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Welcome Technical Designers from TH393F, Spring 2008. Look below the photo and click on “comments” to leave your Assignment: Describe a cool thing that you made with your own hands. Include a vivid description of the process. See you on Tuesday! -Michael
10 replies on “Welcome Technical Designers from TH393F, Spring 2008. Look below the photo and click on “comments” to leave your Assignment: Describe a cool thing that you made with your own hands. Include a vivid description of the process. See you on Tuesday! -Michael”
So, as of Thursday morning, Sept 6, I see that most of you were able to find the blog and log on to make a comment. Hooray! I’ll keep building onto it with images, links, and YOUR contributions. PLEASE, PLEASE feel free to post any questions or concerns during the semester. Realize at the same time that it is a public site, so…
As for your definitions and thoughts on technical direction, technical directors, and theater technology; you all have it pretty right on. I think of technical direction as just that: The direction of all things technical. But as this role can be quite complex, “technical direction” includes figuring out how to build scenery, how all the technical elements go together, whether the project (as a whole, and individually) is feasible, communication, leadership, making decisions (quickly and effectively), technical and artistic expertise, and a commitment to the success of the project. And yes, it is about making stuff, and doing so without losing limbs. It’s just so messy when that happens!
“Hah!” you say, and then you say, “oh, sure!” and I say, “yes, it can be quite daunting and overwhelming.” In the past, TDs often burned out from overwork and lack of pay and, happiness (I think). But that’s where you and everyone else comes in. A good technical director will form, facilitate, and lead a team (or group of teams). It really is the people around the technical director who make it all happen. The TD, hopefully, has provided the leadership, communication, and support to facilitate the success of the technical aspects of the production.
Let us pay tribute to Luciano Pavarotti today by valuing the beauty of our voice, and the expression of our feelings. Believe it or not, but the welfare of the technical production team is of primary importance to the Technical Director, fore it directly affects the success of the production.
See you all in class.
Michael
Hey everyone. Keep checking the blog and let us know what you think of the set-up. Is the site difficult to use, are links hard to find?
Any feedback is good feeback!
The house I grew up in came equipped with a pretty large backyard and a nice crabapple tree, which was perfect for climbing. When I was about seven I took some scrap pieces of wood, some nails and hammer, and with a little help from my grandfather I constructed a crude little tree fort that I was was pretty proud of. It consisted of not much more than a small platform and some steps for me to climb up on, but it was sturdy enough to provide me with hours of entertainment in my tree. Constructing something at that age taught me that there is a vast amount of possibilities right in my own garage.
In the 6th grade my class was given an assignment to make a realistic model of earth out of home made, multicolored clay. We were sent home with instructions on how to make the clay and given the speech about how it wasn’t toxic but shouldn’t be eaten anyway. Needless to say, our parents all ended up getting involved because we all made multiple attempts to eat it after discovering it was salty. My little earth came out nicely with oceans, continents, and layers of rock and lava all colored and big enough to identify…however as soon as I got it back with a grade on it I did what everyone else in my class did – I ate a big chunk of it and ended up not wanting anything to do with salty food for months thereafter!
In seventh grade I took a shop class. We worked in the metal shop and in the wood shop. In the wood shop we had to choose between making a tool box and a bird house. I chose to make the tool box. We had to cut the pieces of wood to the right length using a power saw. Then I used a power drill and nails to hold the sides together. The tool box did not come out perfect, it did not lay completely flat and the handle that went over the top leaned to one side. I painted it bright red, like the generic metal tool boxes that you would find at Sears. I gave the box for my dad for Father’s Day. He was very proud of me for making something out of wood all on my own. I also thought that it came out pretty good for my first try at power tools.
In eighth grade I was required to take a wood shop class and we all got to choose what type of final project we wanted to work on. I decided to make a wooden moose because a friend of mine had recently hit a moose in her car. So, to start off I had to take about three planks of wood and fit them all together. Afterwards I traced the shape of the moose on the wood and spent about thirty, tedious minutes cutting the basic shape out with a bansaw. Once I got the basic shape, I had to do the detailed parts, like the antlers, with a jigsaw. Unfortunately, the process met with complications and by the end of my time with the jigsaw, my moose lost half an antler and one leg. But thanks to the miracle of nail guns, those parts where permanetly reattached (ignoring the fact that they were more metal than wood at that point). Finally I put stain on it and used a sodering iron to burn some welcoming words on it.
One special Christmas my mom told me I could make the traditional advent wreath for the family. The first step was to put pieces of green foam into the metal base, which is where I would stick the greens into. I then went outside and gathered various greens such as pine needles, leaves, and holly from my forest. I would then arrange the greens into the foam until you could no longer see the foam. Then I would place four candles, three purple and one pink, into the wreath and fill in any spots with greens into the foam that were missing. At the beginning of advent we would light one candle and as each week went on we would light one more candle until Christmas Eve and all of the candles were lit! The only problem was that the very first candle that was lit would be so close to the greens by the last week, that one of the leaves almost caught on fire. Overall, my family had a very nice advent wreath that Christmas.
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UMASS-Amherst Theater Technology » Blog Archive » Welcome Technical Designers from TH393F, Spring 2008. Look below the photo and click on “comments†to leave your Assignment: Describe a cool thing that you made with your own hands. Include a vivid desc…
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UMASS-Amherst Theater Technology » Blog Archive » Welcome Technical Designers from TH393F, Spring 2008. Look below the photo and click on “comments” to leave your Assignment: Describe a cool thing that you made with your own hands. Include a vivid desc…