Today I received an email update about a Cirque Du Soleil show I ordered tickets last month to go and see. It is a new, limited time only, show being produced at Madison Square Garden called Wintuk. I am a huge fan of Cirque Du Soleil and ordered tickets as soon as I heard about it in August, even though the concepts for the play are still being worked out. Cirque redefines the way I think about theatre every time I see one of their productions, which is why I enjoy watching them so much. Wintuk seems to fall right into this category with a promise of acrobatics, puppets and projections. There is a simple story line behind the performance that is set in a city that gets no snow and the journey of a boy to find where it has gone and to bring it back. I‘m pretty psyched because the shows going to end in what I can only expect to be the greatest on-stage snow storm ever. I‘m particularly intrigued to see the snow effect since the current show that the Opera is teching uses snow too. If you want to find out some more information about Wintuk the go to Click. There‘s a short video about the show on the site too, but I am a little disappointed they took down a video of their early storyboard and sketch ideas for the show. I‘m counting down the days to I get to see it. It runs from November 1 - January 6.



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VectorWorks 2008 was officially released today. I do find it slightly ironic that they neglected to call it VectorWorks 13, because 13 is an unlucky number from what I have heard, and yet it was released on the Thursday the 13th. Hey, at least it wasn‘t a Friday the 13th release date! I can only assume Nemetschek will now continue this year naming trend, but I think it will lead to awkward upgrade versions. I can‘t wait until 2008.5 comes out! I should finish this intro by saying I have not had the opportunity to use VW 2008 yet, so my review is more an overview of improvements I am looking forward to using in VW 2008.

So there are a lot of changes in the new version, but a lot of them are aesthetic only. Nemetschek has created new icons for all of the tools, but they look like a cross between a hand drawn and cartoon rendered version of the old icons. Was this necessary? Probably not, but if you‘re going to overhaul the entire program you might as well give it a makeover too. There are also a lot of other aesthetic touch ups like an unlimited color choice, lots of new libraries, including a pretty sweet plant database, and better organizational techniques.

I am really excited about some of the more practical advances that are featured in VW 2008. The one feature that I am really looking forward to is the cross-platform workspaces. In VW 12.5 Mac and PC workspaces could not be shared. There is supposedly a program out on the web that can fix this, but it only works from a Mac workspace to a PC workspace. This seems like a really miniscule point, but after I spent 4 hours revamping my 12.5 workspace, I wanted to be able to take it anywhere with me. I am running XP on my laptop right now, and since I do a lot of work at school on Macs, I like taking my Workspace file on my thumbdrive to load it onto any new computer I work on. So thank you Nemetschek for fixing this “bug”.

Another improvement I am really looking forward to using is an advancement in Spotlight called: Lighting Device Position Awareness. Basically it tracks the movement of lighting devices better. This is something that has been driving me crazy since I started using Spotlight. I always hated having to refresh the instrument after I moved them. This will now let everything happen in real-time. It also has a cool feature of moving the lighting devices when a lighting position is moved. If you do any 3D modeling, this will save a ton of time!

Another new feature is opacity control on 2D objects. It‘s a really interesting feature to include in VW and makes a lot of sense since it‘s a pretty common idea from something like Photoshop. The example online shows a rendered out top view of a table on some stone, so I am a little confused if the opacity transfers to rendered models. I think this will be an awesome new tool to use, and hope to use it as a quick fix to creating a scrim.

The last little update that has been provided, which I think is long over due, is helping out spell check! A lot of objects have what is now called: Object-sensitive Context Menus. In short, when you right click common features you might use will be listed. This is great, because text boxes now have formatting and spell check available when you right click. I am not sure, but it would be nice if it did the red squiggle thing under misspelled words when you typed them in real time. Nothing say unprofessional like misspelling.

If there is one thing that I hope Nemetschek fixed, but I doubt it, is the ability to use the Truss Insertion Tool in other views beside plan view. I, as well as many others I am sure, have used trusses as scenery or vertical lighting positions from a stage. If you are trying to model out these trusses, it‘s a real pain, because you have to convert them to 3D Polys first and then rotate them. Also, if you need to change them at all, you have to repeat the process instead of just changing the information in the object info palette. So dear Nemetschek, if you haven‘t fixed this yet, please do so in VW 2008.5!

So that‘s my quick overview of a few of the things I am looking forward to in VectorWorks 2008. If you want to check out some of the other changes in VW 2008 go visit this link CLICK

FREE VECTORWORKS!?!

My final note is for all students out there that want a copy of VectorWorks, GO AND GET IT! After speaking with Nemetschek today to find out about updating my current version, I learned that they are now offering a free, yes free, student version available online. All you need is a school email address and some other information to validate your copy. There are a few things to watch out for, such as non-compatible files between Student Versions and Professional Versions. Going from Professional to Student does work however. Also a watermark reading: VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION will be printed at the top and bottom of any print out. They are only offering VW 12 with Renderworks at the moment, but it sounds like as things progress they will provide updates, only a version behind. The other thing to consider is that if you are a student and recently purchased VW 12, you should get the free Educational version and use that for the remainder of your academic career, and then when you graduate you will be able to upgrade your VW 12 to a professional copy for less. So a big shout out and thanks to Marcus from Nemetschek for filling me in on all this information this afternoon. So if you want a free educational version of VW 12, you can go to CLICK

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It is Wednesday and I am already finished with my first week of classes, which is a nice feeling except for the extraordinary amount of work I already have assigned. My major assignments include practicing my hand drafting skills in my Techniques by Design class taught by Chris Barreca. The class is a mix of design students with a variable degree of talent in hand-drafting. I have had very little experience in hand-drafting, but I know I‘ll pick it up quick. Our assignments consist of copying a plate from a previous show he designed and also hand-drafting out a wall of our class room. This is not due for 3 weeks, thankfully, as Chris will be in Europe teching a show until then. This has made the rest of my workload somewhat manageable.

Lighting design is where most of work for this week is focused on. I have to conceptually designing August Wilson‘s play Jitney from his series of cycle plays. I have been provided an inventory, a few production shots, the ground plot and an elevation of the show in order to create our own plot of the show. I am excited about this assignment the most. I also need to provide a concept statement and paperwork. The plots will be critiqued next week, but are being used more to establish everyone‘s skill level in the class. The plot and section views have to be hand-drafted…starting to notice a hand-drafting theme yet? With Vectorworks 2008 being released tomorrow, I‘m likely to be the last person this year to upgrade my current version. Check out my blog tomorrow for more of my thoughts on the new version. I also have to keep a short lighting journal that captures interesting lighting moments in my life.

In Advanced Light Lab class my group a single scene to create and present next week. Our assignment primarily focuses on how to create realistic candle lighting on stage.

In Play Analysis I have to read Oklahoma and provide a short response to a question. Future weeks will consist of reading multiple plays by the next class, so this week is a piece of cake!

It‘s a lot of work, but overall I am incredibly happy to be fully engulfed in the CalArts experience. I sit in classrooms with other students who are all focused on the same goals and it‘s awesome! I don‘t thing of class and class or homework as homework. It‘s all fun somehow.

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I registered for classes yesterday, and there were a few changes to my potential schedule from last week. The Vectorworks course that is being offered on Tuesday is a fundamental course about the basics of Vectorworks and Spotlight. I talked my way out of taking that class pretty fast with the professor. I will make it up in the Spring when a more advanced Vectorworks class that focuses on modeling is offered. I also decided to not take the Dance Showings class on Tuesday for credit. I still plan on attending it to so I can design some dance pieces and make some friends with choreographers, but I wanted to keep Tuesday free for the Opera because I had to sign up for another class on Wednesday. Graduate Play Analysis on Wednesday, which is a required course for my degree, but it should be an interesting class and I like that I have Tuesday now to recover from my 12 hours of class on Monday.

Fall 2007 Class Schedule:

Monday:

Performance by Design M 8:10-12

Techniques of Design M 2:10-4

Graduate Lighting Design I M 4:10-6:30

Advanced Light Lab M 6:30-8:30

Lighting Design Seminar M 8:30-10

Wednesday:

Graduate Play Analysis W 9:10-1

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I spent Tuesday afternoon this past week at CalArts for orientation. I picked up my I.D. card, met one of the other three MFA 1 lighting designers, and went on a tour of the CalArts facilities to find my way around better. To clarify, CalArts is one super-massive complex that encompasses 500,000 square feet. Think of it as the largest high school ever and instead of a gymnasium or multi-purpose room, there is a theatre, concert hall or dance studio in its place. Needless to say there are a lot of hallways, twists and turns to get around the place, and going on a tour was well worth it. By far the most interesting place I visited on the tour was the buildings Sub-Level. The corridor hallways are coated in years and years of student graffiti as a form of expressionism; anything goes as the art is completely uncensored by the administration.

Wednesday was my first official day with the LA Opera. After driving around the block a few times to figure out the parking situation, and explaining to the parking attendant that today was my first day on the job, I got my car parked and made it to the 1pm call on-time. I met more people than I can remember, of which I can maybe recall half of their names. I do at least remember my fellow intern‘s names. Bridgette and Phil have been with the Opera for a few weeks already, and were a great help catching me up.

Both of them are only here for the Fall season, and when Spring comes I will sadly be left alone.

Today was a great day for me to adjust to working at the Opera. It was the final dress rehearsal for the upcoming show Fidelio. There were just a few quick focus notes to go over on stage, and some curtain bow lights that had to be added to the front of house. It is really nice to be an assistant now and not have to do any physical labor, but at the same time I already miss not being able to hang lights. Bridgette and I also updated the paper work and added it to the book. We had a bit of free time before the house opened, which was a nice break, and allowed me to meet and talk to some of the people I‘ll be working with this year.

Final dress went well, but probably not as smoothly as some people were hoping for. For lighting, some of the moving instruments were not in their correct spots, perhaps due to a calibration issues. There is also a lot of projections in the show, and while they were almost glitch free, the main front of house scrim, must have been caught when it was flown in, because every once in a while a visible ripple would travel up and down the scrim from someone trying to get it uncaught.

Phil is going to come in on Saturday to fix the final notes from the final dress rehearsal, which means that Bridgette and I do not have to be back at the Opera for another 10 days. When I return we will start teching the next show Jenufa. The internship will not always be like this though; October is packed to the brim! I am looking forward to the time off already so I can kick it into high gear during the first week of school, since classes officially start this Monday for me. And I also need to move into my apartment next week. Busy, busy, busy. All in all, it has been enjoyable so far.

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