I woke up today ready for my second day at USITT!! My first session was at 1.30 about AutoCAD and Vectorworks. This was a discussion about the differences between two software’s. The major point was that the two don’t always match up. Although this wasn’t what I expected it was an interesting discussion on the differences between the two applications. I didn’t really learn anything of importance in this session as it was purely a question and answer session that dealt with personal problems within the software. However it was interesting to hear what problems people had and how to deal with them.
My second session was about scenic design outdoors and was hosted by the designers of the Muny Theatre group in St. Louis. This session was very interesting and I took away from it lots of information about the practicalities of outdoor theatre. The scenic designer has to take into account the natural surroundings and lighting effects in order to produce a design that works both under electrical lighting and natural lighting. Vivid bright colours are important for this. They talked extensively about the practicalities of scene painting and I noted that it is important to blend you painting style with the other scene painters who are on the job. Layering colours is an important suggestion as this creates depth and richer surfaces. When working outside the weather is an important factor both to the performance and build time. Over all this session taught me that the total experience is important and when working outside it is important to keep in mind the natural surroundings at all times.
Overall a good second day at USITT, bring on the third day!!