The Problem:

In this problem we were the technical direction team in charge of the scenery crew at City Tech. We were given the drawing of flats of the next new show coming to our theater. We would have to price, build, and install the show. One of the main things that we had to look out for was that the show was a comedy and the door in the center of the stage would be slammed shut multiple times and the flats should not shack. Another was the fact that the set had two curved flats in it. On the day of our final presentation we had to come with: budget, calendar of build and load-in, construction drawings, and explanation of how to combated the problem. I was in charge of creating all of the construction drawings for my group.

The Approach:

Like before my group made a list of all the problems and obstacles for this project. after dividing it up and deciding on everyone’s roles we broke up and went about completing our part. While we tried to keep up constant commutation we did not do so well and it led to more obstacle’s which I will talk about more later. When we would meet up we would compare notes on what had been accomplished so far and what our goals were for our next meeting. After showing what we had done and going over it we would then assign ourselves our new goals for the next meeting and once again go our separate ways. While in the end we completed the project I think it would have turned out better had we talked more to each other.

Problems Encountered:

There were a few obsticals we encountered with this problem. The first was that of the slamming door. We had to come up with a way to reinforce the door to hold up to the multiple beatings it would take each show night. A way I came up with to help combat this was to make the door flat its self into two separate pieces. That way I could have a double seem at the edge of the door. Not only did this help with extra reinforcement but it also made the flat itself easer to transport and load in since the doors into the theater were smaller then the flat. The next obstacle we hit was that of the curved flats. Since none of us had ever built a curved flat this would be a new experience for us. After looking at premade ones and reading trough some text books we found out just how to do it. While we discussed with our class mates of the difference between staggering the toggles or rail I believe we came up with the drawings that would work. Another and one of the biggest problems we had was communication. As I mentioned before my group and I would only meet and discuses what we had done and what needed to get done during class time.  This meant that any of us got something done in the time between that we did not share it like we should have. This led to many things being done more then once by different people and all of use falling behind on some things when we didn’t have all of the information the others did. I believe that this could have been solved with setting up regular meeting outside of class time to help with the spread of information.

Real World Application And What I Learned:

The main thing that I learned from this project was commutation. As I said earlier, while we did complete the project I felt we could have added more refinement to it if we didn’t rush at the end to have it all complete. Because of our limited time together we did not get to explain to the others in our group what we had accomplished or what we were having difficulty with. And since trying to commutate in-between that time was limited it hindered the flow of information. As I mentioned earlier this led to many  parts of the project being done twice by different people. This included two different price sheets and eventuality to two different budgets. Since we did not tell the other what the group had discussed and accomplished this left many a times someone being left in the dark about how far along in the project we were. This led to a harsh group environment that I felt could have been easily fixed with better communication. for my next project I will set up a schedule of time that each person in my group will commutate with the others about how far along they are in there part of the project. This will help keep the lines of commutation open to all and make for an easier time. I will also set up a DropBox that the hole group will have access to. That way when one person gets something done, everyone gets it too.

Here is think to my DropBox folder which has my AutoCAD Drawings of the flats and some pictures of them:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v0nmnysoe86w3st/AADulxYyFWrq3jRMM2V2s6fla

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

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/techdirectionsp2014/2014/03/21/class-notes-320/