Welcome to The Projection Designer's Toolbox...
Hardware, software, interesting problems and solutions, works in progress, tricks of the trade...It will all be covered in "The Toolbox."
2/15/07
Inside The Toolbox, you'll find a collection of tips and tricks, thoughts I've had and lessons I've learned as a theatrical projection designer. I am proud to have been chronicling these adventures for LiveDesign Magazine in a monthly column titled "The Projection Designer's Toolbox" since January of 2006.
10/24/05
The Studio is Growing -
Well, actually, the studio has morphed into "The Projection Designer's Toolbox," my new monthly column in Entertainment Design Magazine. It starts in December. I will mirror my entries here for anyone who doesn't have a subscription, so check back soon for Toolbox installment #1.
Looking for a special trick or discovered one you'd like to share?? Email me
1/18/05
Colossal Powers. Itty-bitty Living Space -
What is the simplest way to share files between computers no matter what OS they run? USB key drives! My little USB key drive has transferred many a file between my laptop and a show computer on various theater projects. In fact, I even keep a complete backup of my entire website on my little 512MB Disk-On-Key drive (formatted in Disk Utility as MS-DOS Fat32 so it will work on PCs and Macs). But Apple's new iPod Shuffle 1GB is lookin' mighty tasty as the USB key drive of choice. Partition that sucker in half and get 512MB of storage plus 240 songs (you can set the partition up in iTunes). Not bad for a hard drive the size of a pack of gum, plus 16 hours of music to boot. I still remember the 20 megabyte external hard drive from my original Mac 512... ahh beige ;-)
Tiny storage devices are great tools for shuttling data around. Most of them can even draw their power from the single cable that they connect to the computer with. Whether it is my bootable 40GB Lacie Firewire drive, my USB key or my iPod mini, the days of carrying around a big ol' hard drive and bulky power supply are long gone.
Here's a little secret about the bootable Firewire drive. If you can get your hands on it, build your bootable drive with the latest iBook G4 OS X 10.3 software restore discs. Apple changed something in the hardware for the latest round of iBooks, so if you want to create a disk that can boot all OS X compatible Macs, you'll need that version. Otherwise, you get the dreaded "gray circle with a line through it" when you try to boot off the drive. I also keep a copy of Disk Warrior on the drive too. It'll do its job much faster booting off a hard drive than starting from the CD.
Got a question you'd like to see answered here?? Email me
11/22/04
Projections in a Pinch -
The September Issue of Stage Directions magazine had a nice article all about "how to enhance your shows with projections while on a tight budget." It features some terrific insights by Derek Holbrook, one of the great people over at Scharff Weisberg, as well as a few from yours truly.
I recently met a high school theater teacher from New Jersey. When she learned that I was a projection designer, she told me she used an article about Radiant Baby and Sinatra from "some Stage Something Or Other magazine" to inspire her class to design their own projections for The Good Woman of Szechwan. Without even knowing I had anything to do with the shows or the article. Crazy coincidence!!
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