KLAD – Entertainment Design

Dwell brings the Bubeshko Apartments to our attention. I suppose if we lived in LA, we would either live here or know the building. Either way, we would have happily observed a recent restoration and necessary updating of this Rudolph Schindler building by DSH Architects.

In the late 1930s, Anastasia Bubeshko and her daughter Luby commissioned modernist master R. M. Schindler to design two apartment buildings in the Silver Lake section of LA. The Bubeshko family wanted a home that would also provide income, and living spaces that were flexible enough to be modified as needed in the future. The apartments remained in the Bubeshko family, and home to Luby, for sixty-five years. In 2005, the time had come for Luby to sell the property. Many potential buyers/developers considered extensive remodeling. Ultimately, Luby  entrusted the property to a young family who would live in, and sensitively rehabilitate the buildings.

Nice job!

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… and sees. Still, not every client or home owner has a keen eye for color. There are warm grays and there are cool grays. They are very different and they don’t, necessarily, go well together. Even if they are all grays. Set Designers study this, Lighting designers leaner, know and internalize the impact of color light on the colors of walls, furniture and clothes. We can now pre-visualize this interaction using Vectorworks Spotlight and Renderworks. Learning Josef Albers‘ The Interaction of Color is a good place to begin.

That’s some heavy study for the average homeowner just to select a neutral color for the family room. Pity there has been minimal art training in the schools for years if not decades and little practical application of art or music classes for even longer. If we’re every going to have an American Renaissance, art and music classes are two places to begin. We need a broader survey of all of the arts and humanities in our general education.

But, I digress. Back to the average homeowner. We never see a need to re-invent the wheel, Home Design Find has this post where they specifically discuss the issues of selecting color and understanding. The use of the word undertone is, perhaps, too unspecific for a professional, but it certainly simplifies and makes clear the concept of selecting colors that will compliment one another.

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Macintosh Super Bowl Ad 1984

With the “Big Game” coming up next Sunday, most of us get more excited about the spots than the sport. Super Bowl Sunday is like the Emmys for TV commercials. Marketers will fork over about $3.5 million for a single 30-second Super Bowl ad this year. With that kind of money on the line, expectations are high. Creativity and quality need to converge into a magical symphony of money-making merriment.

But while Madison Avenue preens over their productions, I’m here to let you know that there is more to the success of any TV commercial spot than just the story line.

Set Designers, Lighting Designers, Art Directors, Costumers, Make-Up Artists – we’re all called upon when working on commercials to make our magic. We all work together to present a product or service in the best possible way, through our choices of colors, textures, light, sound, wardrobe and makeup.

Television has a long history of “enhancing” the look of products, and even talent. Remember Moonlighting? Cybill Shepherd’s winsome good looks relied upon high filters, gels and soft focus camera shots, while Bruce Willis relied upon actually having hair. The general rule in shooting food, when they aren’t using plastic replicas, is that soft lighting makes food look good to eat, while hard lighting makes it look like poison. All those beers you’ll see, that make up about half the Super Bowl commercials, owe their frothy heads to dish soap, rather than perfect pours that never die. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Just a little break from our norm…
Enjoy.

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My latest book about Vectorworks was announced yesterday. You should go HERE and order Entertainment and Lighting Design with Vectorworks Spotlight then, come back and read the rest of this post. This is my fifth book about Vectorworks, a subject about which I am obviously passionate. Vectorworks has helped me earn my living for some time now.

The Broadway community has been incredibly embracing and has offered a considerable amount of encouragement on this project. Specifically: Susan Myerberg and Sharon Fallon from The Helen Hayes Theatre, The Shubert Foundation, John Darby and Peter Entin of the Schubert Organization, Scenic Designer David Gallo and his associate Steven Kemp, Producer Roy Miller of Paperboy Theatricals, and Scenic and Costume Designer Beowulf Boritt.

Several colleagues have offered guidance and advice: lighting designer and author Steven Shelly (creator of the Field Templates and Soft Symbols, author of A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting), scenic and lighting designer Cris Dopher; Daphne Mir; scenic designer, lighting designer, and technical director Scott Parker of Stage Seminars; and architect Stanley Paul Rostas of Shook Kelley. Of course, everyone at Nemetschek Vectorworks deserves mention and thanks.

All that I have written has been based on my experiences in the classroom. Dean Geoffrey Newman, Professor Michael Allen, and Professor John Wiese of Montclair State University made that happen, and to them I am grateful. I am equally grateful to the too-many-to-mention students whom I taught. I hope they learned as much from me as I did from them.

Matthew William Anastasio is a professional draftsman and a former student. He tested this text to ensure the accuracy of my descriptions. A thankless task that he is thanked for here and now.

I am always thankful for the people who taught and mentored me, both while in school and as a young professional, among them: Reagan Cook, John Figola, Keith Gonzales, Phillip Graneto, Mark Kruger, W. Scott MacConnell, Lester Polikov, Peter Politanoff, Phillip Louis Rodzen, Tom Schwinn, David Steigerwalt, and Peter Wexler. From these talented individuals, I learned about the importance of precision in a pencil-based world and the crucial need for clarity of communication in order for the vision to be properly executed.

The production on which this design for Romeo and Juliet was originally produced was at the American Globe Theatre in New York City. American Globe artistic director John Basil directed the production, Jim Parks designed the costumes, and Scott O’Brien created the original score.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the love and support of my wife and partner Kathleen McDonough, not to mention her superb editing skills, without which this book would be nowhere near
as readable.

Cover Photograph: The Rivals
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Produced by the Montclair State University, College of the Arts, Department of Theatre & Dance
Directed by John Basil
Scenic Design by Kevin Lee Allen
Costume Design by Stephanie Peterson
Lighting Design by Christina Burr
Sound Design by Emma Shankland
Photo by Kevin Lee Allen

Of course, this post needs a tease, the image at left illustrates the project the book teaches. Order your copy today!

Click on the rendering, see all of the things that YOU want to learn ho to do with Vectorworks, Spotlight and Renderworks.

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OK, first, go here and buy the book. Then read the press release below while you wait for FedEx. Stay tuned here for some excerpts, and other tips and tricks. This is the book that set designers and lighting designers will need.

Entertainment and Lighting Design with Vectorworks Spotlight provides a range of exercises for students, instructors and professional designers

Columbia, Maryland (January 26, 2012) – Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. is pleased to announce the publication of a new training guide for users of Vectorworks® software: Entertainment and Lighting Design with Vectorworks Spotlight, First Edition. The manual was written by Kevin Lee Allen, an award-winning lighting and scenic designer whose work includes theater, film, television, museums and corporate environments. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Time to start getting your project ducks in a row kids, the deadline looms.

The iSquint.net & Stage Directions Magazine Student Lighting Design Competition (SLDC) is well underway!  iSquint welcomes back sponsors, Nemetschek Vectorworks, City Theatrical and Field Template. Students may begin to download the student version of Vectorworks 2012 and a demo version of Lightwright in order to compete in the SLDC. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Wow, someone paid for this? This could be good set design if the desired effect wa to cause stomachs to roll. I know mine does when I look at these images, but that kind of set design can’t be good restaurant design. This design is perfect for a short scene in a horror movie.

So the facade isn’t awful, but once inside, no desire for food. Hope they have large bathrooms. It’s not just the color, it’s the patterns. Please make it stop.

Pictures paint a thousand words here.

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Just as a show portal or a proscenium arch are to theatrical set design or the opening bump shot might be to television news set design, doors are critical to the theatre of the home. All too often we see boring doors, or worse, fugly doors.

Double doors aren’t really necessary. They can be beautiful, like the example at left, but they can also exist just to be ostentatious.

Killy Scheer of the Austin TX based interior design firm Frisson writes about the importance of doors on Houzz, here. We can only assume she brought her taste with her from New York City to Texas. Not all of her choices would be dreamy to us, but each choice is appropriate to the surrounding environment.

We certainly agree about the importance of doors, nothing cheapens a place like hollow core contractor’s special doors, especially if they are plastic, not at least wood. We have all solid core birch doors.

I’ve long coveted this metal door often advertised in Dwell.

And, levers people, levers. Knobs are generally dumb.

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I like the Houzz site, but all too often it seems to exist to sell the obvious to the oblivious. Apparently, it is a revelation that ceilings do not have to be painted white. I suppose this would be Set Design 101, but maybe the idea isn’t covered during Interior Design school?

According to the author of this post, ceilings don’t have to be white, but you seem to generally require some out of proportion crown moulding, painted white, of course, to delineate the color of the walls and color of the ceiling. Kinda limiting.

Maybe it’s a Portlandia thing?

We have some white ceilings, we have some gray ceilings, we have some blue ceilings. We’ve done other options in other places and for other clients. Whatever works, just don’t be limited. And don’t be shocked when a stereotype gets blown up.

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Sure homes are set design, but pay attention to the exterior as well people. When you reconfigure your living room by adding a goiter to your facade, you’re cutting off the nose to spite the face. Remember, the exterior should be a set design also. Interior and exterior also both need great lighting. But that’s for another day.

Houzz offers this all too welcoming post on a new trend. Sure some of these don’t suck, but some do and many will if the trend continues. When have you seen an add-a-level that didn’t destroy the compositional integrity of the original structure?

Maybe the post is just about generating work for hackatects?

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Well, they should be, they aren’t always theatrical or often theatrical, but they should be. Eero Saarinen’s Miller House in Columbus Indiana, photographed here by Ezra Stoller. © Ezra Stoller / ESTO is certainly a perfect stage setting for an evening performance of glittering personalities, music, cocktails and food. The perfect environment for the perfect mid-century modern evening in the 21st Century. Perfect for film. Perfect for the stage. Perfect inspiration for so many designs.

The Miller House is one of the few residential commissions Saarinen designed and the second home he designed for Irwin and Xenia Miller. Saarinen’s first project for the Millers was a 1952 cottage in Ontario. The Miller House, was named a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and is a stunning example of mid-century modernism that was used as a private residence for 50 years. Alexander Girard designed the interior and Dan Kiley landscaped the associated 13 acre property. The 1957 house was donated by the Miller family to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Modern Capital has more about the Miller House and The Force House, just down the road and designed by architect David Force for his family as an homage to Saarinen, here.

Breathtaking.

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Pools have to be set design, they are nothing more than building a stage for a performance or performances. A pool is a theatre, whether you have the Weekiwachee Mermaids or not. It was a bit of a cold day here in the Northeastern US. Not so cold that we had to have a fire in the studio, but cold enough that I didn’t have the top down or the AC up in the car.

Certainly cold enough to fantasize about warm weather and pools. We have an excellent fantasy about an indoor pool. Of course, It must have a water fall and a fireplace.

Designcrave is always a great source for inspiration. Here they offer 25 examples of great pools for your home theatre and your personal fantasy.

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…and not an Interstate Highway System? A unique design idea and a great interpretation of a design icon.

Cameron Booth is an Australian Graphic Designer based now in Portland Oregon. Not surprisingly, he blogs.  And he, like us, likes subway maps. Astonishingly, for fun, he works to improve the look and communications of subway maps. I’ve drawn maps in Adobe Illustrator, this is no simple task; conceptually or mechanically.

In this mp, Cameron interprets the US Highway System, NOT the Interstate Highway System. The US Highway System is more complicated and has many more roads. Think Route 66, not I-80. A more logical choice for a subway system. Actually, the most logical choice might be BOTH.

Either way, a cool idea and a great graphic based on the look of the London Underground maps. I’m particularly fond of the 1970′s NYC subway map in the same genre.

And on the subject of transportation, the US Interstate Highway System is generally credited to President Eisenhower. In reality, it was designed during the Roosevelt Administration and developed during the Truman Administration and construction began under Ike.

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Clearly, no set designer was consulted. Probably no actual designer or person with taste was consulted.

I certainly can’t believe that anyone in fashion was consulted. There may be three people in the world with a complexion that would be flattered by this color.

Last year Pantone’s choice was Honeysuckle, an insipid pink that they described as inspiration to face life’s everyday troubles with verve and vigor, Tangerine Tango is said, by its promoters to provide an energy charge to move forward.

Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, Leatrice Eiseman describes Tangerine Tango.

Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it. Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.

I beg to differ. Bleh. Must we repeat what was wrong with design in the 1970′s? Will Avocado Green be back next year? Or Harvest Gold? Only if they are given new names I suppose. In any event, this is a terrible color.

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Here are a few pieces I’ve archived as inspiration research for dressing some of the sets we design at KLAD. These pieces may not yet be available on the general market, they serve as jumping off points for creating a look, mood, feeling and may speak to a character or setting that is essential to bring KLAD’s set designs to life.

Perhaps this research will inspire you to make some additions or changes to your environment in 2012.

I can’t wait to see what this year brings!

Vesna Lounge Sofa by Nuvist

Vesna Lounge

This seductive, curvaceous piece is soft and flowing. Equally at home indoors or out, it adds a touch of modern whimsy while eschewing the characteristics that often make modern furniture unappealing. Unlike the myriad of too sleek, too cold, too bare furniture  designs, this piece invites you to plop down, stretch out and relax. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Really, if you have the room, how could you go any other way? Life is theatre and a home is the set and lighting design. In many ways, the bedrooms could be on stage or backstage. This blog will look at bedrooms as backstage, preparing for the day, or performance.

Houzz blogged recently about mini-kitchens in guest rooms/suites. What could be more perfect?

Guests are often on a different clock than their hosts. Sometimes guests are on vacation. Guests might be jet lagged. Why not offer them a little oasis? Why not have a place for guests to move about when the rest of the household might still be asleep?

A coffee maker, a fridge, small dishwasher, maybe a toaster oven? We don’t believe in microwaves, sorry. But in creating the perfect backstage dressing room area, who wouldn’t want to have their first cup of coffee prior to dealing with their public?

This is not a new idea, I had a single unit ‘kitchen’ in a room I rented at university. Two burners, sink and fridge all rolled into one. Not pretty, but they can be pretty. Add a little millwork, hide the kitchen. We designed a simple guest kitchen into the guest quarters of a space in Hudson NY. Be careful of the guests who try to turn your kitchen into a personal wet bar. Just saying.

—KLA

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Turning the written, and well, then printed, word into sculpture. This takes the idea and art of the set design model into new territory.

Artist Guy Laramee has carved a series of hardcover Chinese and English encyclopedias into stunning landscapes for two series entitled The Great Wall and Biblios.

His metaphor is scary and a bit of a wake-up call. His execution meticulous.

For almost 30 years, multidisciplinary artist Guy Laramee has worked as a stage writer, director, composer, a fabricator of musical instruments, a singer, sculptor, painter and writer. Among his sculptural works are these two incredible series of carved book landscapes and structures, where he excavates and shapes the dense pages of old books into serene mountains, plateaus, and ancient structures. We’re sure he was also a set designer.

So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.

Laramee’s next showing will be in April of 2012 at the Galerie d’Art d’Outremont in Montreal.

Click the links for more views of these incredible and thought provoking works.

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‘ Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship,
Not a circuit was buzzing, not one microchip.
The phasers were hung in the armory securely,
In hope that no alien would be up that early.
The crewmen were nestled all snug in their bunks,
Except for the few who were partying drunks.
And Picard in his nightshirt and Bev in her lace,
Had just settled down for a neat face to face…
When out in the hall there arose such a racket,
That we lept from our beds pulling on pant and jacket.
Away to the lifts we shot like a gun,
Lept into the cars and yelled loudly, “Deck One!”
The bridge red-alert lights, which flashed through the din,
Gave a lustre of Hades to objects within.
When what on the viewscreen our eyes should behold,
A weird kind of sleigh, and some guy who looked old.
But the glint in his eye was so strange and askew,
That we knew in a moment it had to be Q.
His sleigh grew much larger as closer he came,
Then he zapped to the bridge and addressed us by name.
“It’s Riker, it’s Data, it’s Worf, and Jean-Luc!
It’s Geordi, and Wesley, the genetic fluke!
To the top of the bridge, to the top of the wall!
Now float away! float away! float away all!”
As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,
So the floor of the bridge came away from our feet.
And up to the ceiling, our bodies they flew,
As the captain called out, “What the hell is this Q?!”
The prankster just laughed and expanded his grin,
And snapping his fingers, he vanished again.
As we took in our plight, and were looking around,
The spell was removed and we crashed to the ground.
Then Q, dressed in fur from his head to his toe,
Appeared once again to continue the show.
“That’s enough!” cried the captain, “You’ll stop this at once!”
Then Riker said, “Worf, take aim at this dunce!”
“I’m deeply offended, Jean-Luc,” replied Q,
“I just wanted to spend Christmas with you.”
As we scoffed at his words, he produced a large sack,
He dumped out the contents and took a step back.
“I’ve brought gifts,” he said, “just to show I’m sincere,
There’s something delightful for everyone here.”
He sat on the floor, and dug into the pile,
And handed out gifts with a most charming smile.
“For Counsellor Troi, there’s no need to explain,
Some Tylenol-Beta for all of her pain.
For Worf I’ve some mints, as his breath’s not so great,
And for Geordi LaForge, an inflatable date.
For Wesley, some hormones and Clearasil-plus,
For Data, a jokebook, for Riker, a truss.
For Beverly Crusher, some sleek lingerie,
For Jean-Luc Picard, the thrill of seeing her that way.”
He sprang to his feet with that grin on his face,
And clapping his hands, disappeared into space.
But we heard him exclaim as he dwindled from sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!”
–Author Unknown

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As set designers, creativity is part of our every day activity. We are called upon to be creative and be creative on the spot. It’s OK, its part of the gig and we thrive on the intellectual exercise.

Here are a couple of other thoughts on creativity. In some ways, they sum up our days.

When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.

The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

- Steve Jobs

And there is always a deadline.

You don’t get into the mood to create – it’s discipline.

-Twyla Tharp

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 Sure, it’s not all bad, but it is schizophrenic. These designers could use some set design training. You know, that day where design cohesiveness and Gestalt are discussed.

Almost all of the individual elements are interesting, but it looks like they set out to make a soup of cool, with too many chefs.

The  Sky Lounge is located on the 22nd floor of the Royal Academy of Science in Moscow. Designed, if we want to use the word by Roman Leonidov Architects.

Some of their other work doesn’t suck.

This place, too many differing details, slippery surfaces in a public space where liquor will be served. Wasted space. Wasted views.  The lounge is just jarring. What’s with the exposed concrete blocks under the sinks? Is that supposed to be a glimpse of the Soviet Union?

Seriously, there are many great details here, but there is no overall design concept visible. These folks need to learn about metaphor and refine these ideas into one idea. There are a dozen great ideas in this design, but when they are all used on one project, they destroy each other.

Not all blogs agree as the links illustrate

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My father was a welder. His art was very different from ours. As a young set designer, he taught me to weld and although that has never been my forté, having that knowledge has always been an asset.These candle sticks are now another one of our assets.

I have no idea how old these are. They have always been a part of my Christmas memories.

I also don’t really know how these types of decorations were made commercially before they were internally illuminated plastic rotationally molded objects. Ah, Rotation molding, another life long bit of useful knowledge courtesy of Junior High School Plastic Shop.

I am sure that decorative, over scaled candle sticks were generally NOT made using 4″ steel lolly column. I am positive that Christmas decorations did not, even in the 1950′s, weigh about 35 Lbs each. Except for ours, of course.

The little hand-crafted iron table behind the candle stick is something we always have by the front door. It wasn’t made by George J. Allen, but I think he would have appreciated its funkiness. Although funky is not a word I imagine he ever uttered. In any variant or context.

His work was always a little crude, but interesting. In the detail, notice the top edge, not safe by today’s standards, but done was always good. We also had a selection of tree stands; welded steel plate, lolly columns, nuts and bolts. The piece de resistance was STAINLESS Steel and big enough to have supported a 30′ tree.

Not that that tree would have fit into the post-war Cape Cod, but…

Now I have to find a picture of George’s lamp post. Not like any other in the neighborhood, town, county, world? Welded chain, crooked and winding vertically. Chain the size of that used as an anchor for the Queen Mary. Topped with a classic hurricane lamp chimney shade and a cover that looked like WWI doughboys hat.

Made the house easy to find.

The painting has always surprised us. He was NOT a painter. When these came to us, we cleaned them and sealed them with clear Rust-Oleum. We repainted the silver bases with Rust-Oleum, but we did not dare touch the drips. Sure they’ve yellowed over the years (some of that is the light), but how did he do that and control it so well?

We don’t do much outdoor decorating for the holidays, but these bits of folk art and family history continue to make their annual appearance.

—KLA

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A couple dancing on a film reel stage in front of an elegant grand drape. These are the things set designers make out of clear Plexiglas and mirror when creating awards to be presented to Neil Meron and Craig Zadan of Storyline Entertainment by NYMF.

Neil and Craig produce on Broadway, but they are especially known for their tremendous work in transferring stage musicals into feature films. We love Chicago, we love the original production, the one that has been running on Broadway for about 400 years and we love the Storyline film adaptation. We saw the film prepared to be disappointed. Stage shows do not always make this transition well. We were blown away by the elegance, subtlety and tremendous performances.

We hardly missed Ann and Bebe.

Well, one always misses Ann and Bebe, but that’s really besides the point.

The point is that we were honored to help honor two men who have done so much for the art and appreciation of the Musical Theatre genre.

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Cars and Watches – these are a few of my favorite things…and this watch is gorgeous, I’d wear it and wear it and wear it, as I’ve always preferred men’s watches over the mostly twee timepieces made for women.  Automotive enthusiast and designer Marko Petrovic’s Mercedes 320 Tourbillion watch is an homage to the Mercedes Benz type 320, a cabriolet first introduced in 1937. Inspired by the instrument cluster of the 320, the Tourbillion exhibits the same meticulous attention to detail and overall elegance still found in the brand today. Another nod to the automotive influence are hours and minutes shown as miles or kilometers in a racing scale.

Here’s a close-up, love love love this wrist dash, and the dimensional Benz logo sitting atop a peak into the mechanism is money.

Via  more on this.

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Client: I like it, but um, I think it needs to be more neutral. What do you think?

Me: I wouldn’t show you something I didn’t like, and I really think this color palette enhances the product shot.

Client: Its too much. Its distracting. Make it all white.

And so it goes sometimes in the our commercial set design world. We present, we argue, we defend. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes, not so much. Next time I encounter a similar scenario, perhaps I’ll add these vintage 7UP billboards to my argument arsenal. I found these groovy, iconic images yesterday, and since then I’ve been thinking about how color can enhance and sell products.

The Uncola advertising campaign by J. Walter Thompson Chicago comes from the brilliant mind of Bill Ross, who’s snappy lines were given life through high voltage culturally cutting edge art work.  A call was put out for artists to submit ideas, and ironically, no work by Peter Max was chosen.

Here’s to throwing caution to the wind, and courageous color!

Uncanny in Cans Artist: John Alcorn, C. 1969

Hear No Cola Artist: Nancy Martel, C. 1969

Un & Un is too Artist: Kim Whitesides, C. 1969

For more images, please visit Vintage Everyday , my inspiration for this post.

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iSquint.net and Stage Directions Student Lighting Design Competition (SLDC), sponsored by Nemetschek Vectorworks, City Theatrical and Field Template, began accepting entries on November 28th. The winner of this second annual competition will receive a prize package including a professional license of Vectorworks® 2012 with Renderworks® software, a personal license of Lightwright™ 5 and a single license of Field Template™ SoftSymbols V3. The winner will also be featured on iSquint.net and Planet Vectorworks. This contest fully reinforces the way that professional set and lighting designers work, using the versatile 3D capabilities of Vectorworks and providing clients and collaborators with accurate design visualizations.

The rendering at left is by Colin Chauche from SUNY Fredonia who entered his design from The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein production at SUNY Fredonia. Colin is the winner of the 2011 SLDC.

“I am excited to be working with Vectorworks, City Theatrical and Field Templates and new sponsor Stage Directions Magazine to bring back the Student Lighting Design Competition,” said Justin Lang, editor of iSquint.net. “The SLDC is a great chance for a college level student to get into the design software that the professionals use and possibly win a great prize package.”

Design entries must be created by a student using Lightwright and Vectorworks software with Renderworks. Full-time students with active and valid college or university IDs can download a free student version of Vectorworks 2012 with Renderworks at student.vectorworks.net. (Students living outside the U.S will be redirected to a local distributor in their country to obtain a student version.) Lightwright also offers a demo version that can be used for producing paperwork for the competition. The demo can be downloaded at: www.mckernon.com.

Entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts including: lighting designer, writer and editor Justin Lang from iSquint; software engineer and lighting design industry expert Kevin Linzey from Nemetschek Vectorworks; author and lighting designer Steve Shelley of Field Template, developer of Soft Symbols; lighting designer, author and Vectorworks expert Gregg Hillmar; and lighting designer and developer of Lightwright, John McKernon.

Entries are due by March 16, 2012, and the winner will be announced at the USITT National Conference on March 29th.

For more information and to view the complete rules, visit: http://isquint.net/student-design-competition.

This is something every young designer should do and many will have the Winter Break to get their work in order.

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Artist Peter Root has created a sculpture Ephemicropolis using only staples to build a terrain that evokes a cityscape. Clearly he has and uses the same skills a set designer uses to build models, miniatures or Marquettes of stage designs.

Could easily mock this up in Vectorworks.

10,000 staples, wow. And 40 hours seems a short period of time to build this model.

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We actually do this. Our set design studios are in one wing of our home. Although separate from our personal spaces, the commute is terrific. Like the traditional merchant or professional that lived above the store.

Craig Steely Architecture designed this home dubbed; The Beaver Street Reprise in San Francisco.This is a modern home  of four stories where each has their own distinct identity – park-live-work-play. Love the rooftop deck with fireplace…perfect for after work, meeting and general play.

And that floating fireplace….

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Ahhh, the choice of the car, if it is the set designer’s choice, what a wonderful world. Of course, in film, the production designer may not have this choice. hopefully they have a say. In this case, Hopefully a test drive.

When Ian Flemming wrote the James Bond stories, he generally had Bond drive a Bentley. Nice enough, but not anywhere near as cool as this silver gray Aston Martin DB5. Fleming wrote the car into the novel of Goldfinger and the same car was used in several of the Bond films; Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and Casino Royale.

It is certainly the car we associate with Bond. I had the Corgi version when I was a kid. Bond remains a lifestyle.

Bond’s version, and the Corgi, came complete with  machine guns, a bullet-proof shield, revolving number plates,a removable roof panel, and smoke screen, all controlled via toggles mounted in the arm rest. Chilled bottle of Dom Perignon ’53 not included.

It remains terrible when 007 has to slum it. He drove a Hornet???

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The street side news stands offer many possible choices for a film set designer or production designer. Fewer choices for the news stand operators.

In what often seems as an all too zealous effort to ‘clean up’ NYC or fix what isn’t broken, iconic news stands are being replaced with homogenized glass and steel structures on the street. We’re all about options, but this approach seems to be reducing options. Well, not seems to be reducing options, is reducing options and choices.

NYC has contracted with a Spanish based company to replace the existing owner-operated or entrepreneurial news stands with franchises. Franchises, as always, using the same design and same inventory in every location. Blah.

We’ve always loved the New York City News Stands. Sure they’re somewhat ramshackle, maybe covered with poster and graffiti, but they are individual. Like the guys who generally run them. They are each part of a specific neighborhood.

Streamlining them might be appropriate for some locations, but certainly not all. Unless the goal is to homogenize the entire city. That would strip the creativity and character from the place. Much of that has happened with the Mallification of Manhattan. Well, at least every Manhattan resident now has access to the same shoddy products Staples sells everywhere else in the country.

We believe that we all need to support entrepreneurs at every level. Not when they’re wrong of course, but we need to, as a society, encourage the idea risk taking. One man’s news sand in the next guys personal computer.

So why do the news stands need to all look the same? Are news stands the next Pinkberry? We hope not. But why can’t a stand in SoHo or the East Village be built of say, old school bus parts? Or covered in mosaic tiles? Shouldn’t a stand in the Flat Iron District be in keeping with the area or iconic in another, contrasting way?

Just a few thoughts. Thanks to Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York for pointing this out.

And why are the stands now owned by a corporation? What happened to the small business owner? Who knows better what we might like to read or need than the guy we see every day or an executive 3,000 miles away?

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But then, this tribe was named by French-Canadians and the French stuck. Good idea, there is a very French class and elegance to the Tribe’s Resort Expansion. There are elements that are very dramatic and theatrical. The contrasting colors in the image at left suggests a sweeping set deign and collaboration with a lighting designer.

Mithun Architects designed the project and this is what they have to say about their work;

• Mithun’s award-winning design reflects the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s respect for their ancestral lands and heritage.  The 170,000 square-foot project expands an existing Northern Idaho resort to include a new four-star hotel, restaurants and a spa. The sustainable design features interior and exterior spaces that are specific to the Coeur d’Alene people, the surrounding Palouse prairie and its forested wetlands.  A 101-foot high Eagle Staff tower marks the entry point while responding to the scale of the surrounding landscape. It represents the traditional Eagle Staff carried by Coeur d’Alene Tribal members, known as “The Indian Flag” or the “Tattered Flag.” A new entry approach encourages visitors to interact with the unique landscape of the site through an interpretive walk showcasing native plants. A water feature is a reminder of the significance of nearby rivers, chain lakes and Lake Coeur d’Alene. The expansive landscape includes a meadow punctuated by a large dance circle that accommodates Julyamsh, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s annual powwow.At the heart of the project is the “skycatcher” a lobby and gathering space that is a link between the old and new, the past and the future, and provides opportunities to share the history of the tribe. The story of the Coeur d’Alene people is also told through unique elements, such as the tribal dancer photographic mural and historic artifacts in a curated display. Mithun worked with tribal artists to create unique pieces that capitalize on the beauty of the indigenous landscape and tribal culture. A LED art installation on both the ceiling and floor represents the complete watershed flowing to Lake Coeur d’Alene, honoring the importance of water in the life of its people. Mithun worked with tribal artists to create unique pieces that capitalize on the beauty of the indigenous landscape and tribal culture. Throughout the resort there is a simple, refined palette of materials including corten steel, reclaimed oak and limestone to connect the building to the landscape.

  In addition to providing a welcoming environment for visitors, the resort’s expansion created more than 200 new jobs making the tribe Northern Idaho’s largest employer of over 2,000 people.

Contemporist turned us on to the project. The architects and Contemporist have more pictures. It is quite beautiful

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Designing in 3D will become a critical part of any set and/or lighting designer’s career. Relating to the Building Information Model (BIM) paradigm being used in architecture today, entertainment designers can collaborate more closely when working in 3D so issues can be resolved at the computer, not during construction. Lighting designers can also see and illustrate the effects of the light on the set and all designers can be assured there is proper space for everything that’s required.

Join me as I illustrate how to create stage scenery and props in 3D. This webinar will detail the creation, modeling, and rendering of a theatrical unit that can be used in several different locations, specifically designed for a production of the classic story of Romeo & Juliet. The image at left is a preliminary rendering, see the final rendering during the webinar.

Participants attending this webinar will learn:

• The basic uses of Design Layers and Classes, tools that are essential to organizing drawings.
• To move from a thumbnail sketch to a 3D model to a rendering, as well as the use of the model in Designer’s Elevations.
• The purpose of File Referencing so members of a design team can develop different parts simultaneously in different files that are then referenced into a master file.
• How to model using the Push/Pull Tool and different Working Planes.
• To create seamless image-based textures in a photo editor and procedural textures within Vectorworks software.

Register here.

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It is a living set design and a backdrop for romance. Of course, some of the architect’s in charge of the project also have theatrical backgrounds. A new recreational promenade was opened this past summer, created out of a section of retired railway in between the towns of Albisola Superiore and Celle Ligure on the coast of Italy. What was once an unused rail cut on the coast is now a beautiful (this is, after all, Italian Design), useful and prominent tourist attraction for the area,  providing space for recreation and views of the ocean. The rehabilitation of the abandoned railroad was completed through a collaboration between 3S studio and Voarino Cairo Voarino. Planning for the project began in 2007. The project was as environmentally sensitive to the space as possible and makes use of low impact materials.

The designers’ sites are in Italian, but they speak the international language of beautiful design.

The designers’ and architects’ work on this and other projects is simply elegant, sophisticated, and modern. We’ve come to expect nothing less from Italian Design.Sounds like a ‘research trip’ will be required.

Inhabitant, of course, has more…

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there’s got to be a limit. This stands as an example fo what was called “Progress” when I was a kid. Tear down an existing, vibrant neigborhood to build a new one, usually a stale, plastic reminder of what ince was. Architects and City Planners are not set deigners or imagineers.

Thee are now so many Ray’s, Original Ray’s, Ray’s Original, and other variants on the theme that the loss of the actual original might go unnoticed. Unnoticed, except for Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.

And us.

Yesterday, after 52 years, was the last day for Ray’s Pizza on Prince Street. The actual original. On the edge of an ever shrinking Little Italy. The 2011 version of Little Italy, as opposed to the 1952 version of Little Italy, is not designed with the interests of mom-and-pop pizza parlors. Five figure rents mean selling a lot of slices. Too many slices at too high a price.

For an entrepreneurial country, we seem be losing entrepreneurs and originality.

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It’s not set design, but a perfect personal prop for film or television. Certainly a perfect personal prop for us and some character, in some script somewhere.

I wonder if instructions would be required for some to use properly. I know my little dog would love to see this mug used incorrectly. Clean-up on aisle 3!

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