Tech23 2011 Company - StageBitz
Guest Blogger: StageBitz
23 days until Tech23! We’re getting very excited! Here is our second guest blog, from StageBitz, another one of our great Tech23 2011 companies!
I was very pleased to hear that StageBitz had been accepted as one of the Tech23 companies because it means that I am starting to achieve one of my main goals in developing StageBitz; to show the technology sector what great opportunities await them in the entertainment industry.
Despite the amazing lighting, sound and computer effects that we as audience members take for granted, the process to actually organise all of this is extremely old-fashioned. Massive Broadway musicals rely on a ring-binder that people update with pencil as their key project management tool. Production management in general is a combination of spreadsheets, emails, lists and phone-calls.
Usually when I tell people this, the response is usually ‘But that’s ridiculous! Why don’t they use some of the amazing project management tools out there? There are so many available!’.
Well, the thing is that while 90% of what screen and stage does could be catered for by those tools, there is 10% that just doesn’t fit neatly into that box. And usually it’s because they don’t provide fields or flow-charts that allow for ‘drop chandelier from over audience onto stage’ or ‘make 12m long animatronic dragon claw’. Without the last 10%, the tools are useless.
This is, of course, what’s so amazing about working in stage and screen. Each project can be wildly different from the next; sure you’ll need to light a stage or operate some cameras, but in terms of what actually happen under those lights or in front of those cameras you can never be sure what you’ll be required to do. It’s an amazingly complex business, where the requirements for actors, crew, lighting, sound, design, set, props, costumes, special effects, make-up and so on can all change overnight yet must intersect perfectly when the lights go on or the cameras roll.
The whole purpose of the entertainment industry is to allow the audience that magical ‘suspension of disbelief’ so that they are transported for a few hours to somewhere else. It could be to a living room, suburb or city very much like their own. Or it could be to The Shire to see those Hobbits start their journey. Every element you see as a member of the audience has had many people involved with it from design to execution and appearing in the action. A great example of the huge amount of collaboration, design and forethought that has to go into an item is given in this behind-the-scenes tour of The Lord of the Rings and the challenges that it provided for props artisans; surely one of the biggest props efforts in recent times. Another fascinating peek into what happens in props departments around the world can be found in this look at how Life on Mars got the look and feel it needed. If you’re recreating a 1973 New York police station in the 2000s, it’s not just that you have to find now-redundant typewriters, phones, lamps and rolodexes from almost 40 years ago, it’s that they have to look new! This kind of thing is a constant challenge for props departments, designers and directors everywhere.
Which is what led me to StageBitz. I have worked professionally in theatre and events for over a decade. Frankly, it was driving me crazy to see all the amazing tools that my colleagues in other industries had at their disposal to improve their work when I was stuck with a pencil, paper, and the odd Excel spreadsheet. I’m not alone in this; the idea of digital tools has been wistfully discussed in the industry for years. The difference is that I have had the very good fortune and plain luck to be able to meet the right people to develop the product, secure the odd bit of capital along the way and be able to work exclusively on developing StageBitz; a combination of opportunities that is very rare in an industry that relies on freelance and project-based work which keeps people moving around.
The time is really right for an innovation like StageBitz®. People are more and more comfortable with doing business in the cloud and the advent of mobile technology like smartphones and in particular the iPads and so forth of the last year or so seems tailor made for an industry that has to work in nooks and crannies backstage, up in lighting rigs, in workshops and out on location where even a traditional notebook can be a challenge to use. For an industry that is still forced to use project management tools that are decades old, this is indeed an exciting revolution.
I’m looking forward to sharing our vision for StageBitz® with everyone at Tech23 and talking to everyone about how ICT and showbiz can provide great opportunities for both.
See you on August 23. www.stagebitz.com.
