Working From Home

We're into the third week of doing classes at a distance using Zoom.

As an unintended consequence of the venue change we have had to put our foot down on the gas on a basement renovation that has been meandering along for over a year now.

At the end of last winter, knowing that Sabian was on the way we had to shuffle some of the real estate in the house.  A new kid meant converting an existing office/tv room into a new bedroom.  The only space to create a new office space was the basement which at that point was unfinished.  So last year we hired a bunch of people and started a renovation of the basement.  We added drainage, put up walls and painted, redid all the HVAC and got a new waterheater.  Like most renovations it took a little longer than expected but eventually we had a pretty decent space.

We salvaged the custom desk and base cabinets we had from the existing office for the new space.  But that isn't nearly enough storage, and the upper cabinets won't work in the new space because the ceiling height is somewhat lower.  Enter the folks at Ikea and Target and a bounty of flat pack storage furniture.  We're really a little hazy on what we want the space to be and Mrs. T has been working at this desk for a while now without finishing it out.  That's mostly been enabled by my not using it much at all - so she had lots of space.

The switch to home working has made it impossible for me to eschew the new office space any longer and that meant cohabitating with the Mrs. and that meant that the finishing out of the space had to move forward.  So I got to work on the upper cabinets.  We'd selected some modular shelves from Target.  They aren't intended for horizontal mounting on the wall but theatre people are accustomed to using things in a manner in which they aren't intended.

We wound up with a little bit of an ugly spot in the corner.  With one unit starting in the corner the other unit would have blocked out the access to the end cubbie.  There also was a space between the two units because we didn't size the room based on the size of the available cabinets.  As a wrok around we bought an extra small unit which i cannibalized to create an extension to one unit to fill up the space.  This was extra fun as I was able to use not only my table saw, but also a hole saw kit and my pocket screw kit.  I only regret I wasn't able to work in the purchase of a new tool in order to finish things off.

Next up I'll have to do under cabinet lighting - also salvaged from upstairs.  In order to do that I have to track down a jumper cable for lighting units we bought almost a decade ago.  Fingers crossed.  More pictures to come.

Critical Path 2020

For more than a decade now I have had a staple project in my first year class.  Since the Production Planning class came into being there has been a critical path project and that project survived the transition into Basic PTM and then another transition back into Production Planning.  I use the subject of critical path as a vector to bring in this project where the students have to build and troubleshoot a fairly large Rube Goldberg machine.  The project has become a right of passage for year after year of classes and has also become a tradition within the Design Production community of our program every spring.

Each year I push up against my own feelings about whether I should be assigning the work.  The critical path dimension to the thing is a fairly frail fig leaf.  Although that is the basis, and the final product is a concrete example of a critical path, in truth the students don't learn much about critical path in completing the assignment.  Part of the original motivation for creating the assignment was to come up with something that could not possibly be achieved successfully if left until the last minute.  Historically my class has gotten less attention than some of the other classes the group is taking in this semester and so my assignments often appear to be getting short shrift from the students.  The nature of this project makes it so that it has to be done over a long period of time in order for it to work.  Students ignore it at their peril - and because it is a group project, one student ignores it at the group's peril making it aggressively self correcting.  Over the years this has become less of an issue.  The nature of the thing has percolated through the DP culture and the group has become fairly conscientious about getting a good start.

The other thing it has going for it is the collaboration and teamwork dimension inherent in the project structure.  This is the first true group project this population does in any class, and it sort of sets the tone for many things that follow.  All other things aside this dimension has value.  This year I actually added in some instruction and some process steps designed to emphasize the quality of the group interaction and to maybe even try to teach them something about collaboration on top of just setting them to the task.  I went to our teaching center and brought in some collaboration educators to help.  There was actually too much to do in the time frame I had and I wound up deferring some conflict resolution content until next spring.

That's the history, here are the current events.  In the middle of this year's project we got the shelter in place orders and CMU moved all the classes online.  My class had 3 weeks into the project and were on Spring Break with 2 weeks of work to go after they were return.  Most groups had gotten through their planning and had done a lot of materials scavenging and purchasing.  Some of the groups had started some fabrication and troubleshooting.  At that point we had the possibility of completing the assignment as assigned taken away.  There was just no way to do a collaborative build when the 26 students are spread across nearly as many states (and a couple of countries).  The deliverable had to change.

I had the thought that we could still preserve the event nature of the thing.  I could change the requirements such that each person's last step had to initiate some kind of electronic signal: email, text, phone call and that the next person's first step had to trigger by the receipt of that signal.  Then class could still meet on the due date for a group presentation in real time and they could still have their amalgamated machine.  I dropped this idea for a couple of reasons.  First, the atmosphere of real time problem solving we have in the room for the presentation is chaotic and really depends on them having the support of their classmates.  Having the device hitch up in someone's garage with them working on their own and knowing everyone else is waiting for them to resolve a problem on their own in real time just seemed like too heavy a load.  Second, I became concerned that without the resources available on campus: tools, materials, advisers, and their classmates the whole nature of the craft of the project might no longer be achievable.  We needed something to smooth over that rough spot.

In the end I proposed to the class that we abandon the majority of the group nature of the thing and that each person in their home should have to build a slightly larger machine: 5 steps each instead of 3.  The thought was that in losing the integration we were making it easier and so we would offset that by making each person's contribution larger.  I'd extend the due date some and each student would commit a working trial of their machine to video for submission and then on the due date we would watch all the videos.  I also told them I would have a grad assistant cut all the videos together so they would still have a class artifact at the end of the project.  In order to offset my second concern above I also opened up the definition of "machine" in the context of the assignment telling them that if they though that the making of the thing was going to be too far outside their skillset that they could do an alternate mode.  I suggested that they could do an animation or some kind of puppetry or perhaps some motion storyboard.  In our discussion I left the interpretation of what this meant open and told them that if they had something in mind they were unsure of that they should bring it to me for discussion.

On the whole this was received better than I had anticipated.  I should say that at the point at which I proposed it to the class I was still ready to just chuck the whole thing and chalk it up to unfortunate times.  Had they not had so many hours in already I might have leaned that way from the beginning.  But with the amount of effort they had already put in at the time the circumstances changed just taking what we had to date and calling it done felt less than.  Their biggest objection was losing the group nature of the thing as the planning together of the design and the execution had been a large part of the work they had already done.  In the end they suggested that rather than 5 steps each that they should do four, but that one of the four, the first step, should have to be a recreation of the last step of the prior student - thereby maintaining continuity of the whole thing and providing a small opportunity to collaborate with another student.  That sounded fine with me and we proceeded along those lines.

It turns out that we'd missed a few details in the tweaking of the assignment and one or two of the original dimensions of the assignment dropped out.  I didn't mind that too much.  My biggest concern was that being in an environment where everyone was working alone that some number of them would miss the due date.  That outcome would be very difficult to gloss over with the nature of the day of class I was planning.  There was also something nagging at me about the depth of effort that each student would apply.  With everything developing in the room in front of each other this is largely self-leveling.  With them not seeing their work as it came together I thought some might do way more work than others.  In the end that was just a chance I had to leave to them.

In the end pretty much everyone elected to do actual machines.  We did get a couple of animations and one paper craft puppet show.  Everyone made the due date.  I though everything was appropriate and that the work all in all was great.  We had class today and watched all the videos and a student in the class offered to cut everything together for extra credit and had it done in time to show at the end of the same session.  We didn't get the huge roar from the class the first time the machine completed, and we didn't get a burst of applause from an audience when they saw the thing come together and work, but we did have a fun class where they got to enjoy each other's work and bring a large project to completion - even if it was a different completion.

See for yourself:

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

The paradoxes of trying to make art during a pandemic

Exeunt Magazine: When a big group of people sit in a room together to watch a performance, magic happens. Their heartbeats synchronise, according to scientists. There’s a quality of attention and focus it’s hard to find anywhere else. A small, real moment – the twitch of an ankle, the boiling of a kettle – can trigger an emotional avalanche. Laughter bubbles up, one audible snicker creating a ripple of loosened inhibitions. Sometimes (very rarely) you’ll feel the shoulders of people next to you shake, and realise that half the audience is mopping up tears.

Posted by David at 3/31/2020 10:20:00 AM

2019 Super Conference – “What Dramaturgs Do And Why/When You Need One” with Ashley Chang, Jenna Clark Embrey, Jack Phillips Moore, and Jill Rafson

The Producer's Perspective: If you’ve ever wondered what a dramaturg does, then this panel from last year’s Super Conference is for you. And something tells me you’ll want to run out and get one for your show when you’re done watching (email me if you do – I can give you a rec).

Posted by David at 4/01/2020 09:42:00 AM

How Previs Has Gone Real-Time

VFX Voice MagazineVFX Voice Magazine: Previs studios have always had to work fast. They are regularly called upon to fashion animatics quickly and make numerous iterations to suit changing scripts and last-minute inclusions. Often this also involves delivery of technical schematics – techvis – for how a shot could be filmed. And then they tend to regularly get involved after the shoot to do postvis, where again it’s necessary to deliver quickly.

Posted by David at 4/02/2020 09:20:00 AM

‘Almost Love’ Director Insisted Openly Gay Actors Play Lead Couple

Variety: “Almost Love” marks the directorial debut of actor Mike Doyle. The indie, which the openly gay Doyle also wrote, stars Scott Evans as a painter and Augustus Prew as his boyfriend who runs a famous fashion Instagram account. As their relationship comes to a crossroads, we also meet their circle of friends, including Kate Walsh, whose character’s husband of 15 years leaves her for a younger woman.

Posted by David at 4/03/2020 10:14:00 AM

The importance of art in the time of coronavirus

theconversation.com: People are dying, critical resources are stretched, the very essence of our freedom is shrinking – and yet we are moved inward, to the vast inner space of our thoughts and imagination, a place we have perhaps neglected. Of all the necessities we now feel so keenly aware of, the arts and their contribution to our wellbeing is evident and, in some ways, central to coronavirus confinement for those of us locked in at home. For some, there are more pressing needs. But momentary joys, even in dire circumstances, often come through the arts and collective expression.

Posted by David at 4/02/2020 09:19:00 AM

#NFTRW

We have a podcast:

DP Weekly Wrap Up

TECHNICAL DIRECTION

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-use-screw-extractor-remove.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/product-focus-stage-deck.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/special-covid-19-bulletin-2-impact-on.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-wire-rope-is-used-in-high-wire.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/whats-new-in-autocad-2021-drawing.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/helly-hansen-luna-collection-new-womens.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-best-multi-tools-for-edc-in-2020.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/tool-deals-and-steals-march-29-2020.html

SOUND DESIGN

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/tech-focus-new-bose-soundcomm-b40.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/music-copyright-infringement-is.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/can-you-match-speakers-through-space.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/timax-3d-immersive-audio-for-tool-arena.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/beth-oleary-baking-cake-on-moving-tour.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/qsc-brings-sound-of-miami-symphony-to.html

VMD

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-previs-has-gone-real-time.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/new-vfx-tools-and-how-vfx-pros-are.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/illuminating-path-ahead-for-real-time.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/kaws-augmented-reality-exhibition-tests.html

SCENE DESIGN

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-mechanics-of-crafting-transitions.html

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/from-arts-front-lines-designer-sean.html

STAGE & PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/04/after-accident-on-sets-of-kamal-haasans.html

COSTUME PRODUCTION

http://cmuptm.blogspot.com/2020/03/makeup-tutorial-with-abts-connor.html

Then Again Maybe I Won't

I was going to go out today.  Well, I did go out today.  Gib5on and I went for a walk with Sabian.  She sat in her stroller and he played with a giant tire.

I'm not sure why there's a giant tire there, but it has been a pleasant diversion.

What I mean is that I was going to go to the store today.  I'm out of SodaStream gas and getting that shipped has historically been problematic.  They have them at Staples and there's a Staples pretty close and that store is normally sleepy, so the social distancing there should be easier and more effective than it has been at the grocery store.

So I had a plan and I had the time and I was gonna go.  Then I didn't.

Just seems like soda isn't worth getting my family sick.  I've got this thing in my email .sig now: "STAY HOME - STOP THE SPREAD - SAVE LIVES."  Feels like if I have that in my .sig and am foisting it upon everyone that gets an email from me that maybe going out for soda gas is in conflict with my own brand.

I'm going out tomorrow.  We have a curbside grocery pickup, at least we think we do, and we think they'll have food.  Maybe when I am already out I will stop for soda gas.  Or maybe while I am at the grocery store I should just buy soda and give up the Sodastream for the balance of the social distancing.  I just make diet cola with it anyway.  It's not like stores don't have diet soda.

You don't really save all that much money making it with this gear anyway.

Pseudonyms

Alright David, just who the hell are Gib5on and Sabian and what kind of names are those anyway?

When we were expecting our first we didn't know the sex and hadn't really decided on a name but still wanted a name to use in conversation.  At the time I was reading William Gibson's recent books; something in the Pattern Recognition series and thought "Gibson" would be a neat name for a child.  But since I was thinking William Gibson I decided that a Leet Speak version of the name using a "5" for the "S" would be more interesting.  And so we started using Gib5on as a placeholder name for our first.

Two interesting things here.  First, it turns out that you really can't name a child Gib5on.  The US Social Security administration will only issue a Social Security number to children with names composed completely of letters; no numbers or symbols.  You pretty much have to have a Social Security number, so that nixes it pretty well in the bud.

The second is more funny.  A fried of ours was writing a book about parenting when we were expecting and she chose to reference us in the acknowledgements: me, my wife, and Gib5on.  Her editor checked with her at least three times before the book went to print that the "5" wasn't a typo.  So even though we don't call the boy Gib5on any more it is memorialized in the book.

After Gib5on was born I discovered that my very first friend in life  (our mothers were college friends) had named her boy Ellison.  She didn't do it for the author, but I think it would have been cool to have toddler friends Gib5on and Ellison.

When the second child came along we needed another placeholder name.  We decided it would be bad form to recycle the first name and set out to come up with another.  Mrs. T was kinda over the scifi dimension of Gib5on and so she decided that actually it was Gibson like the guitar.  That lead us for a brief time to use Fender and the placeholder for the new arrival.  Not soon after coming to that conclusion we discovered that Fender was actually having a very bad year with respect to women.  Since we were a little bit hoping for a girl we thought that was an unfortunate dimension to the thing and discarded the moniker.

From Fender we briefly entertained Zildjian, but that seemed too on the nose.  We thought for about 10 seconds about Paiste but discarded that on similar grounds to Zildjian.  That lead us to Sabian and that stuck.  Well it least it stuck for me.  I'm not sure it stuck for Mrs. T.

So, if you are reading here and you see me talking about Gib5on or Sabian you know I am talking about my kids.

Company Coming

We had people over last night.  It felt really, really strange.

My primary interaction with anyone for the last two weeks has been on a screen.  I have Zoom classes, Zoom meetings, Zoom reunions; we've even done two Zoom Shabbats.  Mrs. T has been doing meetings in Teams.  Even Gib5on has been on screens: he had Zoom kindergarten, Zoom Sunday School, Zoom Karate, a Facetime playdate, and a Facetime visit with his cousins.

Screen, screen, and more screen.  But last night we had guests for dinner, right there in the same room.

A little over two weeks ago Uncle Brooklyn left New York with his family ahead of the COVID-19 wave.  It has turned out to be a decent decision I think.  They've been notified by their landlord that there was someone who tested positive in their play-yard, someplace they certainly would have been had they remained home.  Aside from that specific information, just in general the news from NYC is a little more ominous than anything in Pittsburgh.

So a little over two weeks ago they arrived in Pittsburgh and moved into an AirBNB on the Southside to self-isolate for two weeks to try to determine if their moving in here would be safe for us and safe for them.  That two weeks ended last Saturday.

All in all I am the biggest risk.  Mrs. T has been out for walks in the neighborhood and so has Gib5on and Sabian - but none of them has been in contact with other people at all.  The same is true of our visitors.  They've been out around their neighborhood but they have done all of their shopping through delivery.  Of everyone, I am the only one that has had any real contact outside the house as I have been shopping twice in three weeks.

The first time I went out since they closed the schools (but before the official imposition of social distancing) I brought a mask and gloves, but nobody else was wearing a mask so I felt silly and took it off.  I did wear the gloves though. The second time there were enough other people there wearing masks that I did too - and gloves.  I also went to Home Depot without gloves or a mask - I probably won't do that again.  Senator Toomey is on record now saying PA residents should wear masks in public.  The CDC hasn't changed their recommendation that we shouldn't - but I think that is more about not causing additional shortages more than it is about it not being a decent idea.

So we're all hoping that I was careful enough while I was out.  I guess we'll see.

Treating that optimistically we had my brother in law and his wife and son over for dinner.  It was so strange to have other people in the house.  We routinely have had 20 for dinner in the past but it has only taken two weeks to re-calibrate to being alone pretty much all the time just me and my immediate family.  Sitting at a table with three more people felt surreal.

The plan was originally for them to come stay with us after the two week period but we've since revised it.  They got a screaming deal to extend their AirBNB.  It seems like it is unlikely anyone else is going to want to use it.  So for the time being they are going to stay there where they will have significantly more space and then move in here when they lose their access to that property or when the money starts to feel stupid.  We've given them one of our cars so they could return their rental.  It's not like we're going anywhere.

So we have people to sit and talk to, and Gib5on has someone to play with even though the age relationship isn't optimal (6 and 2).  It's like our three kids are spaced exactly sub-optimally.  But even that is better than nothing in the new normal.

This Was Not a Surprise

That's a Facebook post of mine from January 24th.  I can't help but think how much better off we would all be if people in government had been as anxious as I was at that time.  Maybe they were all too burned out from the impeachment.  Maybe they were too busy trying to sort out the Democratic horse race.  Maybe they never read Station Eleven?  Somehow I found the bandwith to think about all of it.  Would that POTUS or Mitch McConnell or even Nanci Pelosi for that matter had.

This was 100% foreseeable.  The news was there in plain sight.  I'm not sure if this came to me through feeds or NPR or MSNBC.  Certainly not Facebook or Twitter.  It was probably my RSS Reader and the sources there.  So my intelligence gathering apparatus was up to it; we have to assume the national intelligence gathering machine was also up to the task.  It is a pretty sad state of affairs.

Today I sent out a new extra credit assignment to my students (all hunkered down at home and coming to class via Zoom).  The assignment gives one small assignment's worth of extra credit for each hour they spend doing home made PPE for health professionals.  I guess I should have given that assignment January 25th when we all had access to a costume shop and a scene shop rather than whatever gear we have at the house.  So my criticism should extend to myself I guess.

I emailed my Congressperson yesterday to remind him that theatre shops all over the country are out of work and that they have the fabrication capability to help here: sew masks and gowns, assemble face shields, maybe even put together more complicated gear.  It'd need some top down organization though.  Maybe a gap USITT or ESTA could help out with.

I keep seeing ads in my various feeds from entertainment companies: TAIT, Upstaging, ModTruss, Rosebrand all touting their ability to help out and ramp up quickly.  I hope someone besides me sees them. The work is happening.  While looking for stories for the Greenpage I do see articles about costume shops helping local hospitals.  I'll keep my eye out to see if it goes wider.

The New Normal

I feel like I will want to be able to look back at this eventually.  I haven't been doing personal blogging for a myriad of reasons of late but circumstances have changed and it suddenly feels important.

Today marks 15 days since the family has been out of the house beyond walking in the neighborhood.  Two Saturdays ago the boy took me and Mrs. TANBI and his sister to the comic book store so he could show mom the wonders he'd discovered.  That was two days after his school had cancelled out of an abundance of caution in the wake of the spouse of a staffer coming into contact with a suspected COVID-19 patient.  Before the weekend was out PPS had cancelled for two weeks - which ended two days ago.  Two days ago they cancelled through spring break.  The girl's daycare hung in through the following week but has been closed since.  Mrs. TANBI works from home normally now but usually has a trip or two to a local office and those have been stopped for two weeks as well.  The Monday after the comic book store was the start of CMU's spring break and like Thursday or Friday of that week we were told we weren't coming back to campus and that all classes would go online midweek the following week.

That's the frame for the new normal.

I've been out of the house a few more times than the others.  I've made two grocery store trips.  We've been stocking up on frozen and dry goods.  There's a pretty good stock on hand these days and I think the next trip could be a ways down the line.  I didn't do too well on Lysol or hand sanitizer.  We'd bought a large thing of TP before this really broke.  I had a small amount of PPE in my home gear - not enough to matter anywhere else, but enough that I can feel safe, if silly, when I go to the store.  I had to go to the Home Depot once.  I sheared off a bolt on a new yard toy for Leo.  The social distancing at the home center wasn't great.  Yesterday I walked to a place in the neighborhood for takeout lunch.  The boy came with.  In hind-site that felt a little reckless.

So now me and Mrs. TANBI are working from home together.  While we're doing that we're also handling a six year old and a 10 month old.  PPS hasn't really set up any formal distance learning yet.  Their main concern appears to have been getting food to the kids that depend on them for meals.  We're not too worried about the boy's progress.  10 weeks of kindergarten shouldn't be life altering, but we are concerned about the loss of socialization.  He hasn't played with a friend in over two weeks.  Even if that is the new normal it isn't all that normal.  My wife and I are splitting the day a lot like we did when the boy was born.  My work schedule is largely the same as it was then - one of the few times the lumbering pace of change at the university has worked for us.  So I watch the kids in the morning and Mrs. TANBI (MT?) watches them in the afternoon.  "Watch" is a misnomer as often the younger child will refuse to be put down for long stretches and although the older child is capable of entertaining himself his predisposition is to want to play with one of us.

The girl at least still has a two a day nap schedule which is fairly dependable.  We've put together a regular schedule for the boy that involves free play, parent play, creative play, substitute school work, physical activity, and screen time.  Unfortunately the last two are often the same and if not supervised he often just sits down and watches the exercise video rather than moving along with it.  It is all a work in progress.

The constant paying of attention is exhausting.  Both of us should probably be doing more work hours than we are, but after we get both kids in bed unless there is a deadline crushing down we usually just crash.  It is going to take a few more days to get used to the kind of pace we're keeping now.

There's certainly more to say, but I think it is going to be a long stretch with plenty of other opportunities to post.  We'll see if it sticks this time.

Stay home.  Stop the spread.  Save lives.