The Problem:

In this project we were the technical direction team in charge of the scenery crew at City Tech. We were given the drawings of a deck and told that it was being used in a concert and talent show that would be taking place in the City Tech theater after the Haunted Hotel.  The concert is 8 days after the strike and the talent show is rifter after that. While both events will be using the same deck, the band for the concert wants their band logo painted on the floor. The talent show needs a black floor. On the day of the final presnetaion we had to have with us; constructiobn drawing for the deck, calender for construcion, load-in, and setup of the deck, and a metrial list of what you will use.

The Approach:

First my group made a list of obstacles and problems we needed to tackle with this problem. We were able to answer some and come up with a few after asking the designer some questions. After coming up with our final list we divided it up amogest the three of us, each looking for a solution to our group of obstacles. We would separticaly checkin with eachother to see how far we made it with our list and if anyone needed anyhelp. I was in charge of creating the clender of construction, set-up and changeover. I would be in charge of creating a calendar for our group.

Problems Encountered:

There were a few obsticals we encountered with this problem. One was the band logo in the middle of the deck. It had to be there for the concert but needed to be removed for the talent show right after it. We came up with the solution that we would fit the band long on one sheet of 4×8 MDF, which was what the hole deck floor was cover in. That way right after the concert we could quickly remove the one sheet in the middle and replace it with another pre-painted sheet for the talent show. The next was construction of the deck itself. We decided that we would do a triscot set-up. This we decided cause of the fact that we had stock triscots in the shop. This would help cut on our construction time which we had a very limited amount of. This was another one of the obstacles to overcome, limited time. The concert opened 8 days after the strike and we could not get in there a moment earlier. I hade to come up with a calendar that could fit our entire build time along with a 8 day load-in working around both sound and light crews. We also found that our past experience with not working with other martial can lead to us over complicating a simple solution. A prime example of this would be with the corner stairs of the deck. Our entire class came up with a million and one different ways on how to construct these. Some were dismissed after we decided that they were too complicated while others were shot down for being unsafe or not being even possible. In the end our professor just said, “What about building them out of block foam?”. While trying to come up with all of these crazy builds we never stopped to think about the other materials availed to us that would work just as fine, if not better in this situation.

Real World Application And What I Learned:

The main thing that I learned from this project was time budgeting and management. What you think can get done and what the reality is can be two very different things. I went through 3 different calendars before I made one that I thought was reasonable and would get everything done on time. what I can take is how to think when you make a set of goals for yourself. what kind of crew am I working with? Are they experienced enough for what I am asking of them? What are my limitations? Are there other crews that I need to work around or with? Am I hindered by anything? Is a door too small therefore leading to smaller set piece leading to longer load ins cause there are more now? These are some of the few I had to keep asking myself while making the calendar, and I feel that after this project I got a better grasp of how to answer these questions and understand how they effect my final draft. Another thing my group and I took away was how to think outside the box, and how sometimes the simplest answer to a problem can be right in front of you. This was shown when we discussed how to make the corner stairs on the deck.

Here is think to my DropBox folder which has my final calendar and milestone check list:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d14rslgidaau5sz/AADQJ6e3AI8SA44XDUBlhVfLa

Here is the link to the OpenLab page that gives an overview of our class disscusion of the problem.

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/techdirectionsp2014/2014/02/20/notes-21814/