Problem #4: F2M

F2M

For this project, just like the last two problems we are the technical direction team in charge of the scenery crew, not at City Tech but at the New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Summer Season. What’s different about this problem is that the scenery will be built, installed and painted by the NYSAF production staff which will take place in the summer of 2018. A few things we had to watch out for when drafting and building a prototype is that the concept for the show has to be very realistic, it has to look as real as possible. Just like the previous problem, we have to make sure the walls don’t shake and there should be no visible seams in walls shown to the audience. The distance between the Vassar College Scene Shop and the Powerhouse Theatre is about 900 feet. We will have to take into consideration about transportation and how we are going to load in and out of the theatre.

For my group,with Javier and Val, we did a lot of research in finding doors and windows as well as trees and the sliding door. We also looked into the brick wall and how we are going to do the hardwood flooring and carpet. We had a lot of choices for our brick wall because we wanted to paint the wall in a roller that was shaped like bricks or we were going to cut MDF into rectangular pieces and staple them onto the luaun. We also thought of plastic but because of the noises it might make when we bump into them, we thought it wasn’t a good idea. For the doors, windows, and kitchen appliances, we looked into websites such as Home Depot, Craigslist.

What I learned from this problem was having to do a calendar with tight schedules with when lighting and sound has to load in, when sound needs quiet time and when lighting needs dark time to focus. Like John said, there will be people that may not be available at 7am or 8am in the morning and will hate us for the rest of our lives for doing that. There may also be multiple calls going on at the same time in different theaters which can be a bigger conflict for all. We had to manage our time wisely and make sure that every crew’s schedule was on time because if it wasn’t, there would be overtime calls which could be hard to find crew for depending on their availability.

What I would do differently is try different ways to schedule everyone and see what works best. We didn’t think about our crew having to come back in early feeling exhausted.

June 2018