10-JAN-22 Tired Monday

[DiveMilw]

I put in a surprise 13 hour day last night.  Two flights were delayed and just after the second one left we were notified that a diversion was coming in.  So I had to stay and help with that.  I did not get a full eight hours of sleep last night so I fully expect to be dragging later this evening.  I will have to make sure I have a supply of caffeinated beverages to keep me going until the end of my shift...which hopefully be the scheduled end time.  

[KathyB]

I did get enough sleep last night, and I still feel tired. I was originally planning to stop at Pacific Ocean Marketplace to see if they had any spring rolls, but I was too tired and too hungry to look for them and then wait in line. So I had a Marie Callender's pot pie, which was delicious under the circumstances. Maybe I'll get the spring rolls tomorrow, when I expect to have more energy. I know I have to go to Costco tomorrow.

[scenicdesign71]

Tiredness is a relatable theme.  I'm working round the clock on this Much Ado design and the progress is pitifully slow.  For example, you would not believe how long and difficult it has been to build this cute little colonnade.  It's not really even all that cute, yet it took all day, all night and a complete rebuild to finally figure out.

The problem is that it's so open; though it does connect to separate "wings" of the Main House at either end, its point is to be visible and playable, to a very widely fanned range of audience sightlines, hence the turns instead of a straight linear arcade.  The flat-cutout columns are meant to be simpler & cheaper to build than real 3D ones would be -- but if the look is to be "flat cutout," then the trick becomes: how to have them look paper-thin without bulky support beams behind them (even from extreme side angles), while still somehow managing to support the upper level?  In the end, I trashed my original model of this piece and rebuilt it from scratch, this time literally making and assembling digital 2x4s and cutting digital 3/4" ply with a digital keyhole saw to figure out the nuts and bolts of exactly how to achieve that airiness in reality.

Whether or not it could actually support human weight -- my director wants Benedick to clamber over the balcony railing and fall into a hedge at one point -- is for the technical director to determine.  But if he agrees that this design is as structurally sound as I hope/believe it to be, then you could literally build the real thing directly from this model.

I think the colonnade and the watchtower (which had some similar issues) will have been the two trickiest pieces to draft.  Working on the groundplan the other day, I discovered that the (unseen) inside of this central Main House, connecting all the various entrances on both levels, and with some kind of backing behind every door or window opening, is a shitshow all its own.  But at least it's much more blocky and opaque: regular walls and platforms whose means of support can be easily hidden (and worked out by the TD, rather than by me, since they're purely structural decisions that don't directly affect the look of the design).  So drawing it should be easier, and hopefully allow me some respite from tearing my hair out, at least for the time being.