Friday, April 26, 2013
The Right Chair
HowlRound: I’m going to take the precarious position that, as designers, what we put on stage in front of an audience should never be an apology. Why should lack of resources become an excuse for shoddy craftsmanship, or for compromising the quality of what we are capable as artists?
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5 comments:
THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO READ. This Journalist KNOWS what to say and how to say it.
"Why should lack of resources become an excuse for shoddy craftsmanship, or for compromising the quality of what we are capable as artists?"
I strongly believe that you can achieve an adequate and almost perfect world for a show without the biggest budget. I think it is a matter of knowing where to look for the materials, knowing how to design with a budget in mind, but not letting that stop the way that you envision the show. This journalist knows how to speak on this topic. FOR EXAMPLE... My group (for Susan Tsu's final design project) needed a ton of mirrors. This would have cost us about $500 on a $250 budget. Guess how much it cost? $0. We simply reached out to someone, and they extended a hand to help us.
Design what you want, and make it work.
Like Nate, I find that this is very relevant to the design project we are working on right now. In short, we are building a theater-for-one box with somewhat limited resources. For that reason, it is tempting to use cheaper or free materials to create something not quite as good, detailed or accurate. I agree with this article that the right chair is better than a bad chair and two mediocre walls. Several time in the build and design of our project we have encountered such a situation, where we chose to get rid of or limit an excellent design because we knew its realization would be mediocre due to limited funds or time. While it may seem like a sacrifice at the time, it's worth it in the end. By casting out certain elements, we've been able to put a lot more effort into other one..
This is a really great article and it definitely applies to what we have learned this year as freshmen in Basic Design. For the whole first half of this semester, we studied semiotics, which is the study of signs. This article, essentially, is saying that if a designer does not complete their project or scenery to what their original design was, the semiotics will completely change. I am surprised, however, to hear how often the author of the article has run into this problem in the profession. Not finishing a set to the designer's vision is a mistake that falls on more than one professional involved in the building process. I also agree with the author when they say that organization is a key component of the design and building process. In fact, I think that the fault, moreso than anything else, is on whoever is estimating time and money, whether it be the technical director or the production manager.
As this final design project nears its due date, this message rings very true and relevant. Since this project was funded from our own money, there are discrepancies within the classroom. Some people come from very well off families and are willing to contribute much more money than those who come from households with less spare income. There are those who are designing the box on the larger income bases, and those who are trying to plan the budget for the box based on lower income bases. Thankfully, at least in our group, I set the budget from the beginning before the design was even fully formulated. Therefore, the design wasn't sacrificed, the design was just originally planned within the means I knew we would have. It's always a pain for everyone involved in a show when a design is created that isn't possible with the resources to make it available. First off, you end up with a design that isn't as good as the original because the designer usually tries to retain their former design or snippets of it, instead of creating a new one. The production manager and the designer end up frustrated with each other, the TD isn't sure what to do until the last minute and slaps something together, and the final product onstage isn't as good as it could be. Fantastic things can be designed with a low budget, you just have to know how to use your resources. It's better to design something of a high degree of finish and thought put into it, than a design that's beautiful, but not fully formulated.
I hate to disagree with everyone but this seems a little childish. I agree that lack of resources should not be an excuse for shoddy work. However the designer/ author seems to be quite aware that he is working with limited resources. If he chooses to design something really grand anyway, reality will strike. If its out of budget it just won't happen. Shouldn't a good designer be able to design for a budget when its necessary, like in this case? If the designer can not come up with a good design that fits into the theaters budget I think the problem lays with the designer
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