Measuring The Success of a Design

[MrsFooter]

I pose this question to you, oh CB: by what standards do you measure the success of a design? Is pleasing your employer or client enough, or do you hold yourself to higher personal standards? Do you rely on feedback from other artists, or merely confidence in your own taste? Tell me how you know you don't suck!

 

[metti]

I think that it really depends on the type of gig. For a corporate shows, I am happy as long as their weren't any major issues (avoidable or otherwise) and the client is happy. When I mix bands the same is pretty much true. If the band is happy and the promoter/whoever hired me is happy I am too. When I design lights for theatre I definitely hold myself to a higher standard than other people do. I generally like to write up a few pages of reflection to keep with my other paperwork after a show goes up and my job is done. I have had many shows (especially with less experienced directors) where they are really psyched about my design and I can't stop tearing it apart in my head. I feel like I haven't really ever created a perfect design and I have yet to get to a point where that doesn't bother me every time I see photos from the show.

 

[derekleffew]

From Lighting Concept/Lighting Statement:

There are exactly FOUR hard and fast rules for lighting.
(In order of importance):

1. Don't burn down the venue.
2. Use light to make it possible to see the performers.
3. Satisfy the Producer/Director/Artist.
4. Satisfy yourself.

Personally, as long as the check clears, I'm satisfied.

 

[MNicolai]

As one of our regional old-timers says, it's all about butts in seats. Doesn't matter how good your shows are, how cool the lighting is, or how awesome the acting is, if you don't sell any tickets the quality of the show is a moot point.

 

[starksk]

I look at not only that that checklist that Derek posted (though I admit I have never seen it codified before) but also at the experience as a whole. Was the effort I invested in the project matched by the results?

I am never completely satisfied with a design. I am always tweaking something until final dress. Therefore, I also measure success in the ability to sit and watch final dress (or use it as a photoshoot if the show/venue/cast permit) and not have more than a couple of notes.

Finally, on those gigs that are the biggest PITA, success is sometimes measured by when the check clears. (or maybe that is the sigh of relief... but it feels like success)

________________________

~Kirk

 

[MrsFooter]

As one of our regional old-timers says, it's all about butts in seats. Doesn't matter how good your shows are, how cool the lighting is, or how awesome the acting is, if you don't sell any tickets the quality of the show is a moot point.

So, I'm lighting a Doors concert tonight that's already sold out; does that make it a success before it even exists?

Too easy. That sounds like something a person with a bad design says to justify their bad design; "They don't need side light, it's not like we're makin' art here. It's all about butts in the seats."

 

[MNicolai]

I didn't say he was good at what he does. The guy's nearly 80 years old, still designing shows, and doesn't want anything to do with this new-fangled DMX-stuff.

 

[Esoteric]

I pose this question to you, oh CB: by what standards do you measure the success of a design? Is pleasing your employer or client enough, or do you hold yourself to higher personal standards? Do you rely on feedback from other artists, or merely confidence in your own taste? Tell me how you know you don't suck!

1. Is the client pleased? (This is most important they pay the check)
2. Am I pleased with the design? (This is more difficult and harder to explain)
3. Are the critics happy? (No mention in a review is a good review for me)

From this I rate all my shows as a loss, not a win, or a win. I recently did a self review and I win 70% of my shows, don't win 29%, and have lost 1% of my shows. Not winning is okay, since it usually means the client was satisfied, but I thought there was more I could do (and I am a perfectionist). Winning means everyone loved it (including the critics, usually the show is nominated for an award). A loss means the check didn't clear. *lol*

Mike

 

[jhdesynz]

1. Don't burn down the venue!

Always a good rule to put at the top. I've met more than my share of touring techs that couldn't care less if their tech was safe. I don't tolerate anything that will threaten life or limb in my venue.

But the above comments are right, for a paid show, you always want to make sure you can pack the house.

My priorities though for determining if I did a good job are: is everyone safe? is the person paying me happy? is the audience happy? is the rest of the crew happy? If you can make most of these (safety being mandatory) happen, you had a good show!

 

[Esoteric]

I have to say I care a little less about the crew being happy. Now, if some beers and pizza make them happy, then cool. But some people will be crabby no matter what.

Mike

 

[Grog12]

*I come at thsi question from a theatre/dance bias*

Our's is such a messed up little industry.

There's one thing I hate hearing more than anything from an audience: "Wow that was some great lighting."

My job is not to overwhelm what is on stage to the point where people notice my part of the pie.

My job is not to please critics. Critics are generally idiots who let their own personal biases keep them from well bein unbiased in their critique.

While I love and need the paycheck, I didn't join this industry to get paid. If I wanted to be paid I would have stayed in hardware and would be running 4 stores right now.

I became a lighting designer because I loved it. Hot **** its fun.

I'm a lot like starksk I'm never completly satisfied, when opening night comes if I have very few or no notes then I know its time to move on. But even then that's not how I measure the success of a show.

While its important that the director, the producers, the board the ED the other designers are happy, I don't create in the theatre for them. I work with them and beside them to create great work (hopefully) on stage.

I measure the success of a show by the audience. When I'm in the lobby with them after the show if I hear "**** that was a great show." Then I've succeeded. That's why we're here, creating theatre for ourselves is just mastabatory and idiotic. We create for the community and they measure our success.

 

[cdcarter]

*I come at thsi question from a theatre/dance bias*

Our's is such a messed up little industry.

There's one thing I hate hearing more than anything from an audience: "Wow that was some great lighting."

My job is not to overwhelm what is on stage to the point where people notice my part of the pie.

I find that this is an attitude I see a lot in more established lighting and sound designers, and an attitude newer designers and student designers are dropping. I don't see a lot of scenic designers saying the audience shouldn't be amazed by the set, and same for costumers.

Lighting design is much past the point where we are just providing illumination, and sound is finally working its way past creative use of amplification and a telephone ring panel.

Let your art take its place on the stage. There are productions where it is more than appropriate for the lighting to have a major role in the final product and occasionally steal the applause. Directors are getting more used to working with things like sound and multimedia and they are finding out how they can be used to add to the world of the play.

A perfect show isn't 100% willing suspension of disbelief, it is a show where all the elements work together under one clear vision or point of view. Sometimes this means the lighting or the scenic will steal the show, other times this means a little bit of front and top light in a black box, with all the focus on the performers.

Maybe I'm just too young and idealistic, but if you have a fixed run, you shouldn't be worrying about your audience. Worry about your art.

 

[Grog12]

I find that this is an attitude I see a lot in more established lighting and sound designers, and an attitude newer designers and student designers are dropping. I don't see a lot of scenic designers saying the audience shouldn't be amazed by the set, and same for costumers.

Lighting design is much past the point where we are just providing illumination, and sound is finally working its way past creative use of amplification and a telephone ring panel.

Let your art take its place on the stage. There are productions where it is more than appropriate for the lighting to have a major role in the final product and occasionally steal the applause. Directors are getting more used to working with things like sound and multimedia and they are finding out how they can be used to add to the world of the play.

A perfect show isn't 100% willing suspension of disbelief, it is a show where all the elements work together under one clear vision or point of view. Sometimes this means the lighting or the scenic will steal the show, other times this means a little bit of front and top light in a black box, with all the focus on the performers.

Maybe I'm just too young and idealistic, but if you have a fixed run, you shouldn't be worrying about your audience. Worry about your art.

My art does take the stage. I am a artist, but I am not a solo artist. My work is collabritive. The work as a whole is more important than my piece of the pie.

Don't for one instant think that I think this job is just about illumination. It isn't. But I shouldn't be the standout star. I don't know what costumers and scenic designers you've worked with, but the ones I've worked with feel the same way. And their ****ed good at what they do.

Will the scenery or costumes or lighting steal the show? Yes.
Is it something to be proud of? Yes
Should that be your measure of success? No.

 

[derekleffew]

(Absolutely, unequivocally am I trying to be disrespectful to soundlight but), if you want lighting to be the star of the show, do this: Here it is. While it's very well executed and even entertaining, it's not theatre and wouldn't be even if Wings were onstage. As I think I told soundlight when he posted the first one of these, "You do realize there's a limited market for light shows, right?"

Now I work a lot of rock shows, and occasionally even design corporate and other "events." Due to my theatre training, I still have trouble reconciling beamage, and pointing floor lights in the air lighting nothing. I have this silly, outmoded, outdated impression that the performer(s) should be the most important thing in the room. Yes, I iz old skul 2.

I can flash & trash with the best of them, but not while designing plays and musicals.

 

[Esoteric]

(Absolutely, unequivocally am I trying to be disrespectful to soundlight but), if you want lighting to be the star of the show, do this: Here it is. While it's very well executed and even entertaining, it's not theatre and wouldn't be even if Wings were onstage. As I think I told soundlight when he posted the first one of these, "You do realize there's a limited market for light shows, right?"

Now I work a lot of rock shows, and occasionally even design corporate and other "events." Due to my theatre training, I still have trouble reconciling beamage, and pointing floor lights in the air lighting nothing. I have this silly, outmoded, outdated impression that the performer(s) should be the most important thing in the room. Yes, I iz old skul 2.

I can flash & trash with the best of them, but not while designing plays and musicals.

I dunno. This is a complicated issue.

Let me share a little from one of my fields, ministry. In ministry there are ministers and there are support staff. This is the way all churches are set up. Ministers do the work (and as a side effect, get the recognition) while support staff do everything to, well, support them. There has been a movement in recent years that not all support staff belong as support staff, but rather as ministers in their own right. This began with the worship bands (which at one point were simply support staff for the pastors) and eventually spread to video guys (who often appear in the videos), and now is spreading even more to sound and lighting guys. It is becoming less about a leader and his staff, and rather more about a partnership with everyone getting equal say and equal recognition and their art getting an equal share of the stage. Now say what you will about this being right or wrong, but it is the way it is.

Now back to theater, first off I agree that design has come into its own as an art that is not just supporting the actors on stage. I began to notice this around my sophomore year in college.

You see, we were taught that lighting (and all other forms of design) were there simply to support the production by giving the actors an environment in which to tell the story. Now that environment was shaped by the sets, the lighting, the sound, the projections, etc. But the show was all about the actors and we were just helping them to perfect their craft. This is how I was taught, this is how I began to design.

Then I started working around town, assisting designers with some of the larger resident and regional theater companies in the region. They opened my eye to a different world. Here, lighting designers lit the scenery. They put haze in the air and had lights making beams because (not only did it fit with the play) it looked good! There were some cues in the show that were just for movement or effect and had no real basis in the script. You see I was taught that you light the actors, and you used splash from the actors to light the scenery. Other than that you didn't worry about it. Any cues that you had come explicitly from the script. I couldn't believe this is how things worked.

Then I started working as an electrician at the local roadhouses and began to work with the national tours of Broadway shows. Being well versed in computers/software as well as electrics, I was often available to help any patching issues that might have come with the road systems (particularly if they had to use any part of our system, which happened from time to time). So I got to see the cue lists for these shows. I was shocked to see hundreds upon hundreds of light cues. I would watch the rehearsals and notice what happened when the cues executed. I could hear my profs in my head and the chewing out we would get for 85% of the cues.

And this pattern has continued in recent years. Now I go see shows and there are tons of light cues that have no purpose other than for the light cue itself to happen. Now, they do look cool, but they at times draw attention directly to the lighting, and at other times they even completely overshadow the actors. Even one of my favorite lighting designers of all time is guilty of this.

So, we have to acknowledge that lighting (and scenic and sound and costume) design has advanced to the point where it stands on the same level with not only all other aspects of design, but in the modern standards of theater, with the acting itself!!! In fact, in my last show, the Director (who directs off Broadway from time to time) asked all the designers to put their mark on the show, to give it something from each design aspect that people would leave talking about. I was mortified. It went against everything in my being to want to be noticed (in fact if you will look at my response, I said that not being mentioned in a review is a positive as far as I am concerned), much less to risk upstaging the actors.

In my talks with young designers, in most of the theater programs (college) that I have talked to kids from, designers are now being told that their art is valuable, not as support to the actors, but entirely on its own. That they should have their work noticed by more than industry insiders. Right or wrong, this is where the industry is going. Just look at any Broadway show and you can see it. Design doesn't support actors anymore. Design AND actors make theater together, as equals.

Now, also in college was stressed the necessity of making those who hired you happy and getting that paycheck at the end (most of us are not lucky enough to be able to do this for free). Which is why we had a whole course about contracts, about art and the legal system. It was invaluable. Because in the end, without the paycheck 98% of us would not be able to do this.

So first off there is what is. And that is the fact that design is now considered by the majority of the industry to be an equal with acting. Right or wrong actors have to share their stage with lights, projection, sound, scenery, costumes, etc.

Is this the way it should be? I am honestly not sure what to think. Everything in me says no. But is it because it is true or because I was conditioned to think that? I recently did a musical with 200 or so cues. I pride myself on doing shows with the least amount of cues possible. Only what the play wants and no more. It is no surprise that I am less satisfied with that design than any other I have done.

So, how do we judge a successful show?

We HAVE to look at the producers and say "are you happy?" (at least the 98% of us who are not independently wealthy). If the producer is not happy, you are not going to work again, and you are back to selling cell phones or fixing computers.

We have to ask if we are happy with the results. This is rather more nebulous. I am never completely happy. I will tinker until they pry the headset from my cold dead hands. but once I have to stop, I can look and say if I am satisfied.

If we win in those two areas, the show is a success. End of story.

Now if the audience loves it (audiences are notoriously fickle, and I don't know about anyone else, but I live in a city where people don't know good art even if there is a sign beside it that says "this is good art!") first of all this will be reflected in the producers love (producers love nothing more than a full house) and second of all it is a bonus.

The same can be said about critical success. Again, for me critical success is NOT being mentioned in a review. Now, if we happens to have something nice to say about how I supported the performance, then all the better! But I am not going to live or die on critical reviews (especially given most of the critics in this town who should not be able to watch theater, let alone write about it).

So, just a few thoughts. My success is measured first by the Producers, second by me, and perhaps a bonus of popular and critical success.

Mike

 

[HornsOverIthaca]

1. How close does it meet the director's vision of the show?
2. Does it help me land the next job?

 

[starksk]

... I have this silly, outmoded, outdated impression that the performer(s) should be the most important thing in the room. Yes, I iz old skul 2. ...

What happens when there are no performers in the room?

I am working on a project where the intent is a light show, but with the added kick that there will most likely not be any soundtrack playing to accompany/support the show. It is entirely about lighting with no other supporting characters.

Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but I am finding that I am having a hard time designing with no inspiration/text/concept to support. In this case, I am choosing a track of music to serve as a driving concept even though it will not be heard by the audience 90% of the time.

This is truly a battle in my brain against everything I had previously thought about lighting design. I am of the camp that lighting is an art but a collaborative and [gasp] more of a supportive one[/gasp]. This is the rare swing to the far side of the design being the primary art and anything else being a supportive role.

I am pretty sure my measure of success on this project will be the "oh, wow, cool" reaction scale.

__________________

~Kirk