StageIt

GR1 - Project Proposal and Analysis

Who We Are

• Tami Forrester
• Antonio Moreno
• Arthi Vezhavendan

Problem Statement

Choreographers and theater directors are responsible for creating formations, arrangements of people and props on the stage at different moments in time. For these users, the process of making these formations is often very tedious, time consuming and inefficient.

User Analysis

Our user class is choreographers and stage directors.
Note: Names of interviewees have been changed.

Choreographers and Stage Directors

1. Danny Zuko

Danny choreographs dances for both small groups and groups of over 40 dancers.
Current Process of creating formations:

• Roughly forms the formations in head and then sketches with pen and paper
• Makes a powerpoint presentation once he knows what he wants
• Draws stage and represents each person as a dot
• Shares presentation with other choreographers by email.

Problems:

• It's tedious to create and edit
• It's annoying to move many people only a few steps because he has to click each person individually
• It's difficult to be precise, like at stage quartermarks and halfmarks

2. Sandy Olsen

Sandy choreographs dances for groups of roughly 10 dancers.
Current process of creating formations:

• Creates a representation of stage and puts all of the dancers as small circles on the stage
• Since she already knows the choreo, tries to organize the formation so that people don't run into each other
• Color-codes the circles in the formation based on the dynamics of the dance

Problems:

• It's difficult to know what would happen based on movement on stage
• It's annoying to copy and paste each person when making new formations
• It's difficult to move people in groups

3. Betty Rizzo

Betty choreographs dances for both small and large groups.
Current Process:

• Formulates formations in her head and writes them on paper.
• During practices, she gives people numbers and positions them accordingly

Problems:

• It's difficult to see paths and transitions from one formation to another
• There's no way to see if what is on paper is physically feasible
• What she imagined may not actually be what ends up happening

4. Jean-Luc Goddard

Jean Luc was the director last year for one of MIT’s premiere musical groups.
Jean Luc clarified that the acting troupe he worked with was rather small, but he worked with professional director over the summer, so he was able to give us both perspectives.
The process of making actors move to different places is called blocking.

Current Process:

• Maintained most of his notes for blocking in his head. Anything major he just wrote in as a brief note on his script.
• For professionals, there is a call book
  • holds the script of the play adjacent to important calls
    • lighting
    • music
    • soundboard
    • other major scene/set changes
  • holds diagram of the stage which held locations (and movements) of actors and props

Problems:

• Need for rapid edits
  • Changes on the fly are hard to keep track of
  • The call book is full of scribbles and smudges
  • Stage manager jots down quick notes on all changes, too fast for him/her to pick up.
  • These notes are stored in a text file on a dropbox folder, which is shared with a lot of people.
• Communication
  • Changes made on the fly by the director might not go up the chain to the other directors (lighting, music, soundboard).
  • The dropbox system they have works with the current small troupe, but it proves to be a challenge with a professional play

5. Sofia Coppola

Sofia is the current director of a musical being done by an MIT theater group.

Current Process:

• Notes when people and props enter/exit the stage
• Physically positions people and tells them what to do with each scene

Problems:

• Easy to forget, stage manager/assistant director might not get all of the edits
• Easy to forget which scene has been rehearsed, therefore some scenes might be under-rehearsed
• There is fixed in a dress rehearsal when the whole play is put together, but dress rehearsals are usually not done until the end of the play, and many ideas are lost in the time in between.

Task Analysis

1. Choreograph the dance / Read the script

2. Create visual representation of the stage

3. Create a formation for different moments in time

• Put and move people and props on the stage

4. Modify existing formations

• Add/Delete new person/prop to stage
• Move people, props on stage** individually / in groups
• reasons: collisions, too small of a stage, other things (change in choreo or script)

5. View formations

• either in person or by going through digital formations

6. Save and distribute formations

7. Get feedback on the formations, and repeat steps 4-7 as needed. 

User Goals

1. Efficiency

• Create and modify formations easily and efficiently
• Add/Delete new person/prop to stage
• Move people, props on stage** individually / in groups
• Reasons: collisions, too small of a stage, other things (change in choreo or script)

2. Customizability

• Users should not be restricted to generalizations
• Users should have the ability to create their own classes of people, props, and stage, in addition to presets

3. Dynamic Interactions

• Formations should be able to be views dynamically
• Transitions between formations should be similar to real life views
• Changes to the formations should be easy to make on the fly