Introductory Script

Script for Introductory Video-Designing and Preparation

Background:

As scenic design and construction is a process, it is important to examine your environment and your design challenge before you start to work.  Then, moving into the design phase you can work out issues you come across as to not waste time and funding on avoidable mistakes.  In this introductory video, I am going to discuss my design process and how I begin to plan for this upcoming project.

(Medium shot talking in front of a bulletin board)

Hello everyone.  I'm glad your taking this journey with me as I work through the production for the set of In the Heights.  I wanted to give you a background of our design challenge before we get to all of the fun of designing and creating the set.  Every journey begins with a step, and in this case, my first step was learning what this show is about.  Without getting into the plot, the show takes place in a working class neighborhood in Washington Heights.  The set consists of three store fronts; (motioning a list) a taxi dispatch, a corner store and a beauty salon.  The fourth space in the foreground of the set is a characters house which consists of a door and a step.  In back of that is a park-like area and in the far distance is the George Washington bridge.   If you read the script, you will get many more details which will tell you more specifically what the needs of each scene are.

(Medium Shot but a different angle/background)

(Starting perpendicular to the camera, turning and walking a few feet toward the camera)

Now that I'm familiar with the basic set needs, I do some research.  I'm looking to find out what Washington Heights looks like in real life, what stores in the area look like, what the bridge looks like and what other productions have done.  As I do some internet searches, I take notes, print out pictures and make sure I get everything together before I start designing.  Reference pictures are a must and having as much information available will only make your task of designing easier.  In my searches, I found out that the "gold standard" of this set is based off of the Broadway design, created by Anna Louizos.  I found a YouTube video of a tour of the set so I am going to include many of the details of that set in my own design.  As I take notes, I often do quick sketches, of things as specific as a cabinet or as general as the layout.  With all of my notes, pictures, and rough sketches, I am ready to start making my design.


(Picking up a yellow pad)

As I start my design process, I make sure I have a good understanding of what my space will allow.  For a previous show, I measured all of the dimensions of the stage, the depth, the width and the height.  When I looked at the Broadway set, I noticed that it is a tall design,(motioning height) meaning that there are multiple levels for the buildings.  I know I can't accommodate that height because the stage that I work on is not that big, with an approximate height of 14 feet.  So this limitation is among one of the many considerations I have to make when I make my design.

With all of my dimensions set, I take my rough sketchs and start to develop them in the computer.  My personal preference for software is Sketchup, and I can scale all of the set pieces and see how set pieces would look like in relation to each other.  Once I have my design, I can even take down the dimensions of the set pieces so anyone can build them.  There are other programs out there and for this purpose, I'm sure any 3-d modelling software that your comfortable with will do the trick.  From here, I take my model and generate images with different angles, and share them with the other people working on the set.  I'll provide some basic views, like a top view, a front view and some isometric views to the lighting designer, the sound designer and director so that I can make sure that all of our fields work together cohesively.  Like I said before, the more information available, the better.

(Medium shot, turning toward the camera)

So that is it for now, this was a quick overview of my design process and development.  If there is a need to talk about something in more detail, I'll be sure to record a video in the future.  The next video to be released will summarize the set development in Sketchup,describing the some design choices I made and briefly discuss materials that will be used.  After that, future videos will discuss the production of the actual set pieces and more material talk.  The overall idea of these videos is to build toward the next video and scaffold the information. So here, we discussed some basics of design in this video and will go into a bit more detail in the next video.  At the end of this series and the completion of the set, everyone watching should have a good idea of what goes into creating a theatrical set, seeing the process first hand.  Until next time, take care and happy making.