The Shinfield Players and TurboCAD
It was about 8 years ago when Graham first cast TurboCAD into a supporting role in his job as a construction site manager and, as he says, he "... found TurboCAD to be extremely easy to pick up and very intuitive". The software was used to prepare 'as built' 2D drawings and fairly simple layouts of services, on completed building sites, to comply with contract requirements.
In his role as Stage Director for the Shinfield Players, an amateur rep company near Reading that stages about 9/10 productions a year, Graham now uses TurboCAD Professional 11, the latest version of the full featured, comprehensive CAD software.
As the company makes all its own sets in its own theatre, the role of Stage Director encompasses responsibility for set layout. Before the introduction of TurboCAD, sets would be erected on a 'trial and error' basis, placing one piece at a time and then checking/masking as they built the set.
"I very quickly saw that the CAD solution was able to save a lot of time. My first attempt set out the flats took less than an hour, a task which used to take me two evenings". Forming boxes of the plan dimensions, furniture etc in TurboCAD enabled Graham to plan storage for props not even removed from the store – "... so no last minute panic in the technical rehearsal".
 
Simple things like directors attempting to walk actors through walls are now avoided, as they can clearly see on the plans where doors are placed in relation to the set and the embarrassment of making set components too big to go through entrances, is a thing of the past. Maneuvering props on the plan allows simple 'what-if' scenarios to be pondered over, without the hassle of physically having to do this on set.
Graham admits he is still discovering the features in TurboCAD and has just started to produce 3D versions of sets (see left), the first being the 2006 set for Aladdin, which consists of 15 scenes. Making these available for viewing by all the cast and directors means that everyone knows what areas, exits and entrances are available, even before they are built.
Click here, or on the small diagram, for a full size plan of the theatre, also created in TurboCAD.
 
 
 
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