Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1992 - 63

comprehension and less to memorization.
If you missed this book in its first
edition, your tardiness is nor without its
reward. White's second edition makes a
great reference book even bener. The
most noticeable additions include,
"Some otes on the History of High
Fidelity" where he pays homage ro such
notables as Harry Olson, Avery Fisher,
and Paul W. Klipsch, among others.
Such respect conuasts nicely with the
500 new enuies and 100 additional
pages devoted largely to the new and
ever more prevalent digital technology.
The second edition retains the
author's endearing plain language and
no math approach The only exception
might be the new section "Musical
Scales and the Tuning of Musical Instruments." It uses simple algebra and presumes a basic knowledge of music theory that might lead some readers to forget
they ever wanted to know about the
subject.
Otherwise, White's explanations and
points of information are so easily
grasped that one is almost tempted to
indulge in a little "techspeak" with the
less informed. Of course, that would
dishonor the author's basic philosophy.
If you teach, as I do, make sure this
book is stocked in your campus bookstore. For the cost of little more than a
music compact disc, you get one of the
clearest and most concisely written
books on what, for many, is an arcane
subject.
-B. Don Massey
University ofGeorgia

*****

Drafting Scenery for Theater,
Film, and Television
bl' Rich Rose. While Hall. VA: Belterwa)' Publicalions.
Inc.* 1990. I5B T1-55870-141-9. 176 pp.* b/w ill .*
514.95 paperback (also "'ailable in hardback for
522.95).

Auto CAD Onstage: A ComputerAided Design Handbook for Theatre, Film, and Television
b)' Rich Rose. While Hall. VA: Belterwa)' PublicaTions.
Inc.* 1990. (5B

1-55870-164-8.280 pp. b/w ill..

519.94 paperback (also "'ailable in hardback for
529.95).

Rich Rose of the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television has provided
these two books of drafting techniques
specifically oriented ro entertainment
design. Drafting ScenelY should be the
obvious choice for a beginning scenery

drafting course, since computer-aided
drafting (CAD) really should not be
undertaken until the basic principals of
drafting are fully understood. AlItoCAD
Onstage accepts this premise in presenting the ways in which scenic (and lighting) drafting can be simplified,
enhanced, and speeded up by the AutoCAD program.
It is unfortunate, indeed, that Drafting Scenery is the weaker of the two
books. The basic organization and content of the book is good, moving from a
discussion of drafting equipment, lettering and title blocks, line weights, and
dimensions, through basic floor plans,
platform plans, elevations, sections
views, details, and the basic organizations of draftings, up to the more com-

Drafting Scenery is a
book which could fill a
great need in theatre
education, but
unfortunately it fails to
live up to its promise.
plex techniques related ro textures and
materials, picrorial views, and perspective. Unfortunately, the presentation of
the material is very uneven; there are
many well described and illustrated portions of the book, but, also, there are a
number of sections which suffer from
cursory discussions and missing or
unclear illustrations.
The sections which are well presented, providing clear descriptions and
ample illustrations, are those on drafting
equipment, lenering, title block, line
weights, and dimensioning, as well as
the introduction to the basic idea, component elements, and symbols of the
floor plan. The chapter on drawing a
"Center Line Vertical Section" is perhaps one of the best I have seen on that
topic, and the discussions of drawing
both horizontal and vertical masking are
well done, as is the chapter on section
vIews.
On the other hand, in all to many
instances, many of the actual processes of
drafting are presented in a very cursory
manner. For example, there is no
description of how ro use the drafting
tools-not even the basic use of Tsquare and triangles ro achieve various
angles, especially angles other than the
basic 90°, 45°, 60°, etc. [n the sections
on drafting floor plans, platform plans,
and elevations, the discussion of process
is all-roo-frequently relegated ro lists of
instructions such as:

Draw the set walls, platforms,
stairways, etc. on the stage. Be
sure you follow the rules regarding line weights and the rules of
the cuning plane.
There are no additional instructions
regarding establishing the wall angles,
relating platforms and stairways ro each
other and the walls, or drawing in furnirure elements (not from the design
point-of-view, but in respect to using
drafting rools to achieve these goals).
This lack of textual insuuctions might
not be too detrimental if there were
instead clear accompanying illustrations, but many times there are not.
The illustrations in the book are at
once interesting and frusuating: interesting because they feature draftings
from such productions as the Academy
Awards and TV's Murphy Brown, as well
as numerous professional theaue productions; frustrating because the drawings have been so reduced in scale ro fit
in the book that much important detail
is lost. While there is some interest value
in seeing the full page of such drawings,
it would have been far more valuable ro
the book to incorporate larger scale
samples which illustrated the techniques
discussed with clear views of the lines,
sections, dimensions, and other relevant
elements.
Other deficiencies of this book
include: practically no discussion of
orthographic projection-a principal
means of drafting three-dimensional
objects; a chapter on "True Shape and
Size" which is so obscure in its references as ro be almost rotally indecipherable; and a section on perspective which
is so cursory that it is practically valueless-it opens more questions for the
student than it answers.
Drafting Scenery is a book which
could fill a great need in theatre education, bur unfortunately it fails ro live up
to its promise. AlItoCAD Onstage, on
the other hand, is an excellent volume
in virtually all respects. It provides a
very clearly wrinen, step-by-step introduction ro the use of AutoCAD (and, by
extension, many other DOS-based
CAD programs) in the creation of drawings for scenery and lighting. It is well
organized to lead the reader through the
very basic inuoducrory steps in working
with computer-aided design, from formatting disks and loading the program
to beginning use of the computer drafting tools and learning the computer
design/drafting language.
More advanced techniques and proTD&T

1992 FALL

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1992