauty of the park into the set of the play. As Macbeth progressed and the sun went down, the trees behind the set were lit to tell the audience the action was taking place outdoors, and the lighting on the trees was not used during interior scenes. But most plays are performed inside theaters, and convincing the audience they are witnessing something outdoor when they have a roof over their heads and they're sitting in air conditioning is a little tougher. Here are some exterior designs by Otis Sweezy. The first is the model for a Tennessee Williams play, Night of the Iguana, set in the 19 forties in a rundown tourist area in Mexico. The next is a rendering for Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, a comic operetta set on an island off the coast of England in the 19th century. The third is a rendering for William Inge's Picnic set in the 19 fifties at a Labor Day picnic in a rural area. Sound effects really help establish an outdoor feel to an exterior set, but it's crucial to find the perfect volume level so the audience can hear the sound effects that they are in the background and don't compete with the actors saying their lines. You don't wanna ground out the actors with the sound effect of cricket. I said, you don't want to drown out the actors with the sound effect of cricket. Lighting is crucial too. Sunlight and moonlight has a different feel than lamps and other common indoor light sources. I like to use colors tending toward amber for exterior scenes in the day and cool colors for nighttime scenes. As you can see from the renderings, the same basic principles of sight lines, prop placement, levels and planes, and creating a mood still apply here, but there are no walls, doors, windows, or furniture to worry about. Instead of couches, chairs, and other furniture, an exterior set may have trees, porches, outdoor furniture, and other things people use outdoors. Now Bob will look at using backdrops and designing unit sets. Imagine the opening of your play takes place on a road approaching a realistic medieval castle and your characters wish they could escape their depressing peasant lives. There's a blackout, and when the light comes up, they are on a road leading to a fantasy castle. Consider using backdrops. We saw a few of these earlier in the program, but let's take a second look. Many backdrops are extremely realistic. While the audience will know that they are not outdoors watching a play, drops will definitely establish the location of the scene. We are very fortunate to have pictures of backdrops furnished by Fullerton Civic Light Opera and Groesch Scenic Studios. These companies have hundreds of backdrops for rent and every one of the backdrops I've ever rented from these companies has been just plain stunning. You can put your actors in front of a realistic country road or, if your play calls for it, a road leading to a barn in a cornfield. Your set could be at a country villa in a formal garden outside the villa, and the next scene could be set in a wild looking wooded area far from civilization. If your play takes place in 18th century London, the first scene might have your actors arriving in a harbor full of tall sailing ships. The next scene might find them having a conversation with very wealthy characters in their living room before leaving through the back door and exiting down an alley where they have to fight off a bunch of thieves. Backdrops are quick and easy to change as long as you have either a fly system or side pull traveler tracks on your stage. And when you use scenery built on rolling platforms called wagons, you can hang drops center stage and play scenes downstage of them, while stagehands change the wagon's upstage of the backdrop. Many musicals have short scenes called passing scenes written expressly to be played in the front of drops. These passing scenes keep the audience's attention while the stagehands are changing scenery behind the drops. Just make sure you provide either wagons or set props for the director so he or she has some levels and planes to play with. And don't neglect using the sike, our last curtain in your theater, combined with lighting effects from Gobos. This set from Fort Zimwalt South looks totally different with the site lit in different colors and using a moon gobo. The set has 1 raked, or tilted, platform downstage of the psych and several unit set pieces on either side of the raked stage. This is a good example of an exterior unit set. A unit set has a main set of platforms that don't move, but different props can be brought out in different areas to suggest changes in location. A unit set usually works best for plays that are episodic, or that have lots of locations and potential scene changes, like plays that were adapted for movies. As we've said before, nothing ruins the mood of a show more than having the audience sit in a darkened theater while the stagehands change set after set after set. Audiences nowadays are used to watching movies and television where locations can change in the blink of an eye. Set designers for live theater need to be conscious of how important it is to keep the action of a play moving and keep your audience engaged in the play. A unit set can use an occasional wagon, but the main body of the set does not move. While unit sets work great for exteriors, they also work fine for interior sets too, as long as you and the director agree that the the set can be presentational. If a few pieces of well chosen furniture can establish interior locations, go ahead and use a unit set. Again, this is a decision based on your ideas about a play, as well as your fellow designers and of course the director. If you have a really talented lighting designer that can establish the mood and setting through lights, an excellent props person, and the director sees the play working in a presentational setting, you may all decide to go with the unit set. Many plays, and especially musicals, have multiple set changes called for in the script, and few educational theaters have the kind of facilities and budgets to recreate the original Broadway production. Here are a couple of things to consider when faced with the problem of doing a show with multiple sets. I know we've said this repeatedly, but nothing ruins the mood of a show more than having the audience sit in a darkened theater while the stagehands change set. The first thing you need to do is to take a good look at your theater facility. Do you have wing area off stage left and right to store wagons when they aren't being used? Can you come up with some creative solutions like LeDoux Horton Watkins did earlier in the program? If not, consider using a unit set and maybe some backdrops. Is your stage deep enough to store wagons behind any drops you may be able to store center stage? Some theaters have hydraulic orchestra pits that can be used to store a complete set during nonmusicals. These generally move quite slowly, so they're only good for set changes that happen during intermissions and between acts of a play. In any case, try to simplify your set changes. If the script calls for 3 different rooms of the same house, maybe change pictures, furniture and other set props to give each scene a different look. That is called dressing the set differently. Add different lighting to a set that is dressed out differently and the effect can be quite convincing. Or see if the play really demands different rooms or if the scenes could be played in the same room without hurting the play. If you do have wing space and can use many wagons, choreograph the scene shifts as carefully as your choreographer does the dancing in the show. Make a scale model of the entire stage early in the design process and put your models of the different sets on the model of the stage and move them around. It's a lot easier to move around the pieces of your model than the actual pieces of the scenery. And don't forget to leave room for the actors. Your scenery may be wonderful, but if the actors are tripping over each other, dodging scenery, and it becomes chaos backstage, it's hard for them to stay in character, and the audience doesn't come to the theater just to see your scenery. If it's too crowded backstage on your scale model, it's time to scale back the size of some of your scenery, And it's a lot easier to do this before the scenery is built. Once you figure out a traffic pattern for the wagons, try your plan with real scenery on stage. When you finally get the pattern down pat, have the stage manager or master carpenter tape around the different wagons in the wing areas so the wagons are exactly where they need to be each night. Use different colors of tape for different wagons, trying to keep the tape close to the dominant color of each wagon. And as we said earlier, try to play scenes in the front of the backdrops or other curtains while the stage hands are setting up the next scene behind the backdrop or other curtain. Now, let's review some of the basic concepts of set design. First, the job of the set designer is to provide an environment for the play that will help the actors, the director, and the audience enjoy and understand the play. Work with your director, your fellow designers, and the technical director. Decide with the director and other designers what the style of the play is going to be in this production. Is it realism, selective realism, fantasy? Is the style going to be presentational or representational? Be open minded and your set will not only work better with the play, but will probably also look better too. Disregard your own personal taste and design the set from the point of view of the characters in the play. Do your research into time periods and styles of the time of the play. Start out your design thinking anything is possible, but then be honest with yourself about your theater facilities, budget, and ability level of your technicians who will build the set. Adjust your plans accordingly. Make your sketches, renderings, elevation, and models as professional as you can. Your technicians will work harder for a designer who brings in clean scale drawings than a designer who brings in scribbles on the back of a fast food napkin that are not even in scale. Avoid long scene changes by using wagons, backdrops, and creatively shuffling the scenery backstage. If working in theater as a designer or a technician sounds like something you might be interested in doing for a living, you'll need to put together a resume and portfolio. Here are some hints on getting into a good school and finding work. Hello. I'm Kurt Nadelcedar. And over the past 35 years, I have served as the director of theater arts at LeDoux Horton Watkins High School, DeSmet Jesuit High School, and the Missouri Fine Arts Academy. During that time, many of my students have been awarded college scholarships based on their abilities in the field of technical theater. Many of those students now make a living in professional theater as theater technicians. When it's time to take the tech theater skills you've learned and apply them at the college or professional level, you will need to know how to develop a resume and a portfolio. In an interview, they will be the basis for a discussion of your work and experience. The resume will not only show us what you've done, but it will also serve as an instant aid to communication. Someone looking at your resume may recognize a theater or a director you've worked with or a show that you've designed. This will give you something in common to talk about. Remember that they are interested in getting to know you and your work. Let's first take a look at how to prepare a resume. When building your resume, remember to make it very easy to read and understand. Place your name at the top of the page in a large, readable font. Below your name, place your contact information such as phone number or email address. Along the left hand margin, list the productions on which you have done your tech work. Create a tab near the center of your page. Build a column that indicates what tech job you performed on each show. Along the right hand margin, list the theater or production company that produced each show. It is always a good idea to list your most important credits first. Often, the person looking at your resume may not look at every item, but they will always look at the first few. Therefore, it is important to have your most significant experiences listed at or near the top. There are a number of ways to do this. You might choose to list all your professional work before your educational theater work. For example, working as a stage carpenter for a professional company might make more of an impression than being a tech director for your local high school. If you are interested in a specific position such as lighting designer, you might want to list all of your lighting credits first, no matter where you earn them. This will show that your main focus is in the area of lighting. Once you have listed all your tech theater credits, create a section called awards and honors. List here any awards or honors you've earned in the area of tech theater. If you have no awards or honors at this time, do not create this section. Finally, list your references. List the names and contact information for those people, usually 2 or 3, who can speak to your skills as a theater technician. But before you list anyone, be sure to get their permission. One thing that is very important, keep your resume to 1 page in length. If you have more credits than will fit on 1 page, go back and edit. If you wanna let us know that you have more credits than you have listed, add this line to the bottom of your resume. Additional credits available upon request. In most instances, the person interviewing you will have not seen any of your work live on stage. Your portfolio gives you the opportunity to show them the quality of your work. When preparing your portfolio, there are a few things to remember and consider. Only present work that represents you at your best. Anything else will lessen the impact of your presentation. Work must be presented in a quality manner. Perception of quality can only be degraded if the mechanics of the presentation are not up to or even beyond the level of the quality of work being presented. Sloppiness and other clues to a careless attitude can sabotage your presentation. If your portfolio is anything less than professional in appearance, it will be assumed that your work is also less than professional. What type of theater are you interviewing for? Educational or professional? What position are you interviewing for? The work you select should be geared toward that specific goal. Don't be afraid to have different resumes highlighting different areas of expertise. What type of spaces do the people you are interviewing with operate in? Go for clarity of intent. Each piece in your portfolio should be carefully chosen so as to illustrate an aspect of your work. Work should be documented so as to provide the viewer with the appropriate context in evaluating your work. Consider including a case study approach, showing a project as it progresses from initial considerations to final realization. This approach has an added benefit in its ability to demonstrate your working methods as well as your analytical approach to your work. Include notes from the initial reading of the script, notes from initial meeting with the director, rough sketches, detailed drawings and elevations, in progress photos, production photos. Your portfolio should demonstrate an understanding of the standards that are commonly applied to work included in portfolios. Demonstrate qualities that make your work unique. Attempt to highlight any area of expertise that may separate you from others, such as detailed carpentry or large drop paintings. Frequently, your evaluators will be looking for potential for further training. The actual product may be less important than your organizational skills, work methods, personality, and an understanding of the function of your work within your art. Always be aware of the importance of thorough, careful, and high quality documentation of your work. Reviews, testimonials, production photos, and programs should be collected, prepared, and filed on a continual basis. When preparing your portfolio, ask yourself the following questions. Is there a logical order to the work presented? Is all work presented in a way that is neat and well crafted? Is your title page clear, and does it include all your contact information? Is all your work fully labeled and annotated? Are the plates titled? Have you identified all the shows and producing organizations? Is your exact role in the production identified? Is all lettering typed or crafted with care? Have you checked for spelling or grammatical errors? Have you included a table of contents? Are all photographs included of high quality? In addition to the work you are presenting in your portfolio, be sure to include the following items. Title page, table of contents, your resume, letters of reference, statement of educational or work philosophy. When preparing a portfolio with an emphasis on scenic design, set construction, or scenic painting, the following items should be included. Perspective renderings, photos, photos of work in progress, production photos, models, planning sketches, research materials, painters elevation, and a statement of concept. It's imperative that your resume and portfolio are available in digital format. Here are some of the common ways colleges and universities will accept your digital materials. Remember that although approximately 90% of all actors are unemployed at any given time, Qualified theater technicians are never out of work. So whether you are a stage carpenter, a scenic artist, a lighting designer, or a set designer, start developing your resume and portfolio as soon as possible, and constantly update them as you gain more and more experience. Thank you for watching, and break a leg. For 100 of years, set designers have used backdrops to help create environments on stage that help tell the stories of ballets, plays, and musical productions. Can you see where the drop meets the stage floor in this picture of a set from Hamlet? Everything upstage of this line, the trees upright and the castle up left, is a 2 dimensional backdrop. And the structure, downstage left, is a three-dimensional practical scenery unit from which actors could enter and exit and even climb into the tower and speak to the actors below them. Set designers have been trying to add movement to scenery for a long time. Back in the 18 forties, a man named John Banvart developed what was called a georama, which was a very long piece of canvas that was painted to look like the shoreline of the Mississippi River, as seen by passengers on a riverboat. Technicians rolled up the georama from side to side. So the feeling was that the boat was moving and the shoreline was very slowly rolling past. This may seem primitive now, But remember, this was the latest technology, a 170 years ago. We have a new section on designing period plays later in the program that features how the designer approached designing a play about John Banvart and his georamas. Other background scenery has been developed through the years. But we're lucky to have some wonderful new advancements in projected scenery. There are quite a few resources for projected scenery, But we particularly like BMD's projections. BMD also helps with the hardware projectors, projection surfaces, and so forth, and is readily available to answer questions. One of the things to remember about projected scenery is that there will be an initial expense if you purchase the hardware, like the projectors and other gear. We'd like to recommend renting the hardware for a show. And if you like using projected scenery, then make the investment in the projectors and other equipment. Like Bob said in the last section, backdrops can be extremely realistic and can definitely establish the location of a scene. But no matter how realistic a drop is, a backdrop will always be more presentational or obviously theatrical. When you compare it to representational three-dimensional scenery. Compare these 2 sets. 1, outdoors at the Shakespeare Festival Saint Louis, and one with an outdoor backdrop inside a theater. The Festival is a very representational set since there are real trees in the background. And the set is painted to look like an abandoned, rusty, industrial site. A painted backdrop is more presentational, regardless of the skills of the scenic artists who painted it. Projected scenery can be very realistic, but it will never be as realistic as three-dimensional scenery. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of how to use projections shortly. But first, let's examine when to use and not use projected scenery. So when should a designer consider using projections? Projections can add a cinematic quality to any production. Rather than using still backdrops, you can use moving images that really capture the audience. We would recommend using projections when your design concept has presentational aspects and when the story of the play could be moved along by using projections. For example, in the Adams family, the entire story is pretty fantastic and presentational. The house they live in is very, crazy and spooky. And building an exterior set like that would be expensive and take up a lot of real estate on stage when it's not being used. The characters are so broadly drawn that adds to the presentational feeling of the play. I mean, how many people do you meet in real life who are like Morticia, Gomez, Pugsley, Wednesday, and Uncle Fester. Be nice now. The animations are timed out to work with the music. Many other musicals are a good fit for BMD's projections, like The Wizard of Oz. Notice how the opening scene in Kansas is all in sepia or brown tones. The tornado comes sweeping into the scene. The house is lifted into the middle of the tornado and Dorothy runs into several very interesting characters. Finally, the house lands in Oz, which is filled with brilliant colors. This is a wonderful way to set the opening of this classic musical. So when would you not want to use projections? We'd recommend not using projected scenery when the play or musical is extremely realistic or representational. The set from Born Yesterday that we looked at earlier was extremely realistic. The only projection I might consider would be a nighttime sky projection. But since all the action of the play takes place inside the hotel suite, adding the night sky to the scenic envelope might actually pull attention away from the interior set. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Again, the director will have the final say in any design decision. Another consideration about using projections is that projections can be very cost effective. Aside from the initial investment of the projector, schools and theaters have managed to save 1,000 of dollars by switching to projections. Using projections is much more eco friendly. Rather than creating excessive waste with each production, projections limits the amount of materials needed. Most theaters don't have an incredibly large venue that's conducive to projections, and that's okay. If you have a few lighting bars available, you'll be able to hang a projector and avoid shadows with relative ease. In these cases, you'll want a short throw projector, which will be discussed in detail later on. Even if you don't have access to a light bar, there are still most likely a way to get projections to work, so don't get discouraged. You need 3 basic things to use projections. A playback device, a projection surface, and a projector. What is playback? To put it simply, playback is what you will use to play the video files. There are different kinds of playback devices, and most schools end up with using a simple laptop computer. You'll need to be able to output the content from the playback device to the projector. Typically, this is done with an HDMI cord that goes from the computer to the projector. There are several types of playback options. BMD provides software with every content rental that includes animated files. If you'll be utilizing projections that don't feature animation, both PowerPoint and Keynote are wonderful options as well. What kind of hardware should you use? The alternative to software is hardware. And for this, we would recommend ImageQ. ImageQ is a DMX controlled device that hooks up to certain lighting consoles and will allow you to cue projections straight from your console. The benefit here is that you wouldn't need to learn an entirely new program as it would run through something you're already familiar with. More information about ImageQ can be found on the BMD website, broadwaymediadistribution dotcom. People think that they need some fancy, expensive projection surface in order to use projections effectively, which is not the case. All you really need is a semitranslucent, semi reflective gray surface to project onto. Many schools just use their cyclorama. If you don't have access to a cyclorama, you can always purchase a fabric that is light gray or blue color. Just avoid dark blacks, it'll wash out the image. And bright whites, it'll appear like your image is on fire. If you're the resourceful and creative type, you can also apply something called screen goo to your existing set pieces. It coats the surface in a way that allows it to be projected upon. You can also do this to large pieces of wood if you're in a space that isn't a typical theater setting, such as being outdoors or in a cafeteria. There are 3 types of projectors. Most school theaters are currently equipped with long throw projectors. Usually, a projector is placed in the booth or the back of the house. Lots of school auditoriums have long throw projectors to show movies or to use for power point presentations during assemblies or large lecture classes. This will work, but the low angle of the projector will create shadows on the projection surface, and the actors will have projections on them. A short throw projector is made to be placed close to the surface and still maintain a large size. With this type, we're able to project from above the actors removing almost all the shadows. The vast majority of theaters go this route. High quality projectors will have a keystone control to square off the image when using the projector from overhead. Lighting must be controlled so it doesn't go on the projection surface and wash out the projection. Also, actors need to say several feet down stage of the projection or they'll cause shadows and have the projections all over themselves. Rear projectors are not always a different type of projector, but a more of a projection style. This will project from behind the surface and will void all the shadows, at least if nobody walks behind the projection surface. Rear projection screens can be quite pricey too. BMD states that sometimes you aren't looking to replace your traditional scenic element. Functional walls, doors, stairs and so forth. But rather looking to enhance them. Here are some tips for incorporating the lighting and scenery into your projection setup. The most important thing to remember when incorporating lighting is this. The projector is a source of light. Meaning it will have to fight through other stage lights to reach the surface. So we advise keeping all of the lights around 5 to 8 feet away from this projection surface. This will also keep light from reflecting on the floor and hitting the surface, effectively graying out the image. If you're having trouble keeping faces lit with downward facing lights, try adding a little silver reflective makeup under the actor's eye sockets. This will allow the light to bounce back into the face and help reduce darkness. Adding in scenery is actually something that can be really beneficial to projections. If you build scenery around the sides of the projection surface, you can make the projection surface a bit smaller. Since you have less surface to light with the projector, the overall image will be much brighter resulting in a better looking projection. Another option that we alluded to before is projecting onto the scenery. If you have a large house or other scenic centerpiece that is within the scenic envelope, you can simply project onto the back. Theater is all about being resourceful after all. Calling projection cues is really quite simple. If you're using software, you will need to run the cable from the projector down into one of the wings where the playback device will be located. Then have a technician station there who is listening for the projection q one go call from the stage manager. If you are using an image queue, then you can simply call them as like queues and know that the projections are already built in. This also saves the need for an additional person pressing the go, which is why his stage managers seem to love the image queue. Using projected scenery animation can really help your production.