Concrete Design Issues

Some of our finest props have been constructed in the heat of battle, with little advance thought of design. This doesn't mean that they were not designed. It just means that the designs are usually ad-hoc and tactical, as opposed to strategic.

Having made a few too many trips to the store for something that we hadn't thought about in advance, I am starting to build a page about designing things up-front.

We distinguish between:

Philosophical and Social Issues - "Should I buy one or build it from scratch?"
Concrete Design Issues - "I'm building one. What color should I paint it?" [this page]

Things To Think About In Advance
Ship's carpentry versus precision design
Subtle or cartoon-like?
Related Pages

Things To Think About In Advance

Will it be safe to display and operate? How will you assure that?
How will the prop be lit up?
How will the prop be secured against theft and vandalism?
Does the prop need to be weatherproof? How will you accomplish that?
Does the mechanism of the prop make any undesirable sound? How can it be muffled or covered?
Should the prop have its own sound track?

Ship's carpentry versus precision design.

If you are building something to a precision design, you can go into the shop, cut all the pieces according to the plans, and then assemble them all. And they all fit.

There is an expression ship's carpentery that is used to describe the opposite of this approach. Under the stress and strain of hard usage, wooden ships are bent and twisted away from their original design. If you go to the original plans and cut a piece of wood to fit someplace, it probably won't fit in real life. In addition, spaces on ships tend to be rounded and/or tapered anyway. In order to be work effectively in this environment, you have to measure the exact gap and cut the wood to fit exactly ... and just about nothing is ever "square".

In building our fence columns, we were faced with this decision, due to the extremely time-consuming nature of cutting the masonite walls. We decided to have the lumber yard use their big stationary saw to rip each sheet into thirds, lengthwise. This saved us a huge amount of time, and resulted in very straight cuts. But the width of the strips was poorly controlled: there was up to 1/2" difference in width between the widest and most narrow strips.

If we had mass-produced the internal framing to standardized dimensions, the sides would not fit well on the frame: some would be too big and others too small. So the inner framing was done via ship's carpentry: measure how large this particular piece of siding is and cut the inner framing pieces to fit.

This was actually an exercise in cost-shifting: we saved time on the sides, it cost us in the internal frame. We thought the exchange worthwhile.

The decision is yours.

Subtle or cartoon-like?

We have always had trouble deciding whether a certain effect should be subtle, or so exagerated that it looked almost cartoonish. We have gambled many times, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong:

Our original fence columns were painted flat gray, over exposed screw-heads and all. They weren't too bad in the dim light.
When we repainted them with a stone paint job, they looked even better, though the mortar lines were crisp and cartoon-like. They looked so good that my father said "So, the columns are new this year?"
We went to great lengths to light up the gargoyles, which looked good in testing, but failed in operation to highlight the other subtleties.
We gave the gargoyles flapping wings, only to discover that the speed of the motor made a difference in whether or not the flapping was noticed.

We're still not good on this "subtle" thing, but are learning...

Subtle

Is best used where the audience is up close, will stay close for a while, and there is plenty of light.
Subtlety is probably seldom a good idea in lighting. If you throw subtle light on a subtle effect, the effect is hard to see and wasted. Put strong lighting on subtle effects, so you can see them.

Cartoon-like

Works better in the dark and at a distance to emphasize the effect you want to get across. When you look at theatrical makeup up close, it looks over-done. But from where the audience sits, it is just right.

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