NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the past week:

Questions to ask of prospective employers

www.fastcompany.com: When you’re interviewing for a position at a new company, you often have the chance to meet some current employees. In those interactions, you want to get as much information about what it is like to work there. What questions should you be asking?

Posted by David at 9/27/2018 12:16:00 PM

Lessons I've Learned As A Deaf Actor

Theatre Nerds: We all know the acting world is hard. A field that’s purely based on competition and image can naturally create a lot of pressure on us, the Actor’s. It can be even harder for deaf people at times. Now please understand I’m not saying that Non-Deaf Actor’s have it easy. However Deaf Actor’s can particularly face a whole other level of stress that Non-Deaf Actor’s don’t have to face.

Posted by David at 9/28/2018 12:29:00 PM

Creating Saturday Night Live: Wardrobe

SNL - YouTube: Saturday Night Live's wardrobe team - Dale Richards, Tom Broecker, Eric Justian and Donna Richards - reveals the magic behind the show's numerous costumes and impossible quick changes.

Posted by David at 9/28/2018 12:27:00 PM

Why #MeToo Hasn’t Led to Any Criminal Charges in L.A.

Variety: In October 2017, an Italian model sat down with LAPD investigators and told them that Harvey Weinstein had raped her in a hotel in 2013. It was the first of nearly 100 reports the department would receive as the #MeToo movement swept the country.

The “Weinstein effect” reverberated far outside the entertainment business, leading to an 83% increase in sexual harassment complaints in California in the first three months of 2018, and a 60% jump in New York. In Hollywood, scores of men were forced from their jobs, including actors, producers, directors and high-ranking executives.

Posted by David at 9/26/2018 11:57:00 AM

Time-lapse movie shows construction of Calvin Klein's Jaws catwalk

www.dezeen.com: This exclusive movie documents the installation of giant video screens that played footage from shark thriller Jaws during Calvin Klein's Spring 2019 show, as part of New York Fashion Week.

The time-lapse footage condenses 48 hours of construction work in the lead up to the catwalk presentation, which took place the evening of 11 September 2018 at the American fashion brand's space at 205 West 39th Street.

Posted by David at 9/26/2018 11:51:00 AM

#NFRTW Podcast 9-26

The World of Theme Parks and VFX

VFX Voice Magazine: Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, the first guests entered the Star Wars universe with the help of motion simulation and a first-person-perspective film created by George Lucas, Dennis Muren, VES and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Star Tours debuted in 1987 at Disneyland and was a groundbreaking ancestor of recent theme park attractions like Avatar: Flight of Passage, King Kong 360 3-D and Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure, rides that incorporate ultra-high frame-rate, ultra-high-resolution digital imagery, motion simulation and/or sensory stimuli. Such attractions place guests in the middle of the narrative, usually one based on a film franchise.

Lessons I've Learned As A Deaf Actor

Theatre Nerds: We all know the acting world is hard. A field that’s purely based on competition and image can naturally create a lot of pressure on us, the Actor’s. It can be even harder for deaf people at times. Now please understand I’m not saying that Non-Deaf Actor’s have it easy. However Deaf Actor’s can particularly face a whole other level of stress that Non-Deaf Actor’s don’t have to face.

Oculus Quest put us in an ‘arena-scale’ Wild West shootout, and it was great

The Verge: The Oculus Quest, a $399 standalone virtual reality headset that’s shipping next spring, was only announced yesterday. But it’s making its third appearance at the annual Oculus Connect conference, after appearing under the codename Santa Cruz in 2016 and 2017. We tried Santa Cruz both years and came away impressed, but the demos were tightly controlled and run on non-consumer hardware.

Creating Saturday Night Live: Wardrobe

SNL - YouTube: Saturday Night Live's wardrobe team - Dale Richards, Tom Broecker, Eric Justian and Donna Richards - reveals the magic behind the show's numerous costumes and impossible quick changes.

Live Nation Study Says Fans More Likely to Value Live Music Over Sex

Amplify: Live Nation has released the full extent of their Power of Live study, and respondents reported they were 10 percent more likely to value live music over sex. The study states that 71 percent of those surveyed believe “the moments that give me the most life are live experiences.”

New Adventures at the Intersection of Theme Parks and VFX

VFX Voice Magazine: VFX Voice asked industry experts about the technical demands and continuing evolution of VFX and video used in theme park rides and other fixed-location entertainment. Here they discuss the use of 3D, domed and big screens, and what’s coming in the future. They also talk about dark rides and LBEs (Location-Based Entertainments), such as Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, Avatar: Flight of Passage, King Kong 360 3-D, Panem Aerial Tour (The World of The Hunger Games), Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout!, Dream of Anhui and Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire (a VR LBE).

Trump Tax Cut Upsets Entertainment Industry Calculations

Variety: The legislation known as the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, along with its accompanying proposed Treasury Regulations, has already had a significant impact on the entertainment industry. While not every effect is known, several unintended consequences are immediately apparent.

Laser Noob: Getting Started With the K40 Laser

Hackaday: Why spend thousands on a laser cutter/engraver when you can spend as little as $350 shipped to your door? Sure it’s not as nice as those fancy domestic machines, but the plucky K40 is the little laser that can. Just head on down to Al’s Laser Emporium and pick one up. Yes, it sounds like a used car dealership ad, but how far is it from the truth? Read on to find out!

Ticketmaster President Responds to CBC/Toronto Star Resale Reports

www.ticketnews.com: On Tuesday, in the wake of negative reports related to its practices in ticket resale and following a letter demanding answers from a pair of U.S. Senators, Ticketmaster’s Jared Smith wrote a blog post defending his company’s policies, posted to a company blog site.

In it, the Ticketmaster president fights back against the implication that the company secretly aids “scalpers” with its TradeDesk platform and looks the other way when ticket brokers break the company’s own rules in the primary side of its business.

High Tide of Heartbreak

AMERICAN THEATRE: I want to start with love. I suspect there is at least one love story in your life that blazed the trail to this very magazine page. Maybe you loved the way lights felt on your face, the blindness as you looked out at the invisible audience bank. Maybe you love backstage anonymity, the chaotic machinery and runaround that keeps a performance seamless. Maybe you were seven and loved the first play you saw. Back then you probably loved it more than you understood it. Remember how glorious that was—immersion in an experience you didn’t necessarily understand? Why do grownups cling to “getting it”? What a small, unadventurous parameter for experiencing art.

SAG-AFTRA Pickets Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Variety: Nearly 1,000 SAG-AFTRA members picketed the Los Angeles office of advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty on Thursday, a week after the union struck the company.

“BBH is trying to walk out on its contractual obligations and we are taking a stand,” said President Gabrielle Carteris. “As union actors, we must hold the line against those attempting to undercut our collective value and our ability to sustain a career.”

Deaf Community Criticizes Director, ‘The Silence’ Before Premiere

The Mighty: “The Silence,” a horror film that uses a hearing actress in a deaf role, is set to premiere in December, but an interview with director John Leonetti from November is circulating again following criticism from Deaf model Nyle DiMarco and Deaf actress Marlee Matlin.

Questions to ask of prospective employers

www.fastcompany.com: When you’re interviewing for a position at a new company, you often have the chance to meet some current employees. In those interactions, you want to get as much information about what it is like to work there. What questions should you be asking?

On center: How those pivoting panels at the Emmys were engineered

NewscastStudio: A key component of the 70th Annual Primetime Emmys telecast production design was a large, curved video wall divided into 14 tall vertical towers that could rotate on demand thanks to automation equipment and software from TAIT.

Come From Away Is Amazing. Did You Know It Has Seattle Roots?

Theater - The Stranger: Immediately following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, air-traffic controllers needed to clear the skies. They diverted 38 planes to Gander, Newfoundland, a small town with a large airport left over from the days when transatlantic flights were harder to make. As the planes sat on the runway for hours, it became clear that the 7,000 people onboard—people with all kinds of different backgrounds from all over the world—needed food and shelter for an undeterminable number of days.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Needs to Deal With Whitewashing Problem

The Mary Sue: Like any true antagonist, Marvel has been busy giving us fan theory-fueled nightmares while simultaneously infiltrating every waking second of our lives. Now that Avengers 4 reshoots are well underway and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) spent a suspiciously short amount of time on set, you’d think that we’d be busy preemptively mourning our favorite heroes, but our attention has been momentarily deviated by the upcoming Disney streaming service. Thanks, Marvel, for consuming our lives and wallets.

Deena Appel on the Costume Design of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Clothes on Film: With Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), costume designer Deena Appel created one of the most iconic screen looks of all time. That is no overstatement; Austin Powers has been copied and homaged and wheeled out every year as a Halloween costume, with very little credit put Appel’s way. It is a rather sad indictment of how the industry works that, despite its importance, especially in a film such as Austin Powers, a costume designer will rarely see any kudos come their way.

Music Modernization Act Heads to President Trump for Signature

Variety: The Music Modernization Act has passed in the House of Representatives unanimously following a vote for passage in the Senate last week. This clears the way for the bill to be sent to President Trump’s desk for signature and with it will come the most sweeping changes to archaic copyright laws.

Wildfire smoke costs famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The Seattle Times: The famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival that attracts tourists from around the world said Tuesday that it lost $2 million this summer because wildfire smoke forced it to cancel more than two dozen outdoor performances. The organization will have an indoor venue next season for smoky days as an alternate to its award-winning outdoor theater and will shift its outdoor season back a week to avoid the worst of the wildfire season, said Julie Cortez, the festival’s spokeswoman.

Barbara Gaines

Chicago magazine | October 2018: You don’t work in Chicago because you want to be famous internationally. You work here because you really love what you’re doing. I wasn’t a great student at Northwestern. I didn’t believe in myself as a writer, because they all told me I couldn’t write. One professor said, “I’ll pass you only if you promise never to take one of my writing classes again.” It forced me to do other things, like be a better communicator through talking.

Robert Juliat SpotMe Wins PLASA 2018 Award for Innovation

Stage Directions: Robert Juliat is thrilled to have been awarded a PLASA Award for Innovation for its SpotMe a tracking system that works in association with followspots. The Innovation Awards took place at the PLASA London show last week amid huge competition, with 47 entries and only eight awards presented.

7 Very Best Job Sites on The Web to Help You Advance Your Career

www.lifehack.org: You may already know that you’re good in your field, but you need to know more. Here’s what I mean: Write down your soft and hard skills. Hard skills are ones that are more technical and taught in a classroom. For example, learning to read, write, math problems and so on. Soft skills relate to the way you interact with others. So, the way you interact with your team and friends determine which soft skills you have.

GUEST BLOG: Get Woke to Three Accessibility Initiatives! By Lisa Carling

The Producer's Perspective: When I was 16 years old, I told my father (who was a Boston physician) that I wanted to be a doctor. “No,” he said, “a woman’s place is not in medical school!” I rebelled, naturally, and went into theatre, acting, divorce, raising a child and TDF where I’ve been happy for over 30 years working in the accessibility field.

“Blind Cinema” – Pittsburgh Festival of Firsts (FoF)

The Pittsburgh Tatler: Dear Reader, over the next 6 weeks or so I’m going to be writing about the Pittsburgh Festival of Firsts (FoF) in addition to the fall season of plays at our local theaters. If you don’t know what the Festival of Firsts is, well, all I can say is: get your head out from under that rock, high thee over to the Cultural Trust website, and make plans to see some of the performance and visual art that will have its World, US, or regional premiere right here in the ‘Burgh!

Why #MeToo Hasn’t Led to Any Criminal Charges in L.A.

Variety: In October 2017, an Italian model sat down with LAPD investigators and told them that Harvey Weinstein had raped her in a hotel in 2013. It was the first of nearly 100 reports the department would receive as the #MeToo movement swept the country.

The “Weinstein effect” reverberated far outside the entertainment business, leading to an 83% increase in sexual harassment complaints in California in the first three months of 2018, and a 60% jump in New York. In Hollywood, scores of men were forced from their jobs, including actors, producers, directors and high-ranking executives.

Time’s Up Entertainment Aims to Change Hollywood

Variety: Nithya Raman was named executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment in July. If you didn’t know that, you’re not alone. Raman was hired with such little fanfare that when, last month, journalists were asked to an off-the-record meet-and-greet with her at the office of Hollywood publicity firm Sunshine Sachs, many who received the invitation were unaware not just of Raman’s hiring but of the fact that Time’s Up had sprouted an entertainment-specific branch. In an industry where no new hire or venture is real unless accompanied by a host of trumpeting angels, such a quiet entrance is unusual.

#MeToo Survivors Still Suffer in the Aftermath (Column)

Variety: How much has the past year of #MeToo revelations actually changed the entertainment industry?

In the year since the Harvey Weinstein allegations first broke, the most prominent narrative has been that Hollywood is undergoing a domino effect of downfalls, with one powerful man after another toppling into oblivion as their abusive pasts come back to haunt them. To a certain extent, that’s been true.

#MeToo anniversary: Activists changed the culture; now change the laws

www.usatoday.com: A year into the #MeToo movement, I am both impressed and surprised by the progress our country has made in recognizing sexual harassment and assault for what they are: crimes. The past 12 months have shifted this conversation 180 degrees in terms of visibility and the recognition that abuse is everywhere.

Abuse, Harassment Survivors Reflect on How #MeToo Changed Hollywood

Variety: The fall of Harvey Weinstein triggered a reckoning in Hollywood, the aftershocks of which are still being felt a year later. The dozens of women brave enough to go public with their allegations of harassment by the indie mogul inspired scores of others to break their silence about their own painful experience with sexual abuse. From Leslie Moonves to Kevin Spacey to Matt Lauer, people once thought to be too powerful to call out for their alleged misdeeds were forced to contend with the consequences. Most of those accused continue to deny the charges.

Tarana Burke Reflects on #MeToo’s Resurgence One Year Later

Variety: It’s no secret that Hollywood runs off power, privilege and access, and because of that it is important in this moment to also examine the ways that unchecked privilege and power accumulate and are wielded against the most vulnerable. We know this doesn’t just happen in Hollywood, so we have to do the same kind of rigorous investigation and analysis of the culture within all our major corporations and communities that consistently allows sexual violence to occur again and again.

One Year After #MeToo Shook Hollywood, the Fight Rages on (Column)

Variety: For good reason, Variety selected Tarana Burke as one of our five Power of Women, New York, honorees this past spring. At our celebratory luncheon, she received three standing ovations. The founder of the #MeToo movement had put her now-12-year-old organization on the map a year ago next month after Harvey Weinstein was outed by The New York Times and The New Yorker as an alleged sexual predator. #MeToo gave survivors (Burke balks at the term “victims”) an enormous public platform from which to voice accusations of sexual abuse by one of the industry’s most powerful movie moguls.

Pittsburgh Opera opens 80th Season with Puccini’s Tragedy, “Madama Butterfly"

Pittsburgh Current: For its 80th season opener, Pittsburgh Opera general director Christopher Hahn just wants to please the crowd.

“For a banner opening like your 80th anniversary, you want everybody to be happy, everybody to come and everybody celebrating,” he says. “[Madama Butterfly] is such a perennial favorite that people can never see enough of [it].”

“Be More Chill”: How social media brought an underground musical to Broadway

www.fastcompany.com: If narrative convention counts for anything, the story of Be More Chill should have been over a long time ago. The sci-fi musical opened at a regional theater in New Jersey in 2015, ran for about four weeks, and closed after receiving a mixed response from critics, including a lukewarm review in the New York Times, which described its teen-centered plot as formulaic and its comedic efforts as having a “whiff of the stale about them.” Typically, a low-stakes show with scant marketing resources would not have had much of a life beyond that.

Best 10 Interview Questions for Managers to Hire Exceptional Employee

www.lifehack.org: Hiring is one of the biggest concerns of executives to management level positions. As it should be, hiring people to work for your company can be rewarding or risky.

Poor choices in hiring can take a drastic toll on the success of the business. Not to mention that who you hire has a direct reflection on you as a manager. Whereas great hiring choices can improve the overall cohesiveness of the work environment and boost production.

Best in 2018: Professional Resume Design Templates (Cool + Modern)

business.tutsplus.com: One day, you happen to get the call about your dream job. But, you don't have the resume ready to hand in for the hiring staff to review. Yikes!

There's no time to waste for turning in your resume. Because so many positions are competitive and will see no shortage of applicants, you need to put together a resume that sets you apart from every other applicant. While your experience and content on the resume matters, the resume design is just as necessary so that yours finds its way to the top of the stack for review.

Time-lapse movie shows construction of Calvin Klein's Jaws catwalk

www.dezeen.com: This exclusive movie documents the installation of giant video screens that played footage from shark thriller Jaws during Calvin Klein's Spring 2019 show, as part of New York Fashion Week.

The time-lapse footage condenses 48 hours of construction work in the lead up to the catwalk presentation, which took place the evening of 11 September 2018 at the American fashion brand's space at 205 West 39th Street.

This Year’s Gender & Period Count: The Best Numbers Yet

AMERICAN THEATRE: When we tallied this season’s Top 10 and Top 20 Most-Produced lists, we were heartened by the percentages: 8 of the 11 most-produced plays in the coming season are written by women, while 11 of the 20 most-produced playwrights are women. These are by far the best numbers in terms of gender parity we’ve ever seen on these lists, which each year offer a telling snapshot of the U.S. theatre field’s priorities and tastes. There are also a historic number of people of color on the playwrights’ list, making this a year in which we feel like we can genuinely report good news of positive trends toward better and fairer representation of the nation’s demographics on our stages.

New Montreal theatre company puts Muslim stories centre stage

CBC News: A brand-new Montreal theatre company, billed as "Canada's first professional theatre company dedicated to celebrating Muslim stories," is hoping to bring a diversity of voices to the stage.

The Silk Road Theatre Company aims to provide a platform and a space for minority voices to come to the forefront.

The curtain will rise on the inaugural show — The Domestic Crusaders — on Sept. 27 at Espace Knox in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

A Designer's Eos Toolkit (Part 2): Patch, Color Palettes, Beam Palettes

et cetera...: Welcome to Part 2 of this blog, where I’m sharing secrets from my Eos template file.

For a full exploration of how and why I use a template file in my workflow, check out Part 1 .

In this post, we’ll explore some of the components of my template file and how I use them.

Art Deco Sconces

Prop Agenda: We recently opened “And Then There Were None” at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC. Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery takes place in 1930’s England in a sleek, unique seaside home. Robin Vest’s scenic design gave us a sparse, Art Deco-inspired interior populated with a few trappings of a world traveler.

Chatterton at Quantum Theatre is 'quite a ride'

Pittsburgh Current: Here’s what I know: In 1988 British writer Peter Ackroyd published Chatterton, a multi-layered work using, as it’s starting point, the life and death of 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton. If we know him at all it’s because of two things – He killed himself at 17 and 100 years later the Romantics took him up as a symbol. Poems were written, praised were sung and someone named Henry Wallis painted a famous portrait of him lying, just dead, in a garret. Wallis used a poet named George Meredith as his model for Chatterton and, just to prove that men are pigs no matter the century, he ran off with Meredith’s wife whom he then abandoned when she got pregnant.

Class Might Be Invisible, But Theatres Shouldn't Ignore It

Exeunt Magazine: There’s been quite a few articles recently about the dearth of working class artists in theatre (mainly written by middle class writers, for publications with a large middle class readership). And while plenty of interesting points have been raised, the overarching theme seems to be how difficult it is to carve out a career if you don’t have the brass. This is, if you’ll excuse the pun, bang on the money (I have to work full time alongside my playwriting). That said, I think that by focusing solely on cash, we’re actually losing sight of the other barriers working class artists face.

5 Theatres You Need to Know: Asian-American Companies in NYC

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Did you see Crazy Rich Asians and think, "I want to see more Asian stories." You're in luck! New York City has multiple Asian-American troupes dedicated to mounting shows about -- and starring -- Asian-Americans. Here are five Asian-American theatres you need to know

Hollywood stuntwoman gives us step-by-step look at how she performs her amazing stunts

Boing Boing: Stuntwoman Alicia Vela-Bailey has performed all the hard stuff for tons of blockbusters, including Underworld: Awakening, Total Recall, Wonder Woman, Avatar, Interstellar, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, Ender's Game, and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Here's a fascinating video where Vela-Bailey shows us, blow-by-blow, with diagrams laid over video replays, how she executed her stunts. She's awesome.

Gauging Levels of Participation in the Arts across America

NEA: Every segment of the economy, every branch of knowledge, and every field of human endeavor requires stories and statistics to help explain it to others and to itself.

Storytelling is the main approach we use, no matter who we are or where we come from, to justify choices as individuals or members of society. When it comes to decisions involving the arts—whether we’re talking about resource allocation for a school or community, how to curate a playlist or personal library, which furniture pieces to buy, or which show to attend—emotion-fueled narratives play an outsized part. This is to be expected. As we all know (increasingly through neuroscience), the arts routinely activate our deepest personal responses.