This job was a promotion for a live action video game. My 3D drawings for this job were pretty rudimentary. That’s the beauty of it - you can choose how detailed you need to go which is a direct correlation for how much time you have to put into your project. The goal of my layout for this job was to accurately plot my rigging points for dead hangs and lay out my truss and motors based off the stage perms. I wanted to be able to walk into the pre rig with an accurate representation of rigging and motors points and take real world measurements based off those drawings.

The whole layout process is so much more streamlined if you can either work off a stage diagram PDF or if you can work from a 3D model of the stage itself. The latter rarely happens. Luckily for this job I had a PDF of the stage overhead. What I’ll first do when working on a new layout is import the stage layout PDF into Vectorworks. Most stages should have engineering reports, but not all do. If they don’t have an engineering report for load capacities then I wouldn’t want to hang anything on that stage anyway. If they do have an engineering report for load capacities but no stage diagram then you need to go there yourself to take measurements. Don’t forget your tape measure and your point laser.

After importing the PDF I resize it to match the real world dimensions with the Vectorworks dimensions. From there you outline the stage perimeter with walls, integrate doors and any other details you need within the structure, and lay out your overhead rigging points. The engineering report usually tells you what the perms are constructed with. You can easily select the material type and size for these beams in Vectorworks when drawing them in. The whole reason for building this all in Vectorworks is so that you can have an accurate representation of your overhead points. You won’t have an accurate representation of your distances in 3D space unless you either resize your PDF upon importing or build from scratch to size. During this stage I like to be as detail-oriented as possible. 2” off on an overhead beam may ripple down through the rest of your rigging points and then they will all be off. You step on stage to rig and your whole plan is thrown in the trash. You’re left scratching your head wondering what went wrong as your guys head out for their second coffee break of the morning.

Once you have your stage and overhead points modeled, save it all as a separate file in case you ever go back to that stage. Start building a library so you’re prepared for the next job at that location.

Next I will integrate the set layout. Art may be able to send over a 3D design file that you can import. I love this option. When a 3D set design isn’t available I’ll most often just rudimentarily lay out rough areas for set sizes.

Truss layout is next. In Top/plan view I’ll start dropping in truss and laying out components over a spatially accurate environment of both our stage and set(s). It’s super important that in the stage build process you accurately sized your build - this is crucial for measuring and spacing out your build. If you don’t accurately size your build then your plots won’t mean a thing when you create a drawing and measure out your rigging points.

For this job specifically, we knew that we wanted a 30’x100’ blue screen to wrap around the set on some truss and motors. The set design was simple - everything was going to live on either a 20x40 rolling steel deck platform 4’ tall or a smaller rolling steel deck platform. We would have adjustability for both platforms on the day depending on best positioning.

Gabe our gaffer requested 8’ distance away from the blue screen for his blue screen lights.

Frank, our DP, wanted to be able to get some low shots looking up at Batman. The 30’ tall blue screen wasn’t going to cut it. We ended up flying a 12’x40’ blue frame made out of Modulus-X truss in front of our 30x100 blue and its accompanying lights. The blue hid the lights behind it and extended our blue screen area up further, making these low angle shots possible. It was important for me to map out this flying angled blue screen in 3D space for a few reasons:

1. I could see where we could fit motors in overhead within all our other motor points

2. If I needed to adjust the motor points for the flying blue frame because of space constraints I could then adjust the flying frame rig itself to make sure we have available rigging points where the motors needed to attach

3. Since the 12’x40’ blue frame was angled, I could precisely see where my pick points on the frame needed to be so we can get the right angle while keeping the motor chains vertical

This type of visualization is hard to achieve with pen and paper! The layout and design work in prep paid off massively. We walked in on the day and went right to rigging without a hiccup. We definitely would not have made our day without a fully fleshed out plan for where to hang our motors and pick points.

***Note: I was working with 2D symbols in this file for ease of use but if you work with a truss object you can more clearly visualize the truss and its shape in your 3D environment.