So, for the past couple weeks I've been gathering preliminary research imagery for Parade, mostly through Flickr and related sites. Today, I started posting material on the Dolphin design website, a collaborative project hosted on Google Sites the help us communicate over the course of the design process. Since the Site was essentially just a welcome page as of this morning, I started inventing my own hierarchy as I went along. First, a 'research images' home page, with subpages for individual scenes/motifs/songs/etc. Then a seperate section to hold Scott's design concept.
I'm mentioning this now so I remember to come back to it later and evaluate just how much we actually ended up using the site when this is all over.
73
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Flick Flickr Flickest
I've been pulling images off of Flickr as research for Parade recently. And before you get your twist-locks in a twist, yes, they're all Creative Commons licensed images. The Creative Commons license comes in many forms, but at their heart, all are variations on a copyleft theme; that is, they allow the producer of the media to distribute the work and allow others to use it for noncommercial purposes as long as the work is not modified and is attributed to the creator. The reasons for using CC works as a designer, and licensing our own media as CC, is twofold:
First, the creative commons license helps encourage the free flow of creative ideas and products. It allows art, reproductions of art, photographs of art, etc. to be shared within a creative community without fear of repercussion from the producing body. Publishing a CC photograph, for example, says "I don't care if you see this on Flickr, on your home computer, on the nightly news or on your wall at home. Let everyone see it, just let them know it's mine." It means that the artist is more concerned about the form of their artwork and not about the format in which it's presented. By licensing our own photographs and designs under the Creative Commons license, we help our work spread and inspire others.
And more practically? Flickr won't let you save to disk any image that's not licensed under the Creative Commons. All you get is a little <1kb file called "spaceball.gif". Go figure. And go Creative Commons!
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First, the creative commons license helps encourage the free flow of creative ideas and products. It allows art, reproductions of art, photographs of art, etc. to be shared within a creative community without fear of repercussion from the producing body. Publishing a CC photograph, for example, says "I don't care if you see this on Flickr, on your home computer, on the nightly news or on your wall at home. Let everyone see it, just let them know it's mine." It means that the artist is more concerned about the form of their artwork and not about the format in which it's presented. By licensing our own photographs and designs under the Creative Commons license, we help our work spread and inspire others.
And more practically? Flickr won't let you save to disk any image that's not licensed under the Creative Commons. All you get is a little <1kb file called "spaceball.gif". Go figure. And go Creative Commons!
73
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Another Spring Schedule Update
Just to have my thoughts down on paper (pixels?), here's what Spring looks like so far, in terms of shows and board stuff:
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- Week 1: Shell rehearsal, Grafitti pre-programming
- Week 2: Shell tech/opening, Grafitti tech
- Week 3: StuCo board petitions
- Week 4: StuCo producer petitions Waa-Mu crew view Friday
- Week 5: Waa-Mu tech/opening
- Week 6: StuCo director petitions
- Week 7: Cuckoo's Nest (Sit & Spin)
- Week 8: Clean House tech
- Week 9: Wrestlepocalypse tech, Dillo Day
- Week 10 (reading week): Griffin's Tale Jones Show tech/performances
- Week 11 (finals week): Nothing
- How Can you Run with a Shell on Your Back: Assistant Director
- Grafitti Dancers: Lighting Designer (2 songs)
- Waa-Mu: Assistant Lighting Designer
- Cuckoo's Nest: Sit & Spinning in some capacity
- Clean House: Co-Master Electrician with Dan Lazar
- Wrestlepocalypse III: Co-Lighting Designer with Juliette Rapala
- StuCo stuff: Current Sit & Spin board member
- Griffin's Tale: Performer
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Spring Schedule
So here's what Spring's looking like so far:
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- Week 1: Shell Rehearsal
- Week 2: Shell Tech/Open/Close
- Week 3: Nothing
- Week 4: Nothing
- Week 5: Waa-Mu Tech
- Week 6: Nothing / Waa-Mu Strike on Sunday
- Week 7: Cuckoo's Nest Tech
- Week 8: Nothing
- Week 9: Wrestlepocalypse
- Reading Week: Nothing
- Finals Week
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Friday, February 13, 2009
Gel Box, V.2
Thought I should take a moment to update the listing of what I've got stashed in my gel box. It's got a few new additions since last time, and I find it useful to have a reference list of my stash online. When Rett was picking colors for Food for Fish, for example, it was nice to have a list on hand of what we didn't have to shell out cash for. Currently, the list is:
CUTS:
CUTS:
- R02: Bastard Amber
- R07: Pale Yellow
- R316: Gallo Gold
- R21: Golden Amber
- R22: Deep Amber
- R51: Surprise Pink
- R53: Pale Lavender
- R51: Surprise Pink
- R53: Pale Lavender
- R60: No Color Blue
- R360: Clearwater
- R362: Tipton Blue
- R80: Primary Blue
- R119: Light Hamburg Frost
- R132: Quarter Hamburg Frost
- L202/R3203: Quarter CTB, all jumbled together between the two brands
- R02: Bastard Amber
- R302: Pale Bastard Amber
- R07: Pale Yellow
- R13: Straw Tint
- R316: Gallo Gold
- R21: Golden Amber
- R321: Soft Golden Amber
- R22: Deep Amber
- R53: Pale Lavender
- R51: Surprise Pink
- R53: Pale Lavender
- R60: No Color Blue
- R360: Clearwater
- R64: Light Steel Blue
- R69: Brilliant Blue
- R71: Sea Blue
- R80: Primary Blue
- R119: Light Hamburg Frost
Sunday, February 8, 2009
MAC 550 Strangeness
I sat in on the last three or so hours of cueing for Peter Pan on Saturday. It was really quite interesting - the minimalist/modernist design ethic for the show means that the programming was somehow a cross between theatrical deisgn and a rock show. Lee has a lot of technology in the air: 24 Forerunners, 2 VL2000s, 4 MAC 550s, 4 I-Cues. Granted, it's not a lot of technology, but for the size of the space and the usual minimalism of such things in TI shows, it felt like a lot.
The MAC 550s were behaving very strangely. Here's the setup: in cue 55.5, the MAC's have a move order from home to a preset look where they're all focused center stage. Thing is, every time we ran 55.5, all 4 MACs reset themselves (closed the shutter, recallibrated their pan and tilt in both directions) then executed the move order. We looked at the preset, but none of it's parameters where anywhere near the reset values for the fixture - Shutter/Strobe was at 35% (reset is 82-85%, DMX 208-217). My only thought is that for some reason, the Ion was using the in the 86-89% shutter open range instead of one of the lower ones, and in fading down to another state it brushed through the reset range and caused the fixture to reset.
The kicker? When Peter went up to the grid to turnoff DMX reset, two of the fixtures already had it turned off. Funny old thing, life.
73
The MAC 550s were behaving very strangely. Here's the setup: in cue 55.5, the MAC's have a move order from home to a preset look where they're all focused center stage. Thing is, every time we ran 55.5, all 4 MACs reset themselves (closed the shutter, recallibrated their pan and tilt in both directions) then executed the move order. We looked at the preset, but none of it's parameters where anywhere near the reset values for the fixture - Shutter/Strobe was at 35% (reset is 82-85%, DMX 208-217). My only thought is that for some reason, the Ion was using the in the 86-89% shutter open range instead of one of the lower ones, and in fading down to another state it brushed through the reset range and caused the fixture to reset.
The kicker? When Peter went up to the grid to turnoff DMX reset, two of the fixtures already had it turned off. Funny old thing, life.
73
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Dolphin's Done, Now Twice Told
Dolphin openned this weekend with nary a hitch. The lights are all up and lovingly focused, all the practicals installed and wired, both crystal balls now light up, and there are 30-odd lightbulbs hanging in space that now do too.
What I've said about Dolphin as a process recently (and I think it's true) is that three weeks is exactly the right amount of time to the the show, if we work 8 hours a day every day. Those days have more of a rehearsal energy than a StuCo tech energy; there's work to be done, but let's not drive ourselves crazy with our work load. More than ever, though, there needs to be a strong spirit of collaboration between the designers, director, and other creative team members. The scale of the beast that is Dolphin means that even deviating slightly from where the rest of the group's mindset is can put a designer noticably off track, which I'd posit is what happened with this year's Dolphin Show in places. It's a massive undertaking, and requires a similarly massive ammount of communication.
Twice Told goes into tech tomorrow. I've been working with Sally and Emily Schaeffer on renting scrollers, both from Chicago Spotlight and Arts Alliance, plus all the ancillary schmazz that goes with them: DMX, P&D, a PSU, that sort of thing. I'm gonna see if I can call in a couple favors today to get people there for hang tomorrow, but even if I can't we'll have at least 2 run crew to work on lights while the other three tackle the set. Sally rocks, by the way. She's tackling lights, set, and props for this show, and doing it in style.
Starting to think about Mee-Ow now. Scribblings on that later.
73
What I've said about Dolphin as a process recently (and I think it's true) is that three weeks is exactly the right amount of time to the the show, if we work 8 hours a day every day. Those days have more of a rehearsal energy than a StuCo tech energy; there's work to be done, but let's not drive ourselves crazy with our work load. More than ever, though, there needs to be a strong spirit of collaboration between the designers, director, and other creative team members. The scale of the beast that is Dolphin means that even deviating slightly from where the rest of the group's mindset is can put a designer noticably off track, which I'd posit is what happened with this year's Dolphin Show in places. It's a massive undertaking, and requires a similarly massive ammount of communication.
Twice Told goes into tech tomorrow. I've been working with Sally and Emily Schaeffer on renting scrollers, both from Chicago Spotlight and Arts Alliance, plus all the ancillary schmazz that goes with them: DMX, P&D, a PSU, that sort of thing. I'm gonna see if I can call in a couple favors today to get people there for hang tomorrow, but even if I can't we'll have at least 2 run crew to work on lights while the other three tackle the set. Sally rocks, by the way. She's tackling lights, set, and props for this show, and doing it in style.
Starting to think about Mee-Ow now. Scribblings on that later.
73
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