[SML] Airtable as inventory and reference resource

[Matthew Breton]

I understand wanting to make a reference just for your own space — I often do — but a lot of this information is also covered in the Backstage Handbook.  Depending on how your students enjoy rabbit-holes, you might cite original sources (lamp manufacturers and so on).

FWIW, I usually cut Source Four leko gel to 6" x 6" square -- you eke out an additional three cuts per sheet of gel, which adds up over time!


Matthew Breton  |   he, him, his
Design for Theater and Dance
________________________________
From: Stagecraft <stagecraft-bounces at theatrical.net> on behalf of John McAfee via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 10:54 PM
To: Stagecraft Mailing List <stagecraft at theatrical.net>
Cc: John McAfee <jrpmcafee at gmail.com>
Subject: [SML] Airtable as inventory and reference resource

Hi all,

At the end of last academic year my institution sold their satellite campus which meant that I needed to clear out our large props storage, but the new (significantly smaller) storage is still not ready so all of that stuff has been languishing in the shop.  Luckily, our main fall show was in a found space, so there wasn’t much to build.

So I spent the semester having students take pictures of all of our props and furniture and costumes and everything and my ATD and I have put them all in an Airtable database.  We’re slowly working on making order out of the chaos (adding time periods, use, condition, etc.), but here are some things that I think are going to be immensely useful:
1)  I’ve created a publicly accessible form that I can give to the props team so that they can input the data and pictures when they buy new props to help keep the digital inventory up to date.  This form can be useable by anyone but you can also put a password on it to guard against weirdies.

2) We do two student produced shows a year and there’s a pretty good amount of interest in lighting design for these shows.  But these lighting designers and electricians are, for some reason, absent during the skill-building period of faculty-directed shows.  So to cover the common questions and help with self-directed learning, I was able to easily make a bunch of reference sites to cover the common issues that come up.

Examples:
Lamp information: https://airtable.com/app4i7nUIzfAkKL9B/shrwzvJrZnn4BCGgc
Color cut sizes: https://airtable.com/app4i7nUIzfAkKL9B/shr56tLgzpW4R90Sf
Gobo sizes: https://airtable.com/app4i7nUIzfAkKL9B/shro2jfRvHoIAKhhq
Lighting reference by instrument type: https://airtable.com/app4i7nUIzfAkKL9B/shrWgaaTW8prs0cPY

3) It’s also felt easier to send lighting and stock scenery inventories to guest designers versus the excel sheets I was using.  (Google sheets has always felt clunky to me, so I don’t use it extensively and the institution is a Microsoft school).

I may be really behind on this, and people have probably been using this forever.  I’d been using it as a glorified spreadsheet for the past two years, but now with all the props and costumes in there I’ve been digging in on what it can do.

If anyone else is on this train and has some clever uses, I’d love to see them

John
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