headed for Las Vegas, only made it out to Needles

Well, I've safely returned from my jaunt in Arizona and am sufficiently behind in all my classes. I feel very little motivation to catch up or stress about it, thus, I am spending my time blogging instead of studying. Procrastination is a deadly sin.

USITT wasn't all I thought it would be. The biggest and best design schools weren't there . . . probably because they don't need to recruit students to apply for their program. They have enough interest because of reputation. UW wasn't there either. I don't know how high up there they are in the rankings of best design schools, but the fact that they didn't need to come is a good sign. Putting yourself in the same category as NYU is almost always a good idea. Several of the best UC schools weren't there either. Anyway, none of the schools that WERE there really grabbed my attention. Brandice and North Carolina Conservatory of the Arts both offer masters degrees in scenic art, which is unique. Most of the programs sounded the same though.

So (unless there's a particular professor I want to study with) since there's no way to know the details of every program in each school, it kind of comes down to location. Included in location is what major cities is the university nearby and the followup detail to that is which theatre companies are in those major cities. Brandice has an AMAZING scenic art professor. I'd heard about him before USITT and saw pictures of his work while I was there. He's absolutely stellar. But, UW has more going for it in my mind. Um, hello . . . Seattle? Yeah. And, grad students from universities generally are able to get into the local LORT theatres . . . in this case, Seattle Rep. Freaking rad.

I got to have an unofficial portfolio review. It was only due to my boss Travis dragging me to meet some of his friends. I didn't want to do it, but I think it turned out for the best. I'm not proud of my portfolio . . . I threw it together in six hours with a crappy printer. I'm proud of my designs, but not how they're represented in the portfolio. I only included three of the four full designs I've done and didn't get the chance to put any of my scenic painting or drafting samples in it. It is a bare little portfolio, and my renderings need a lot of help. Obviously, I was hesitant to show it to anyone. But, because of Travis, I got some feedback. Most of what they said, I already knew (like, learn how to draw), but the guys who looked at it gave me some good advice on things I hadn't thought of. Also, they were very impressed with my extensive resume/experience. Boo yah.

I talked to Utah Shakespeare Festival and Utah Festival Opera Company about summer employment. If I could have my wish, here is what my summer would look like:

April 28 - June 9 --- UFOC

(they said "until the end of May" . . . I'm hoping they'll need me longer)

June 9 - June 11 --- Astoria (Steven's graduation)

June 11 - July 8 --- Prague/Italy

July 8 - July 25 --- Astoria

July 25 - September 8 --- USF

(they said "end of July" . . . I'm just guessing this date)

We'll see if I can swing it. Nothing's set 'cause I haven't really officially applied for the jobs yet. I plan on sending emails tonight with pictures and my resume. It was nice that UFOC and USF had completely opposite seasonal needs and that neither interfere with the Prague/Italy trip. Actually, UFOC said they would want me at the beginning of April and USF would want me through the end of September, but since that's conflicting with school and not a personal trip, they may be a little more understanding and let me work for them anyway. I'll keep you posted.

None of the workshops I attended were groundbreaking or revolutionary. I went to one about this program called SketchUp which is a user-friendly digital 3-D modeling program. The presenters there not only said it ran better on a PC (which I was very surprised by) but that you need a really good graphics card to run it. So, not only am I sort of back on the fence between Mac and PC (Macs are SO expensive) but I don't know which Mac I want anymore. I think the 13" MacBooks are too small and don't have a good enough graphics card. So, I'd get the 15" MacBook Pro, but I'll end up spending around $2700 for that. Yikes. Ugh. I don't know what to do with myself.

I went to a model-making one that was helpful a little bit (didn't say too much I didn't already know) . . . those two paint ones that were okay . . . the one about LORT theatres was really interesting and informative . . . one about USA Local 829 (a national theatre/film union) that was useful . . . and a couple others that were lame. Other than the workshops, I just walked around and looked at products and booths and stuff. Yay.

The drives were long . . . about fourteen hours each way. They shouldn't have been that long (twelve hours would have been reasonable), but we had poor directions and navigators, so it took a while. Whatever. I slept most of the time.

I don't know if I'll go back next year. We'll see how my portfolio is looking and how I'm feeling. Oh, and I realized that because of this German study abroad, I won't be able to attend grad school until fall of '09. Man.

And of course, pictures of the trip:


(click on page 5 to get to the beginning . . . or click on the set)

USITT approches

Well, friends . . . in a few days I'll be taking off for Phoenix, Arizona to attend the annual United States Institute for Theatre Technology Conference. It's where tech theatre students go to show off their portfolio and get grad schools interested in them. Basically, the best undergraduate design work ends up there.

My portfolio isn't quite "together" as of yet, so I won't be taking mine. It's okay, because I'll be going to USITT next year and present my portfolio then. This year I'm just going to get a feel for things so I know how to prepare myself for my return trip in 2008. Smart, eh? I thought so. I guess it would be smartest to bring portfolio work now just to start making connections . . . but that's kind of a moot point now. We're leaving in about 48 hours and I have way too much homework and work to do before then to try to throw a respectable portfolio together.

Point being, I'll be gone from Tuesday to Saturday with no internet access . . . no blogging, no emailing. My laptop is too heavy to lug around and overheats to often to take it anywhere without my desktop fan . . . so . . . MacBook, anyone?

Still not sure what I'm going to do after graduation. I still like the idea of UW . . . but who knows where I'll be twenty months and two international trips from now?

mishap a la Hamlet

This is why I will never buy an expensive cell phone:


Yeah, literally dropped it in a bucket of paint. Nothing hypothetical about this mishap. Amazingly, it still functions. This isn't the first time this has happened . . . ah, the life of a painter. I spent about an hour tonight watching film trailers and scraping it off. I was a little worried because paint got into the mouthpiece, but I scraped around, and it seems to be functioning just fine now.

The best part about it was that my boss doubled over with laughter. I seem to have a talent for getting my bosses to like me. I've gotten along quite famously with my superiors in the theatrical world (employers and professors) in the last several years. With my current boss, it's been difficult to reach that friendly level . . . but, we reached it this week. It's that level where we can give each other a hard time and I can yell or sing and we just banter with each other. I was afraid it wouldn't happen, but it did and I am now friends with my boss. Sorta weird that I could feel the working relationship shifting into something new. Well, "friends" might not be quite the right word . . . but we're friendly to each other. It's a pretty great feeling and makes the workday much easier.

As a side note, we're painting with this color on Hamlet called "Tudor House". It's a dark gray, the main color of the set. I keep calling it "Tudor Guild" and confusing the other painters. I get blank stares when I say something like, "Go mix another gallon of Tudor Guild, we're running low." They look at me and say, "Did you choose an new color?" and I say, "Oh, no, Tudor House is what I meant" and then I think of my lover: Ashland.