From a Distance...

So here's my latest question...

Many of us are lucky enough to work in a resident capacity- with more or less the same people, in residence at the producing company, familiar surroundings as far as resources go.

But what happens when we are faced with a non-traditionally structured production process away from home?

Has anyone experienced this? The "you have to be in rehearsal to participate/know what's going on" situation when you live three hours away? It is already trying to be in this situation when the design/production/tech schedule is traditional in that people tend to have an "out of sight, out of loop" tendency (particularly for costume designers... hmmm), but what happens when they can't pay you to be present, or you can't due to other committments?

And don't say quit the job or don't take these... assume someone is irrevocably stuck...

Teaching Design Beyond the Rendering

So I alluded to it in a response to an earlier comment- but now I will ask everyone outright:

Who has some good ideas for lesson design that incorporates the post-rendering part of the design process?

A challenge I am noticing is that student designers without practical design experience seem to be lost when moving a design past the final rendering that is where usual projects end...

I recently tried to simulate the pre-rendering "real world" situation to disappointing results, but I think it was the genre of the plays assigned that ultimately made the plan fall short... the project was to pick a modern play (with ten characters, mind you- "GO FIND A UNICORN!") and develop three concept options to be presented before a small class. Then an option was chosen by vote, at which point the students were expected to "run with it" very much the way preliminary concept meetings with directors run... sorta.

Well, newbie designers are not ready to do this with modern plays that call for more subtle interpretations of "concept." Maybe it will work better with classics or musicals... Shakespeares... everybody messes with Shakespeare. I just have to put a moratorium on Nazi/Fascist Shakespeare...

Anyway, that really dealt with the pre-rendering phase, but what would be so nice to be able to work into paper projects is the implementation, or the detail selection and evaluative process that follows presentation of final renderings. Class discussion at presentation time kind of works... but not really. Plus, hopefully some of these exercises could prepare students for altered design process models which is really our ficus here isn't it?

Any ideas?

New Year- new modes!

So one of my New Years resolutions was to be better about this discussion.

So, a new topic emerges...

I'm looking for anecdotes about productions that have really blurred the edges between design disciplines as we know them- or as we are taught.

I'm as guilty as the next (wo)man of saying in a production meeting, "That's props!" or secretly plotting that a bad decision will be fixed with lighting... but is that spirit collaborative? What is the line between passing the buck and sharing the love?

What do you think people? Tell me your story...