(td)squared

On the last day of the conference, I had the feeling that I absolutely had to see everything I could before I left. The first session I went to was called “Choreographing Scenery”, and although it was apparently officially canceled, so many people showed up, that it turned into a roundtable discussion for everyone there. Interestingly, it evolved into a debate about how to train students to manage their time in an academic setting.

Should a student be allowed to stay at school all night during tech week to finish everything? Or should time restraints similar to union time regulations in the “real world” be imposed at universities, as well? Should students get used to time not equaling money? Or should they be allowed to learn time management skills through the experience of being forced to pull an all-nighter and learning first-hand how stressful and exhausting it is?

Although no general consensus was reached, it is an interesting topic to think about—is it fair to have a director to tell a student designer throughout the rehearsal process that all the odds and ends will be resolved during tech week, and then to tell that student during tech week that they are not allowed to stay past midnight, even if it means some things are left to chance on opening night?

At the Young Designers on View, I had the opportunity to see the best of the best student portfolios on display. As I have to make my own portfolio this semester, it was an invaluable asset to be able to see what techniques others are using to present their works. From abstract renderings to model sets with fluorescent lighting, almost every student had a creative solution in order to showcase their talents.

Overall, the conference was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had in my very young theatre career since my Intro to Tech Theatre course. The atmosphere of openness and willingness to share is absolutely overwhelming. I have never had more of a sense of people wanting to share their immense knowledge with both each other as well as the students in attendance. I am very glad that I was able to attend this conference, and would also like to thank CURCA for their funding, without which this opportunity would not have been a reality for me.

I have enjoyed connecting the UB alumni to the current students on this trip.  I want to thank the alumni for offering career advice, looking at portfolios and resumes, and for sharing stories. Thanks to Becky Wolf, Jon Shimon, Ryan Knapp, and Rachelle Beckerman for skyping with us yesterday as we went live to air from the conference to campus.

I have spent my day reviewing and regarding design work of students and professionals.  This includes the work of costume designer, Izumi Inaaba, a third year MFA at Northwestern University and a UB alum.  For those of you who knew Izumi when she was a student, you will be pleased to know that the brown sketchbooks were still on the table. 

This day has left me thinking about the state of contemporary stage design.  Where do you fall on these issues?

Is American theatre defined by a series of images that express a theme or by stories?  Do the lighting designers of today sacrifice illumination for the sake of “image?”  Does this deemphasize the playwright/the word/the body?  Has image usurped storytelling? 

A few other things…

I hoped to see something I had never seen before, and I have.  The egg-crate top hat (City Theatricals) is a simple, effective, product that shields the source and not the effect.  It can enhance the aesthetic of our work in a number of ways from masking the orchestra stand lights to shielding the source of dance side lighting. 

Having been a studio assistant that built models for the Cincinnati Playhouse, I was pleased to be able to see a production there this evening. 

Katie G. and Andy walked me through the best of the LED fixtures on the trade floor. I truly believe that a “green house” is possible, especially in contained spaces. 

We met Jules Fisher.

Tara Donovan’s work at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center could not be more relevant to the 2011 PQ Student Exhibit. Her creative use of materials explores changing space through the repetition and variation of a single medium. It provides food for thought…

THE FOREIGNER at The Cincinnati Playhouse proved to be entertaining. As for visually stimulating, I would put that up for debate. The production had a glacial first half hour, but was saved by a faster paced Act Two. Overall, the show was probably not worth me paying extra for a better seat than the rest of the group.

Designer’s of International Decent, a session focusing on the why’s and when’s of four current international originated designers working in the USA was very informative.

Today I toured the Young designer’s Forum at the Hilton Hotel. It is a mini exposition that showcases young designers currently enrolled in MFA programs. I viewed the work of designers such as Nathaniel Sinnott, Dwayne Burgess, Izumi Inaba, Dan Stratton, Melissa Torchia, and Holly Griffin. Viewing their exhibits showed many examples of different presentational techniques. Most of them utilized drafts, photos, models, and research. A few used video, props, and large-scale art. I took up a “collection” of resumes for research to improve my own. The scenic designers had incredibly detailed models, which I looked at everyone trying to discover the materials that they used.

On a side note, I did research plagiarism, but it will take a few more days to compile the information.

So you think you know everything about top hats but you are wrong or so I learned this morning. Believe it or not there is an extensive history of their development and implantation over time. It all began in 1930s with the invention of the top hat as one of the lighting accessories. In the 1980s the current owner of City Theatrical, Garry, who was working on Broadway began to cut apart the full top hats that were in use. As he made the modifications to the top hats he became to the “go to guy” for manipulating the beam spill. This drew more attention to the light that was not being designed. Each designer was then forced into deciding wither or not to deal with this extra light. Garry ended up opening a small modification shop in his garage which has grown into a huge international company. City Theatrical has been doing more a large portion of their work on custom applications and modifications for now than 25 years. Standard top hats all focus on the 45degree cut off theory. This theory states that the perfect ratio between the amount of housing that covers the lamp (preventing the observers to see into it) and the amount of light that is cut out of the beam. This theory means that the 6 ¼ diameter top hat has a 6 ¼ height. The height equals the aperture. The current types of top hats in addition to the full standard are concentric circles, cross quadrant, half hats, and egg crate. Concentric circles, cross quadrant tend to be less efficient than other types and they are primary used when it is going to be in a visible location, part of their appeal is visual. The coolest application, I think, of the egg crate in a custom application is their use in Le Reve at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. The egg crate top hat has been reshaped to form into the shape of bubble covering the moving lights to prevent the audience from being disturbed by the light so close to the audience.

For the last time ever form Cincinnati….

Hello all you beautiful people!

Today was a very sad day in Cincinnati as it was the last day of the USITT conference; however a very interesting session this morning sure did start it off right. Katie and I went to the lighting accessory top hats session this morning which proved to be more interesting and useful than we had expected; more on the specifics of this session can be found in Katie’s blog today as we are back to writing our individual blogs.

The next stop in our day was the young designers forum; this is a presentation of design work by third year graduate students. This turned out to be a very valuable experience to me, not so much for the work I saw but rather for seeing what it really means to be a young up and coming designer in this business. The displays were pretty good, some better than others, and the photography quality was not great throughout. However I found the value of going to this forum to be more in how it helped me realize some things about this business. I have been struggling lately with the desire to become either a technician or a designer and the ideas of whether it is worth another three years to go to graduate school. I am not saying that one needs to chose one path and never stray from it, but you do need to chose a field of concentration. I had always thought that I was better suited in this profession to be a technician despite my love for design work. But after having seen the product of what these students accomplished from seven years of design schooling and seriously looking today into the world ahead of them and other young designers I have seriously reconsidered my standing in this field. Though one walk through of a few graduate students’ design work doesn’t completely convince me, the experience was still invaluable as it opened my eyes to what I now feel is the much more appropriate field of study for me, Lighting Design.

Now to finish off our trip to Cincinnati we will be attending a play at the Cincinnati playhouse tonight, the same play we got a backstage tour of earlier this week.

Andy

At this last day of the conference, I went to the portfolio review and received feed back on turning my portfolio toward a lighting designer and not let the design of portfolio take away my theatre design work. Since I have be learning so much to be an graphic designer or an artist this portfolio help me to the right director of presenting myself as an lighting designer. And then I went to different school booth and gather information about further education in lighting design and what are these different school providing to their students and what skill I will need to build up more and how can I decided the path after graduate from university.

The conference is wrapping up and we’re all sitting in the hotel doing our final blogs from Cincinnatti. The mood is melancholy and reserved as we compile our thoughts on this enthralling week. I look out onto the expansive Cincinnati skyline and my mind revisits the memories from this week; new friends, new technology, and new knowledge.

Today was a slow day; I attended a single session regarding preparing your lighting design previously to drafting. Unfortunately the session was hardly informative, and it simply revisited information that we learn in our own lighting class. I did enjoy one presenter’s commentary though; he was a designer for Disney. They are already planning and researching for their Christmas show in 2012!

After that we went into the lobby and met Dick Block who works for Carnegie-Mellon as a professor of Design. Then we went to our hotel, where we are blogging right now!

Later this evening we will return to the Cincinnati Playhouse to see a production of “The Foreigner.” Jeff, Jane, Andy, Katie and I all toured the Playhouse and got a behind-the-scenes view of this production, so we’re really excited to see the actual show!

I’ve really appreciated this momentous occasion and the tremendous opportunity I had to visit the fantastic city of Cincinnati in the virtuous state of Ohio. It was a good time!

The past two days have much to report. Meetings have provided me with ideas and inspiration on ways to get more students involved and in attendance to the 2011 PQ. After attending the Upstate NY Regional Section Meeting, The USITT Regional Section Communicators Meeting, And The State of The KCACTF Meeting, facilitating communication between KCACTF and USITT is in the works.

Moving beyond meetings at the conference has also been beneficial. I was an active part of going live via webcam to UB’s THE106 class from the stage expo floor. We introduced the class to new stage technology, new acquaintances, and old ones too, as we have caught up many UB alum (both expected and unexpected). I was able to literally “emerge from the midst” of a new fog machine and give the students a live update on my conference findings.

A session on Deborah Landis’s new costume design book was fantastic. She was really able to shed light on the significance the costume designer has on the performer and how important that relationship is. She was also able to exploit how important choice making in while selecting what garments to put on someone else and ourselves as costume designers. As the soon to be new costume design chair at UCLA, Deborah’s session only added to my difficult graduate school decision process.

On the graduate school front, this week has also brought new knowledge. The possibility of attending Northwestern with a primary focus in scenic design with a secondary in costume design could perhaps happen in the fall of 2009. There have been further developments with the University at Maryland, details to be forthcoming, and I have been accepted to UCLA, awaiting details regarding a financial package.

After attending the KCACTF Summer Intensives, working at PCPA, and going through the U/RTA process, attending the conference has been a new experience for me, now knowing many more members of USITT. It’s made me realize how the industry is seemingly huge, yet at the same time even smaller than I have previously thought. Also, each and everyone I’ve had a chance to catch-up with has his or her own personal thoughts regarding my educational future. Of course, the choice is ultimately up to me, but these thoughts have made a tremendous impact, and my survey of them will be considered in my upcoming decision process.

Another great session was one which honored the distinguished achievement in Scenic Design of Franco Colavecchia: internationally known designer for work with the New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric, The Roundabout Theatre and Center Stage. Franco Colavecchia has displayed his work throughout the country and his designs have been included in the Prague Quadrennial multiple times.