StageIt

GR1 - Project Proposal and Analysis

Who We Are

• Tami Forrester
• Antonio Moreno
• Arthi Vezhavendan

Problem Statement

The current way people choreograph/direct is tedious to create and modify on paper, and difficult to share with others. 

The actors depend on the director to be composed and organized, so that the play can go off without a hitch, so the director is under a lot of pressure to have neat notes. 

User Analysis

Our two user classes are choreographers and stage directors/managers.
Note: Names of interviewees have been changed.

Choreographers

1. Danny Zuko

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

• He roughly forms the formations in head and then sketches with pen and paper
• Once he knows what he wants, he makes a powerpoint presentation
• Draws stage and represent 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:

• She creates a representation of stage and puts all of the dancers as small circles on the stage
• Since she already knows the choreo, she tries to organize the formation so that people don't run into each other
• She also 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
• Moving people in groups is difficult

3. Betty Rizzo

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

• She 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

Stage Directors

1. Jean Luc

Jean Luc was the director last year for one of MIT’s premiere acting 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 interviewee gave us insight as to how a director works with their actors and managers in order to coordinate their vision. The process of making actors move to different places is called blocking.

Current Process:

• maintain 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

Issues:

• Rapid changes
  • 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 to pick up. 
  • These notes are stored in a text file on a dropbox folder, which is shared with a lot of people. 
• Communication
  • Communication with the lighting director, soundboard director, and music director is critical.
  • Changes made on the fly by the director might not go up the chain to the other directors.
  • 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.
  • The dropbox system they have works with the current small troupe, but it proves to be a challenge with a professional play.

Task Analysis

1. Choreograph the dance / Read the script">1. Choreograph the dance / Read the script

2. Create visual representation of the stage">2. Create visual representation of the stage

3. Create a formation for different moments in time">3. Create a formation for different moments in time

• Put and move people and props on the stage

4. Modify existing formations">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">5. View formations

• either in person or by going through digital formations

6. Save and distribute formations">6. Save and distribute formations

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