Friday, October 30, 2015
Accounting for Media in the Production Schedule
HowlRound: It is important for the Producer and Production Manager to understand the general workflow of a Media Designer in order to thoughtfully and effectively integrate media into the production schedule. It is also vital to allocate a realistic budget as early as possible, so that a designer can coordinate the correct equipment and present design ideas that take into account the limitations of the budget. Keep in mind that media design can be varied and have diverse workflows depending on the approach, needs, constraints, and goals of the production. It is vital to fully comprehend what the specific media design for your show is trying to achieve in order to specifically create the calendar. That being said, there are some general things you can expect most designs to share.
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As far as Video Shoots, that’s an important thing to account for. Too often, especially at the SOD, we mismanage and put off the details of a video shoot. And that’s a mistake. Companies and Schools need to get on the same page about how these things normally happen. I know there’s no norm for a lot of things, and media is a more-or-less new thing in theatrical design, but we, as an industry, need to figure out how we’re doing these kinds of things. We need to figure out how we normally handle calling the actors. We need to figure out if it really is the Lighting Designers responsibility to light the Video Shoot (although if they care about a good product, they should want to.) We need to figure out if a video shoot is even part of the media designers contract, especially if it’s being used for publicity.
The choices we make in educational institutions TODAY are going to shape how media affects theatre for the foreseeable future. We’re the ones that are going to determine how this works from here on out, especially as more and more schools are offering a theatre video and media design program or specialty.
Media design, in my experience, has long been the neglected stepchild in the production family. Maybe it's just the companies that I've worked with, (I sincerely hope so) but it seems to me that the media designer is simply someone who comes in the last few days of tech, and, at the behest of the director, throws some video into the mix, twiddles the projector, then leaves, as quickly and quietly as they came. Now, there are variety of reasons for this, but chief among them, I believe, is a misunderstanding of what media design encompasses, its processes, and its capabilities. To treat media design as I have seen it treated is nothing but detrimental to any production, and something that I have learned must be rectified. Article like this, that spread awareness of the needs of designers and their mediums, are the first step in rectifying this wrong, and allowing for more effective integration of media design into production.
Media design is still relatively new in the theatre world, which often means it is overlooked. It works differently than any other medium of design in theatre. It is kind of a combination of everything. There are so many different components that go into a media design and they often need more time than expected. It is important for a production manager to schedule in the proper time for media if they are doing a prerecorded video in the show. Video shoots take a lot of planning and preparation because they need a lot of people and often they need different people than the ones already involved in the production. They need people who know more about film and video shoots to help out. Having media used in rehearsals also requires a lot more planning because designs and equipment need to be ready a lot sooner than it would for the show.
The article does something that I do not think I have ever seen before explicity and in writing: shows deadlines for Media as it applies to the other department’s milestones. Having these deadlines will help identify the problems that I have seen fairly frequently as of late, which is not knowing that we need a video or photo shoot until the last minute or until rehearsals have already started. This general awareness of the team of deadlines for Media would create an expectation for the entire team to integrate Media into their process and would likely create a more cohesive design and schedule. The schedule would then have the photo or video shoot built-in because those needs would be established and discussed in the early design phases. This way, all of the other departments can prepare with regards to the needed props, costumes, and setting.
I also think it is interesting to think of placing a video production timeline inside of our pre-existing show timeline. I think one way that Production Managers could help the process of integrating these into our system would be to include the Pre-Production, Shoot Days, and Post-Production Phases on a Master Calendar so that the entire team can see that the shoot has to happen on the scheduled days so that the content can be ready for tech and so everyone can see exactly how the shoot lines up with the overall process.
This was a really insightful article. With how new media design is to theater, many standards are not know for how to allocate for it. I feel very glad that media design is a part of Carnegie so as a stage manager I can learn how to handle all the aspects of it. The most interesting part of this article was when it explained media design and the rehearsal process. I would think that media would not play a big part for the rehearsal process, when in reality it does. The director would want to be very collaborative with the designer especially how it will effect the actors. The biggest thing for media, at least for me as a professional worrier would be how to trouble shot for the load in, and tech process, and of course for the show. I find media to be such a new technology based design element that can go wrong in so many ways that the more time dedicated, which is always short to come by, the better.
This article is incredibly relevant to the management world. Media is still something fairly new to the live performance design. This makes incorporating media into the flow of the traditional production schedule. And now that media is more likely to incorporate live videos or pre-recorded video, there’s another level of rehearsals to schedule. This means that there might be union guidelines and accommodations to consider, plus an increase in budget. Even something as small as budgeting time for media research and adding them into the design meeting schedule can be crucial to keeping things running smoothly.Planning ahead for these circumstances is incredibly important, and also shows your respect to the media designer and their process. As a production manager, it’s your obligation to understand the artistic process of everyone involved, so as to give them the best creative environment possible. Understanding the process of media design will really help me in the future.
I definitely think the most important takeaway from this article is the part about video or photo shoots for media content. I can't even count how many times I've experienced video/photo shoots being neglected in the School of Drama alone. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that these video shoots seem to sneak up on us. Media Design is a relatively new art form, and we are still learning how it fits into the production timeline. However, video/photo shoots are, to me, the most critical aspect to pay attention to, because they often include many other departments. For example, for a video shoot to occur, all costumes and many props/scenery pieces are required to be completed. Usually, in a typical theatre production timeline, this does not occur until right before tech. However, for a media designer, a videoshoot right before tech doesn't leave enough time for editing. Therefore, video/photo shoots almost always end up being a critical path disaster. However, with proper planning and foresight, I think production managers can play a huge role in making video/photo shoots work for the media designer and the rest of the production. The key, to me, is having the conversation very early on.
The main argument that this article puts forward is that everything media must be planned as early as all other elements, and that because media designs are intricately linked to all other parts of the design - although that's not that special, ideally ALL designs in a production are intricately linked to each other... - it's critical to make a specific timeline early in the process.
Video shoots are definitely something that can be difficult here, but overall I've seen the other designers in a production rally and do what they can for the video shoot within the given timeline. The thing that worries me is that often, designers here don't make up their minds about having a photo or video shoot early enough for it to be gracefully integrated into the production process, which usually leads to the shoot being an extra load on everyone's plate added too late for departments to plan accordingly - the best example is the costume shop, since they could plan their build schedule around a shoot, but if they don't know about it early enough then it's likely they won't be able to have everything done in time.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'm excited that this HowlRound series exists and that there is a conversation about how to implement media within the production process, taking into account the oddities of the field. But if managers and theaters are going to get on board with a more structured process, it's important for media designers and engineers to do so as well. And Frank is right: it starts here, at school.
In many shows I have seen, Media often seems like an afterthought to the show. It doesn't seem to really fit into the story or world of the play. I feel that if these steps and approximate timeline were followed, this would not be the case. In my high school, we had the same problem. For the spring musical of my senior year, my theatre director decided to incorporate media into the show. However, without a real grasp on how long it takes to build the media and program the board, he only gave another classmate and I the week before tech to finish finding media pieces, figure out where in the script they come up, and to program the board. As you can probably guess, it was a week of flurried working and long nights. This article would have been very helpful to let the theatre director know how time should have been budgeted for the media portion of the show.
Before Carnegie Mellon and the School of Drama I had not encountered a wide variety or large amass of media in production that I’ve worked on. The few things have ranged from projecting Fester’s face onto the moon in Addams Family to some short video clips in a dance piece. In these instances, none of these were exceptionally difficult feats compared to what goes on here at Carnegie Mellon. That being said, I’ve never encountered a show where the Media Design was a substantial part of the process, it was one of those desires of the director that got delegated off to whoever was capable (or seemingly capable) of executing the idea. This article really opened my eyes to the vast possibilities and the wide ranging aspects that Media Design can play in a production. Thankfully, this article coupled with the shows I’ll have the opportunity to work on here in the school of drama will help to better understand and prepare for large scale media when it is incorporated into a production.
This article did a great job of emphasizing the amount of time Media requires on a show. A lot of directors who have never worked with media before do not really think about the amount of time it takes for media to become integrated into a show. Especially when they require props from the show for video shoots or they require specific actors for a pre-recorded piece. Media can often just be viewed as an afterthought, which is what usually happened at my high school. I am so glad that theatre schools around the country are starting to begin video/media concentrations. A lot of the time, I see media in shows where I think it seems out of place or unnecessary, but I think once we start emphasizing the importance of media's role and treating them as an equal part of the design process it will become more integral.
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