They bring together many capabilities, including woodworking, metalworking, sculpture, sewing, finishing, electrical work, interactive development and automation.
Bob Doepel, president and founder of Chicago Scenic Studios, said the company specializes in branded environments and that most projects are OTO – One Time Only.
3 comments:
WOW! This article pointed out a shop that just sounds amazing! Working on projects in a place like what theatres will send their work to and have done for their show. Instead this shop is receiving projects from all over including for the stage, cruise ships, and more. What they are creating is fabulous and must take a different mindset as well. In theatre, its all about creating the look with the right structure for a temporary thing, excluding Broadway, but here they are creating something that needs to stand up not only to time but abuse by people over that time. The wear alone is enough to worry about but what random people would do to it is even more concerning. They are also such large projects and with a new space the projects seem like they can be done even larger now. This is a place I would like to see one day and maybe even work at because creating such wonderful projects not only looks fun but satisfying to a degree.
Two CNCs! That’s pretty good. I wonder if they are running all the time. Where I worked this summer there was only one cnc but it was running nonstop. But at the same time, the queue was never incredibly long, always reasonable. CSS seems like a great fabrication space, especially with the new building. There seems to be so much space for them to work on huge projects that might be hard to do with less open area. I kind of want to go to Chicago just to get a tour of the shop but that might not be a good enough reason to get to Chicago. It is also interesting that they don’t do as much theater these days as much as museums and other theme or install projects. The diverse work is interesting but I would be curious to know what type of work they seek out. Maybe the non-theater work pays better or maybe CSS doesn’t try to compete with some of the other big names in theatrical scenery.
Chicago scenic looks like somewhere that I would like to work. I love all the different projects that they’ve worked on, from cruise ship escape rooms to theatrical scenery, it seems like a fun place to work. The fact that one company can efficiently work on upwards of 30 projects at a time is absolutely baffling to me. I struggle to keep track of 7 classes worth of work, I can’t imagine what it would be like to just have 30 long term projects that are all happening at the same time in the same space. The work space that they have must be absolutely gargantuan. After having been around for 40 years I can’t say that I am surprised at how successful the company is, but I am surprised at how large it has gotten. I never would have thought that a commercial scene shop would have so many people on staff. I would have assumed that it would be a logistical nightmare that would prevent a company from growing so large.
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