New project

[Matthew Mott]

I'm new to control booth. I am from Colorado originally but i live work and study in KC as one of the first students in Victor Tan's Projection program at UMKC.

I am always looking to innovate what i do, and the I am so excited that the future is here finally.

I have this new project i am trying to do for schools around me as a master class. It would be a three day long workshop, it's intent would be to show young designers the newest tech and how they can use it to lighten their load.
I would love your opinions on this; how can i make it better? I know that the presentation on the site is a little vague, but i have done all the footwork, i know the budget will work for what I'm trying to do.

Please ask me any questions this presents, the nature of the funding site is to be a little more vague, I will gladly answer any questions anyone has.

Link to the website.

http://www.hatchfund.org/project/the_digital_design_workshop

Thank you,

Matt

 

[Niall]

hey, Interesting idea. I have a couple of questions though:

1) what software are you planning on teaching? The video seems to contain a lot of sketchup, is that the main tool you will teach?

2) It would appear that this is mainly for set designers. Is that a fair assumption? Do you have plans to extend this into design software for lighting etc?

3) Is this something that could work as an online training course? I'm guessing that the cost of providing machines capable of running the software comfortably, for all of the students you encounter will amount to substantially more than the 6500 you are trying to raise.

All in, it looks like a good idea but my personal feeling is that I would want a lot more specifics on the intended content and delivery in order to either invest or to book your company. I hope this is ok, I don't want to be down on your idea, as I say I think it has potential. I'm responsible for managing the training of all of our junior Techs and designers and Its something that (if available online and given a lot more detail) I might look into. More and more of our clients, for all genres (corporate, music and indeed theatre) are expecting to see Visualisations of the event as part of the quote.

hope this helps somehow.

 

[Matthew Mott]

Thank you for the reply,

1) Sketch up in conjunction with Maya and 3-ds max depending on the need of the designer. As a scenic and projections designer, the vast majority of the results that i have produced come from sketch up (It is more intuitive for architecture and basic forms). However the models of furniture and the more complicated props in the sketch up models come from 3-ds Max or 3-D scans. Sketch up is at the center because it can recognize many different formats and translate between multiple programs. This is of course for a scenic designer.

2)Lighting can use one of a few great plugins for sketch up that provide lighting for practicals and theatrical instruments within the 3-D model that a scenic designer may have provided. I know many Lighting designers who are resorting to 3-D modeling their sets on their own in Vectorworks in order to provide preliminary visualizations. Sketch up coupled with my extensive library of 3-D theatrical instruments makes "previs" in 3-d space much more than just showing your work, it turns "previs" into it's own beautiful renderings.
Costumes would focus more on the use of 3-ds max and Maya not Sketch up til their rendering phase. Costumers can use digital patterning software in conjunction with 3-D scanners to make measurements of actors that are exact. They can then fit their patterns to the 3-d scan and print them the same hour even before the actor leaves from their measurements.
Costume crafts and props are of course revolutionized by the use of a 3-D scanner with a 3-d printer. Life casting, Replicating, Gun rentals, Buttons and many other things are alleviated by this technology.

3) As a 3 day course this could never possibly cover all of the things that any designer would need to know to succeed with all of these products. It has taken me ten years to amass the knowledge it took to put this together. As a result though the vast majority of what the course would offer is a large digital library of instructional videos on each of the subjects that i would cover. Many of these are available for continuing education credit. All of the links I provide are free along with digital 3-d libraries of furniture, props, different wood types, Building matierals, lighting instruments, material textures, theatrical seating, and natural forms (people, animals, rocks, trees).
So the answer is yes it could be done as an online course however students would lose out on getting to use and manipulate the physical technology.

A final word, i have fully integrated as much of this technology as is available to me. It will never replace the old ways of doing things and it shouldn't. But i have taken my design process from what used to be 80 hours per show. Ei. Design, Drafting, Model Building, Revisions, Paint elevations, and Props. Down to a 14 hour turnaround. This means i can design 4x times as many shows as i used to be capable of.

Thank you so much for your reply, I appreciate your taking the time greatly, Hope this helps

Matt