Written by a leading design consultant and carefully updated with the latest information on the industry, this is the essential guide to earning a living, marketing skills, furthering a design career, and operating a business. With more than thirty years of backstage and behind-the-scenes experience in theater, film, television, concerts, and special events, James Moody shares his success secrets for the benefit of design students and working designers. Topics include: Finding and landing dream assignments Negotiating fees Setting up ideal working spaces Building the perfect staff Overcoming fears of accounting and record-keeping Choosing the right insurance Joining the right unions and professional organizations And more In addition to revealing how to get the great design jobs in traditional entertainment venues, the author shows designers how to think outside the box and seize creative, lucrative opportunities—such as those in theme parks, in concert halls, and with architectural firms. Providing the keys for passionate, talented designers to become successful businesspeople, The Business of Theatrical Design is a must-read for novices and established professionals alike.

Veteran theater designers Karen Brewster and Melissa Shafer have consulted with a broad range of seasoned theater industry professionals to provide an exhaustive guide full of sound advice and insight. With clear examples and hands-on exercises, Fundamentals of Theatrical Design illustrates the way in which the three major areas of theatrical design--scenery, costumes, and lighting--are intrinsically linked. Attractively priced for use as a classroom text, this is a comprehensive resource for all levels of designers and directors. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

The Art of Theatrical Design: Elements of Visual Composition, Methods, and Practice addresses the core principles that develop the student designer into a true artist, providing a foundation that ensures success with each production design. This text concentrates on the skills necessary to create effective, evocative, and engaging theatrical designs that support the play contextually, thematically, and visually. It gives students the grounding in core design principles they need to approach design challenges and make design decisions in both assigned class projects and realized productions. This book features: In-depth discussions of design elements and principles for costume, set, lighting, sound, and projection designs Coverage of key concepts such as content, context, genre, style, play structure and format, and the demands and limitations of various theatrical spaces Essential principles, including collaboration, inspiration, conceptualization, script analysis, conducting effective research, building a visual library, developing an individual design process, and the role of the critique in collaboration Information on recent digital drawing tool technology, such as the Wacom® Inkling pen, Wacom® Intuos digitizing tablets and digital sketching, and rendering programs such as Autodesk® Sketchbook Pro and Adobe® Photoshop® Chapter exercises and key terms designed to provide an engaging experience with the material and to facilitate student understanding

The creation of exciting visual stories blooms from a successful navigation of the collaborative artistic journey. This new text guides beginning directors, designers, and performers through the many interwoven relationships and communication styles used during this journey and details the context, vision, parameters, materials, aesthetics, documentation, and facilitation of the design and production process. Drawing from over thirty years as a theatre educator and costume designer, Ryerson uses examples from actual productions to provide valuable insight into creating visually symbolic storytelling. Specific areas covered include the historical development of performance; navigating the relationship between artistic and business factions; job descriptions and hierarchies; design elements and principles; set components and construction; the design and production of costumes, lighting, and sound; special effects; and how everything comes together. Including 16 pages of full-color photos, this universal and practical approach benefits all members of this unique art form.

Written by a leading design consultant and carefully updated with the latest information on the industry, this is the essential guide to earning a living, marketing skills, furthering a design career, and operating a business. With more than thirty years of backstage and behind-the-scenes experience in theater, film, television, concerts, and special events, James Moody shares his success secrets for the benefit of design students and working designers. Topics include: Finding and landing dream assignments Negotiating fees Setting up ideal working spaces Building the perfect staff Overcoming fears of accounting and record-keeping Choosing the right insurance Joining the right unions and professional organizations And more In addition to revealing how to get the great design jobs in traditional entertainment venues, the author shows designers how to think outside the box and seize creative, lucrative opportunities—such as those in theme parks, in concert halls, and with architectural firms. Providing the keys for passionate, talented designers to become successful businesspeople, The Business of Theatrical Design is a must-read for novices and established professionals alike.

This book is a practical guide to aid in the process of creating, developing and presenting successful Theatre/TV/Film design/technology portfolios in the fields of scenery, costumes, lighting and sound. The book will consist of four sections or chapters. The first section is dedicated to the realization of effective portfolio showcases and it will identify materials and techniques used to produce them. This chapter will also identify specific requirements by discipline including scenery, costumes, lighting and sound and will cover the different portfolio requirements to apply for graduate school, jobs in the field, professional organizations and for promotional purposes. The second section is dedicated to the development and use of digital portfolios and it will look at the different software used in this area. The third chapter is about presentation and marketing and it will describe how to develop personal presentation techniques, resume, business card, and web pages. Finally, the fourth section offers key information in regards to the maintenance and updating of portfolios. Each chapter will feature real samples from the professional field and a page of "do's and don'ts with comments from experts in each design-tech discipline.

In this newly revised second edition, veteran stage designers and technical directors Dennis Dorn and Mark Shanda introduce industry-standard drafting and designing practices with step-by-step discussions, illustrations, worksheets, and problems to help students develop and refine drafting and other related skills needed for entertainment set production work. By incorporating the foundational principles of both hand- and computer-drafting approaches throughout the entire book, the authors illustrate how to create clear and detailed drawings that advance the production process. Early chapters focus on the basics of geometric constructions, orthographic techniques, soft-line sketching applications, lettering, and dimensioning. Later chapters discuss real-life applications of production drawing and ancillary skills such as time and material estimation and shop-drawing nomenclature. Two chapters detail a series of design and shop drawings required to mount a specific design project, providing a guided path through both phases of the design/construction process. Most chapters conclude with one or more worksheets or problems that provide readers with an opportunity to test their understanding of the material presented. The authors' discussion of universal CAD principles throughout the manuscript provides a valuable foundation that can be used in any computer-based design, regardless of the software. Dorn and Shanda treat the computer as another drawing tool, like the pencil or T-square, but one that can help a knowledgeable drafter potentially increase personal productivity and accuracy when compared to traditional hand-drafting techniques. Drafting for the Theatre, second edition assembles in one book all the principal types of drawings, techniques, and conventional wisdom necessary for the production of scenic drafting, design, and shop drawings. It is richly illustrated with numerous production examples and is fully indexed to assist students and technicians in finding important information. It is structured to support a college-level course in drafting, but will also serve as a handy reference for the working theatre professional.