Building "Spaceships" - A Case for the Digital Foremen in Local 44

Summary: Art Departments are creating increasingly complex designs with the aid of 3D modeling software. With this complexity, the question of HOW to build the set is critical. For complicated sets, traditional building techniques are not always up to the task, and Foremen are often left in the lurch trying to build from Art Department design (not construction) drawings. While also supervising their crew, the Foreman attempts to create buildable drawings of these complex designs using graph paper and a scale ruler. Instead of this frustration, a "Digital Foreman" in Local 44 can assist the Foreman by bridging this gap between Art Departments and Construction. With their 3D modeling and technical knowledge, they can collaborate with the Construction Foreman to address how to build complex designs. They can develop the Art Department model into a buildable element then produce a set of construction drawings for the Construction Foreman. The Digital Foreman can also utilize building technologies, such as CNC, to produce parts for construction. Full article begins below.

The sky is the limit for art departments using 3D modeling software. They can create designs that are increasingly complex and time consuming to construct. The set elements are modeled and look amazing on the computer. The set designer pops out a set of shots from their digital model, adds dimensions and notes, and bam, hits print. These prints are delivered to construction.

The foreman then spends hours, even days, with the set designer's prints trying to discern their intent and how best to build it. The set designers are often bad mouthed by construction for not creating usable drawings - where's this dimension here, the one that I need? Why are they dimensioning the set walls at 3 feet above the ground when the walls are sloped? Jeez, I can't build from this. The foreman spends time contacting the set designer to request more information while the coordinator is frustrated with the foreman for taking too long to distribute work to their crew - why haven't you started building this? Budgets suffer, fingers are pointed, and few people are smiling while working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet the schedule.

I'm not talking about all shows, nor all set elements on a show. This discussion is limited to "spaceships," not literally spaceships, but any set element that has complicated geometry that is not easily built with traditional 44 building techniques. There is no sense in overthinking a flat. For the "spaceship" scenario I describe here though, this handoff between the art department and construction seems to be getting less seamless on each show. As a 44 member, I once was kept on a show for a number of weeks to stand next to a foreman with my laptop so I could provide him with different views and dimensions he needed from the art department's digitally-modeled set because he found the stack of drawings the set designer had produced to be "useless." Their 3d models were excellent, honestly, but their drawings, it is true, did not provide the right views nor dimensions needed for the foreman to build the sets.

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Why the disconnect? The typical 800 set designer cannot be expected to know how to construct an element nor can the typical 44 construction foreman be expected to develop the complex geometry of the art department's model into buildable sets using their standard methods of hand drawing on graph paper with a scale ruler. In the past when art departments were not using computers this was an effective approach for foremen, but as art departments push modeling technology forward into increasingly complex geometry, I find 44 foremen are becoming pretty frustrated.

The frustration of the foreman stems from a missing step between when the art department completes their design intent models - the look and feel - and when the foreman tries to construct the actual set using these design intent drawings, rather than a fully developed fabrication model and drawing set. (Again, we are only talking about "spaceships.") This missing step between set designer and foreman in our industry was the exact job I held while working in theme park design for 12 years prior to joining Local 44 in late 2018. After joining 44, to my surprise, I found the role of Digital Foreman does not exist for the most part in our industry.

As a digital foreman in theme park design, my job was to bridge the gap between the art department and the construction foreman. I received digital models from art departments - usually in a program like sketchup - and collaborated with construction foremen to create fully detailed, buildable fabrication models and construction drawings. Our clients were WDI/Disney, Universal, Warner Brothers, ESPN, The Natural History Museum, etc. Like those models currently produced by art departments in Local 800, the models I received from art departments for projects like Star Wars Land were similar. They were not figured out in terms of how to build them, but rather were exterior surface models that showed how the art department wanted the element to look and function once constructed. 

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The effort of providing this type of design intent is the current and correct scope of Local 800 in my opinion. Local 44, with its expertise in construction, should pick up 800's design intent model and the digital foreman should collaborate with the construction foreman in developing the internal guts, or how to build the element. Then the digital foreman can produce a series of construction drawings with the critical dimensions and notes the construction foreman needs to build their set. The digital foreman also can produce CNC, plasma, waterjet, and 3d printed files for the construction foreman as they need to build the complex geometry once the model is developed. The 800 set designer shouldn't get into the weeds and produce dozens of construction drawings or CNC cut files for Local 44, but rather focus on their area of expertise - design. While working in the theme park industry I never received a construction drawing or even an attempt at one from an art department. It would be considered outside of their scope; but, since working in the union, I have seen well-intentioned 800 set designers produce some pretty wild drawing packages intended for construction, and foremen struggle like mad trying to use these drawings to build their "spaceships." In our industry, it seems like the ball is too often falling to the ground as it is handed off from 800 to 44. No blame, no finger pointing, but I notice it is sitting there.

With 15 years of experience in both art direction and construction, I have an understanding of both sides of the coin. I recently finished eight months on a show where this digital job role I have described seemed to function well in Local 44. The existence of this role seems to be the exception in our industry though. Why? I think one factor is fear of job loss - "technology is eliminating our jobs" is what I'm told on each show by at least one fellow 44 propmaker as they wander over to me at my computer, usually by the CNC machine. That is certainly not my goal. Instead, I think the digital foreman can help 44 members really knock it out of the park so their current job is easier and they can be prepared for the job they will most likely have a few years from now once these building technologies are the norm in the industry. I do not fully understand why 44 seems to be years behind related, non-union industries like theme park design in the use of building technologies. The use of these technologies seems increasingly required to execute the art department's complex designs. Someone is going to need to pick up the ball, to fill the gap and assume this job role - why not the construction pros of Local 44?