8 Ghante Montage 3

Production Montage - Keys Build

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGAAZur43GI

Production Montage - Prototyping

We performed "Astra Puja" and inaugurated our new storage plus rehearsal space - "Naatak House". Here is the production montage from our "8 Ghante" sets build and new storage "Naatak House" kickoff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h37V1KDNV3I

How to cut circles in wood

I was faced with an interesting problem when starting work on the sets for "8 Ghante" production - how to cut 30 wooden circles of 2ft diameter? 

Cutting a perfect circle in a piece of wood can be a daunting task if you don't have the right set of tools. The following are the basic choices: 

1. Wooden rounds from HomeDepot/Lowes/wood-shops - Expensive, but perfect size, shape and thickness. 
2. Do it yourself using one of the following tools - Jig Saw, Band saw with jig, Router with jig

• Jig Saw
  Jig saw is an inexpensive, but time consuming approach. They do a nice job of cutting some irregular shapes and removing the excess wood. The tool cannot rotate fast along the circumference of the circle and can cause the blade to break or bend slightly if you put any sort of pressure while cutting.  
• Band Saw
  A band saw rigged up with a circle cutting jig can cut perfect circles of different size diameters. The first challenge is that you need a band saw and the second challenge is that you have to make the circle jig. I really wanted to pursue this venue, but the lack of access to a band saw crossed out this idea. 
• Router
  Routers can cut very accurate circles of various diameters with a circle cutting jig. The router is mounted to the circle jig with pre-printed measurements. The first drawback is that you need a small center pivot hole in your wood to put the reference pin into. The second disadvantage is this is a time consuming method - you have to cut small chunks out of the wood by going around it several times.
  
  Considering the advantages and disadavantages of all the choices and tools, I picked the jig saw - cheap and reasonably accurate but time/labour intensive. Voila we have out own wooden rounds.
  
  

 

Traditional and Social Media

“The best part about a typewriter is when you’re done and you pull that typed page out, it feels like you’ve accomplished something.” ~ Anonymous

Generally, we understand the differences between traditional media and social media. Although both target the same objective - spreading awareness and receiving feedback, the blatant difference is the directionality and response speed.

Traditional methods involve getting the word out and waiting for comments/feedback using posters/flyers, papers, TV/Radio ads. These are unidirectional and don't provide a direct feedback system.  Social methods provide real-time response of an event, the dynamic nature of interaction facilitates immediate feedback.

How does all this affect us? Its all about marketing - even this day we rely on both traditional and social media for advertising our play "8 Ghante". We have used postcards, flyers, emails, radio ads, word-of-mouth, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.

Watch us perform at San Jose and San Francisco. http://www.naatak.com/current_event.html

A stroke in history....

A friend of mine sent me this link about the news of World's last typewriter factory shutting down. $300 for a piece of history ?!?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384314,00.asp

"Hi.. I am a PC.. and I am a Typewriter"

PC: "Hi.. I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea."

TW: "Hi.. I am a typewriter and PC was my idea..."

PC: (interrupting the TW) "What the.."

TW: "Many things you have gotten from me.."

PC: "Oh yeah! Like what..?"

TW: "The QWERTY layout, word processing, page printing, the typewriter font, the jargon - Backspace, linefeed, tab, shift etc"

TW: "Have you heard of tty devices.. like /dev/pts/4 or /dev/tty2 ?"

PC: "No.."

TW: "With the advent of smart phones and pads, the PC is the next typewriter..."

Interesting reads - "The PC is Not a Typewriter" and "Mac is not a typewriter".

Funny Video - "Typewriter and PC"

Curious? Watch us @ "8 Ghante"

Procuring a Typewriter

The play revolves around two typists. Thus, the most prominent prop is a typewriter. There are many places that sell typewriters - some cheap, some as expensive as a MacBook. I am told that some writers still use typewriters ?!?

After a month of hunting around on e-bay and Craigslist, I selected a few for testing. Yes, this was the first time I typed on a typewriter. Strikingly (no pun), the lack of ctrl+z, ctrl+c/v, ... I ended up with linefeeds, wasted real estate on paper; entangled typebars and irritating type noise. 

Eventually, I procured two similar typewriters for a modest sum. The lady showed me the settings to control type speed, paper feed, ribbon, etc. Wicked cool.

Intrigued about our play and the actors using typewriters? Come, watch us perform. http://www.naatak.com