Oh... progress!

A lot has happened in the last few days. First of all: the load in was scheduled on Monday. The shop didn't have enough people to help, so the entire set didn't get on stage. I think that for the most part, the remaining peices got put in place Tuesday. Dan and I have not recieved any cast contributions of junk to make up Hester's house, so we went down to the basement and looked around and found some stuff we thought would work, like an old mattress, a door off it's hinges, some plastic stuff, canvas bags, etc. I tested out the spray that we are thinking of using for the graffiti but, there was a miscommunication and the intructions were muddied. I have to redo that tomorrow. There are a couple problems with the grate for the storm drain... one being that the shop doesn't have the materials that I am looking for. I am also unclear as to some of the specifics about light getting into the grate and how supported it must be.

It's very exciting to see it all starting to come together!

Drafting.... UGH.

Drafting is very frustrating to me. I can spend hours trying to get something drawn, and do one thing, and it all gets messed up. Or it all goes away. It's so much fun. I finally figured out how to use the mirror application however which helps with my 2 sewer grates. Abbie helped me a lot, but mostly, I just fumbled around for hours. The first time I tried to work on it, I worked for about an hour and a half, and eventually erased the whole drawing because it was too muddied up. At least, tonight, I got the top, front, and side views drawn. I'm trying to figure out how to work the orthographic projection drawing, but there's some trick that Dan showed me, and that I learned in class, but once I set it up, I can't remember how to use it.

I can't make production meetings which is frustrating for me, but not that big of a deal, since I usually don't say anything at them. But, I still have Wednesday meeting times with Dan, so that will happen tomorrow. VERY nervous. I haven't gotten as much done as I'd like to have, but I have been doing work on other things... like his scenic painting class assignment.

DRAFTING

I've been in the process of drafting my sewer grate/storm drain. It's a very frustrating thing for me. I don't know any of the commands, and it takes forever for me to figure it out. I'm sure with practice I'd get better, but I'm on a time limit here! anyways, I'm going in tomorrow, hopefully and I'm gonna work on it a little more. I think I need like a good 3 hours or something to work on it. Meeting w/ Dan on Wednesday at 2.

My Own Little Pet

Right now, I'm collecting research for the project Dan gave me: the storm drain. It's going to be on the apron in between the cooking and washing areas. I have been looking for some drains and sewer grates that look more like "architecture." I translate that as meaning more structural than just a grate in the ground... something the audience can see a little better. I want to start sketching, but I can't remember if he told me I could wait until after we discuss the research I have found. Either way, I have ideas right now, so I'm going to do some rough sketches. Tomorrow I meet with Dan and I will show him my research as well as my sketches and we'll go from there. Which reminds me: in the morning I should probably look at orthographic projection chapters in my drafting book.

The White Model

Today, there was a production meeting for the show. I had been working on the white model which we presented at the meeting. It took me three days to plan, construct, and finish the model but it came out great. Everything was to scale, and I feel like I only made one mistake, which was the gap that was left between the post and the freeway top. Also, I should have made the scale fence a little differently: the metal mesh that i used was vertical and horizontal, instead of like the diagonals that are usually what chain link fences look like.

My newest project is to research storm drains and to do an orthographic projection. I haven't done one of those in awhile, so I'm gonna need a little be of a crash refresher course. Dan said he doesn't want it to be just square, he wants it to look like a piece of architecture. From the research I've done so far, I don't know if I'll find any images of that.

Changes Changes

There was a meeting today for IN THE BLOOD. We went over once again some of the Bill's main focal points and what he is trying to convey to the audience. Also, we went over a bit of the scheduling. For the next meeting, I will need to prepare a white model. Models are mostly a tool of communication, and also so that the director can get a sense of the atmosphere and design of the show to keep that in his mind for staging.

The design of the set has actually changed a bit since the last time I have seen it. It has changed to being straight on, instead of a side view of the freeway, and it's also lower, we see less of the sky line. Dan is trying to come up with a solution for the back drop which might mean renting a few rear projection screens, but they are costly. Bill wants the foreground to be static, and the background to be amorphous, popping and abstracting at poignant moments of the production.

So far, I'm kind of stressing out about the process. There is so much that I don't comprehend and I can't decide if it's just my lack of experience, or if I just don't think like a designer. We'll see.

Sketches

I showed Dan my collage and for the most part he like it. He gave me some suggestions and showed me some photoshop tricks that will help me with layering the pictures together. Dan has already been working on some sketches for the set. We looked at them and discussed what he really wanted to see in the design. My next step is to do some sketching of my own using my own collage as inspiration.