Around The World In 80 Days was the first show that I designed and built after starting as the Technical Director of North Port High School.  Many of the lessons I learned during this process would be implemented across the rest of the sets that I designed during my tenure with the department.  

Pre-Production

The beginning of the process started with several meeting with the Director, Dena Henderson. Our weekly meetings were discussions where Dena would present ideas and images and I would try to get a sense of how she wanted the show to feel. 

  Dena’s concept for this show was focused mainly on the idea of using a steampunk aesthetic. This a style that I was vaguely familiar with, but had no utilized in a show before. Our budget for scenery on this show was roughly $700.00, but we wanted to come in underneath that total so we could use the surplus on scenery for our large spring musical. Our budgets at North Port were small, so we tried to find creative ways to allow for scenery from one show to fit another. We also had a very large selection of stock scenery that could be utilized to build the framework of all of our shows. 

 I began working on a design for the set that would give us multiple playing areas that could easily be re-arranged to represent different locations. These generic surfaces were 2- 8’-0” X 8’-0” 36” tall platforms that split centre. On stage right, the wall was covered by wallpaper that was made of torn-up world maps adhered to the wall using a mixture of white glue and water. We also distressed the maps with a wash of brown and grey paint. Stage left was a red brick wall. Each platform had stairs in the front and back with archway entrances and areas for furniture.

The challenges that we faced with this show were the number of settings we had to visit and finding a way to incorporate the steampunk aesthetic that the director requested.

The Location Challenge

  As I spoke with Dena about ways to represent the different locations that would be visited around the world we both had the desire to come up with a way to help the audience see the setting with more visual cues than just a change of lighting and furniture. The theatre has a projection screen that hangs from a baton and would be large enough to show images of the various locations visited during the show, but neither of us liked the idea of using the in the house projection screen. We were going through great pains to design and build a steampunk show and there was no way for us to theme or enhance the screen to fit the concept. I decided to use a material that I had not worked with at that point but had heard was a very good medium to use when creating custom projection screens.

   Winterizing boats is a common practice for boat owners, but not many of them know that the white shrink wrap used on their boat is actually a perfect substitute for a rear projection screen. I heard about this technique from a colleague in Cleveland, OH. and I thought this was the perfect application to give it a try. I contacted a local harbor that got me in touch with their winterization specialist. I ask the man if I could purchase a section of his material so that I could build a 12’-0” X 12’-0” screen. The material is expensive, but the amount that I was asking for is very small. In fact, I was asking him for a small section of the material that he would normally throw away after he completed a job. 

Building a Projection Screen

 Working with white plastic is not difficult, but there are some tools you will need and rules that you have to follow. You need to use a heat gun to shrink the plastic. You need wide staples to hold everything in place. I used upholstery staples, but short wide crown staples would probably work better. Since my screen was going to be 12’-0” x 12’-0” I needed to construct the frame so that it was strong enough to be moved around and not break once hung on the stage. Once the plastic has shrunk it applies quite a bit of pressure on your frame. I would recommend a metal frame with a wooden over-lay, but I didn’t have access to any welding equipment so I settled on using 1x4 for the frame. I reinforced the frame by building it out of hogs-trough with overlapping joints and additional bracing in the corners to strengthen them. Even with the additional braces and framework I still experienced a little bit of racking. If you are forced to make the frame out of wood make sure you reinforce every joint.

• Once the frame is built the next step is to stretch your plastic over the top.

  • Staple the plastic to one side of the frame.

  • Move to the opposite side of the frame and pull the plastic as tight as possible before securing it to the frame using a wide crown or upholstery stapler.

    • You will want to wrap the plastic around the frame and staple it around the side or back.

    • Unless you are taking this plastic straight off the roll it is going to have creases, it is unavoidable. The creases aren’t permanent, but they are your biggest adversary. In order to eliminate the creases you have to stretch the plastic as much as you can, and then some.

  • Repeat the stretching process on the remaining sides making sure you pull as tight as you can avoiding puckering.

    • When you are fastening the corners I recommend hospital corners to create a clean edge.

• Heat the plastic

  • Heat the material on the frame working your way from the outside edge to the inside edge of the frame.

    • Do not use the heat gun over the area you are planning to show images on.

      • Heating the plastic causes a change to the material on a molecular level. Heating the plastic will change the density of the area and will impact the image quality.

    • Keep the heat gun at a safe distance to avoid melting the plastic. If the plastic gets too hot you will create holes.

   This process should take some time to get a good result. My suggestion would be to listen to some music or an audiobook and fall into a rhythm. Once you get going its is easy to see the plastic shrinking and to get a feel of when you are getting too hot. This was my first attempt at shrinking the plastic, I was less than successful at removing all of the creases and wrinkles. This is not a job for one person. stretching the plastic is tough, and I would highly recommend using one or two people extra people to make sure you take as much slack as possible out. the tighter your first stretch is; the more the shrinking will be able to pull out the creases.

After I completed the shrinking process I was able to add my rigging hardware to the sides of the frame. I had two pick line that ran up the side of the frame and two that were attached to the top of the frame. The entire piece didn’t weight more than 100 lbs., so four pick lines was more for stability and safety than necessity. I used black spray paint to mask the white plastic on the sides of the frame and then used crown moulding to create a picture frame around the screen. Once hung we used a projector to project back and white images of the different locations visited during the show. This piece was on stage the entire show and played an integral part in helping the actors tell the story. The overall cost of the frame was less than $100.00 if you include the purchase of new rigging hardware that we were able to put into stock afterwards. 

Steampunk

Until I started working on this show I did not have a good understanding of steampunk. Dena, who was also functioning as the costume designer for this production, was going to be purchasing a lot of costume pieces to help convey this theme. The challenge was creating a steam punk set without the ability to make expensive purchases or do any metal working with tools more advances than a hammer and anvil. I settled focusing on the idea of time passing this led me to explore a clockwork theme for the set. I started playing with the idea of gears wrapping around the set and making it appear as though the platforms were supported by elaborate clockworks. In the end time and money constraints only allowed us to create a couple of layers of gears, but I was able to build the “floating gear steps”. 

Cutting out the small gear was a time-consuming affair. I started by finding five different gear patterns and printed them on copier paper. I used spare adhesive to attach the templates to my first cut-outs once everything was glued together it was just a matter of plugging in the Jigsaw and cutting them out. After the first round of cuts were made, I used a router and a flush-trim bit to make duplicates of the gears. I used scrap luan to make all the gears. It was time-consuming, and because it was the beginning of my first year and I had yet to train the students to use a router,I felt more comfortable managing this project on my own. The students were able to help sand and paint the gears once they were finished, but their participation in building scenery during this time of the year was contingent on a break in their curriculum that would allow them to help. Most of the student help came during weekend work calls or after school participation. 

The large gear steps were a larger hurdle. There were three steps on each platform and there were two sizes for the gears. The larger steps were 4’-0” in diameter while the smaller steps were only 2’-0” in diameter. The steps were double-sided and had a total thickness of 5 inches once the framing and facing were installed. To cut out the large gears I utilized a plotter in the art department to print a 1:1 drawing of the gears, from there the process was very similar to the rest of the small gears. I framed the gears in a very similar style to a normal platform, but I included extra framing to catch the seams and support the teeth of the gears. The real tedious part of this build was facing the gears. I had to cover every face of every tooth on each of the gears. I did this by making small cuts of luan than them cleaning the seams with masking tape. To achieve the goal of making the gear appear to be floating I used black fabric to mask the legs. All of the Gears cost just over a hundred dollars.

Additional Set Dressing

The stage needed to feel busier than it did with just the scenery previously discussed. We knew that we needed to have additional furniture for some large scenes and there were a couple of scenes that took place on a dock and a sled. Fortunately, we had some scenery in stock that could be used to help create our world. We had a large collection of wooden rehearsal boxes that would be perfect to use as furniture, so I began to modify them to be used as shipping crates that would be stacked around the platforms. The creates were framed using luan strips to make sure they didn’t get too heavy for the actors. We also added stenciled locations and labels to the boxes. The dock was a leftover piece of scenery from a previous set. The sled was created by taking a 2’-0” x8’-0” wagon and adding a sled frame and planking. The sail was a piece of muslin ribbed with some scrap PVC pipe to give it the illusion of catching the wind. The additional scenery added very little to the overall budget.     

Evaluation

Part of my process is to look at my completed work with a critical eye. I want to make improvements when working on further productions, and I don’t think that it is possible to do that without identifying errors in my previous work. Around The World in 80 Days was a unique experience for me. At the time it was my first show built and designed at North Port High School.

During my time at NPHS, this show is by far my cheapest set. Most of the set was built using scrap lumber or stock scenery. When we did have to make purchases they were for plywood, trim and paint. We didn’t have to make a large investment in any one piece. The Donation of the plastic for the projection screen saved us several hundred dollars in material. I’m not sure we would have gotten to play with the projection concept without a donation of materials. 

The projections were another area where I felt like we missed the mark. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. We had short-throw projectors all over the high school, unfortunately, none of them put out anything higher than 3,000 lumens. We had a projector in the theatre that would have been able to project the images with enough punch to overcome the stage lights, but we lacked a short throw lens. I called several friends who had experience with projection and they agreed that I needed more punch than my budget would allow. For the show, we tried to focus lights in a creative was to avoid casting any light on the screen. The result was mixed, but the project taught me a lot about projection, and it was my first chance to work with the rear project material. A year later we did end up replacing the theatre projector with a new model. We made sure to include a short-throw lens with the new projector so that projections would be possible in future productions. 

The gear steps looked exactly as envisioned, but once I built them I noticed that there were several improvements that could have been made to make them function better. The teeth on the gears were too narrow. They were meant to be steps that looked like gears, but instead, I made gears that were also steps. The teeth became a tripping hazard right off the bat. Luckily, we didn’t have any incidents with them, and my actors made sure that they practiced walking up and down the steps as part of their calls before even show. If I were to ever design gear steps again I would make the teeth much bigger. This would eliminate the tripping hazard and also make it much easier to face the fronts of the steps. At the time I made this set CNC was not widely used, and I had no access to the technology. This project would have been the perfect application for CNC. I could have plotted out the gears for the steps and the clockworks on the platform with minimal waste. The computer would have been able to do all the work for me. I think that if I would have had access to that technology, I could have created enough gears to avoid having the platform legs and instead build a network of gears underneath that would have been cost-effective and visually impressive. 

Around The World In 80 Days holds a special place in my heart. The set was small but clean and well-executed. It was my first chance to work with a group of students that I ended up really bonding with. The lessons that were learned from this process helped me and colleagues make changes to our theatre that would benefit future production capabilities and taught me valuable lessons that I would use during the rest of my time at North Port High School.