Wednesday, October 27, 2004

I was pretty sure that I needed a night off

I was right.

I will not cry. Its not worth it.

Avery and Matt Hales just spent most of crew time jigging up the railing mirrored of how it is supposed to be. Thankfully this was caught by Nick Vaughan looking at it and saying, "that's not right... somehow... something is off." Looking at it, it would have been right if the theater was rotated 180 degrees. But its not. We won't be able to have this get welded tomorrow afternoon because the jig won't be finished. There goes the easy plan.

The "ooo-ooo" plan that Kevin and I came up with for both the kick rail and railing connection to the platform does not meet with designer approval. I should learn to ask Nick about every decision. But he is hard to find and never likes it. Or he doesn't care. I'm not so good at reading which things are going to make him freak out and which things he just wants me to deal with. This one I was wrong about. I could rant, but I'm not going to. Somebody in this designer-TD relationship needs to stay outwardly mellow. It sure isn't going to be him. So I guess that it has to be me. That is probably ok. I need the practice. Yelling at the designer doesn't get me anywhere.

Nick asked specifically for THREE (3) sheets (his number, his request, not mine) of masonite to be replaced on the stage and routed with grooves for texture. In my head and on the calendar, that was a 2 person, 1/2 crew night (2 hours) job. We looked at the floor tonight, and he wants to replace 4 sheets, but they aren't just plain old 4'x8' sections because the apron is weirdly laid out. And the groove needs to fade out, so that it isn't there at the edge of the sheet, where it would be obvious that it doesn't continue in the other sheets. Oh, and there are funny rubbery disc/plug/hole things in the floor, in a nice little grid pattern, covered with black gaff tape. They aren't so pretty and they make lumps. They appear to be there for attaching the seats when the pit is at auditorium level. I need to talk to DR about that.

I still have 2 big elements that aren't figured out in their entirety... the chandelier and the spinning stairs. And I don't think that I can look at another CAD drawing of f#$*ing stairs tonight. Or really, another computer screen. My head hurts and my railing is right back where it started. And the lower stairs aren't started either.

1 comment:

David said...

OK

First, you could take tomorrow or Friday if you need to. Have Shannon run things for a night.

Next, if the jig is front for back, IE good side down, then you might be able to use it as is. Tack the faces, weld the fillets. A jig is only ever good for one side of something that isn't symmetrical. Check with Ben before starting over.

Clearly Nick does care. If he is hard to find then set up a standing time when he needs to meet with you. Obviously you do need to run anything that has a visual impact by the designer and you know this and it isn't a surprise or a hardship, its doing theatre. You'll come up with a new idea, and now you know his priorities for the solution. If you don't know his priorities, you should get them before you start again.

If Nick asked for 3 and now wants 4 you have the purview to see if 4 is within your resources. Just because the existing layout pattern does not correspond to three normal 4x8 sheets doesn't mean that you can't just cut a hole that shape in the existing pieces. Does that makes sense? Lay out the three sheets where you want them, mark the perimeter and cut out the shape - set your saw carfully so you don't mung up the floor too bad.

I'm not sure what you mean about fading out the groove, but with less than 1/4" of depth to work with there isn't much room for variance.

The holes in the apron are for the seats that go on the apron. Do talk to DR about it. My recollection is that the seats didn't wind up in exactly the correct locations last time, so this may not be a problem.

If you have some shop time before you need to get those last few items in, maybe you should take off the tech design hat for a day or two.