Google Wave-Show Tested, Designer Approved.

Electra-Department of Theatre and Dance SUNY-Fredonia. Scenic and Lighting Design by Colin Chauche Costume Design by Ashley Arnone

This month in Stage Directions Magazine Justin Lang author of the popular lighting blog isquint.net wrote an article on the new service Google Wave and how it can be used for collaboration for Theatre. He used as an example the work of Colin Chauche and the lighting crew on SUNY-Fredonia’s production of Electra.  The article can be found here and if you don’t know about wave start with his article.  When the article was written the production was sill in progress almost ready to open. After the production I sat down with Colin and we discussed the pro’s and con’s of using Google and here are our thoughts.

How Wave Was Used

Pre Production

Colin and his design assistant Gerald used the Wave to create the plot and subsequent revisions. Gerald created the plot then uploaded it to the wave. Colin would add comments and Gerald would make updates and Colin’s design mentors would also make comments.  Once the final plot was done it was uploaded was well as the Lightwright paperwork files. It was quickly found it was a good idea to post a pdf of the final plot and pdf of the paperwork for those who did not have those Vectorworks or Lightwright. The Master Electricians took the files to prepare for the load-in.

Production

Once the hang started the Master Electricians were required to report their progress each night. This allowed Colin, the mentors and the buildings Operation Manager to leave comments and answer questions posed in the report. It took a while to get the format for the report. First it was a new report each night which cluttered the wave and then it was one report that was edited each night striking through what had been done and adding new items to the list. This practiced was continued through the close of the show.

Post Production

After the production everyone was invited to comment on the process of using Google Wave in the wave but no one responded. Most people did not check it after the show closed.

Pros

Having all the comments and files in one place is a big advantage. Often in emails its hard to follow a conversation when you have multiple people responding. Wave puts the conversation in one place and makes it easy to follow.

Being able to upload multiple files was useful. Colin and his design assistant were able to work on early versions of the plot.  This was really handy over break, Colin was traveling out of the country and work on the plot did not stop.

The basic program was easy to use and learn. Adding files and responding to a wave was easy to figure out and no one on the team seemed to have a problem learning it.

Each reply has the picture of who posted it. If you have uploaded a picture to your Google account it shows up in the wave next to your reply.

Cons

Remembering to check the wave was the biggest problem. At the time you had to check the site to see if the Wave had been updated. The good news is email notifications have now been turned on in wave. To learn how, check out the Google Wave blog.

Wave needs a better way to do a to-do list. Once the production started and the wave got long it was hard to check off things and add new with out a manual reorder. An extension that let you check things off and move them to a done list is needed. I did find a wave extension for a to-do list but that leads to the next con.

The basic service is easy, some of the more advanced features that make wave very useful  are hard to find and figure out. You can add a gadget or extensions to Wave that allow you to have a conference call add a map or poll. If it’s a featured extension it easy to find. There are hundreds of third party extension but finding them and installing them are not easy. Once you put a gadget in a wave you have to store the link or code somewhere so you can use it again. I created a wave that just has the extensions I have used. For help with wave and extension I recommend The Complete Guide to Google Wave by  Gina Trapani with Adam Pash. It cost $6 but can be accessed free online.

Colin suggested, ability to tag or star a reply would be helpful. As the wave  got longer it was harder to find things in the long lists. A tag would make it easier to find the important things.

There is no way to track changes in a single reply. It would be nice to have a document that could be edited by everyone in the wave and those changes could be tracked and approved by an administrator of the wave.  If you posted a props list in a wave and need to change the changes would be highlighted telling you who made the changes.

There needs to be more integration with other Google products. The ability to add a Google Doc or picture from Picassa Web Albums would only add the the experience. For productions Google Calendar would could be used to post the schedule. That being said, a document, calendar or picture can be attached to a reply in wave.

Any member of the wave can add a member for a production that deals with sensitive materials an administrator should have control of who reads the wave.

Next Production

Looking forward I intend to build a base wave  that has building policies and inventories uploaded so that all I need to do is to add new recipients.

A calendar with deadlines should be the first thing uploaded.

Conclusion

I have listed more cons than pros but this is still a service I recommend to use for collaboration.  The ability to have a conversation with multiple people over a long period of time is something that I have not found in any other service. Over all it worked well for the production and the electrics department will continue to use it in the future.

Drop Box

Ever needed to send a file  to a colleague? First you open you email add the attachment or several attachments and send. You hoped that the files are smaller that your email’s maximum file size and most files we deal with in the entertainment industry are rather large.  What if you need several people to edit that file you get back several versions and you have to put them all back to together.  My tip this week is a service called Drop Box. Drop Box allows you to store files that you can access anywhere you have an internet connection. All you have to do is sign up for a free account and you get 2gb of storage or you can sign up for a paid account to get 50+gb. Drop Box has an application for Mac, Windows or Linux, this application adds a folder to your computer that syncs automatically to your Drop Box account.  It looks and acts like any folder on your computer, you can save to it or drag file directly to it. Once you add a file you can access it through any computer you have the application loaded or you can access files from any web browser at the Drop Box Website.

There is even an iphone app that allows you to see files and open most word documents, music, movies, excel or power point applications.  Once you have your files in your Drop Box you can then share them with the rest of the world a couple different ways. First is to create a folder in your box and share it with whom ever you want. The person who you are sharing with will have to sign up for at least the free account.  The great thing about this option is once the program is loaded on your collaborators computer you will all be editing the same file.  The program also give you a

list of recent events so you can see who edited which file when. The other way to share file is put them in your public folder and you can get a link to that file that can be accessed from any browser. So far the service has been really reliable, my colleague Greg Kaye has been using it with his scenic design assistants and TD for a production of Kiss me Kate. We did find one day that the service was down, we still had access to the files locally but the files did not sync for a couple hours. If this is a service you are interested in go to the Drop Box website

and there is a great demo video on the front page.  If you would like to get up to 5gb for free you can do so by inviting others to join the service and once the person you invite loads the program you get 250mb added to your storage. If you want to help someone get more storage with an invite or have invites to give, (you don’t need an invite to join the service) leave a comment below with your contact info.

So if you need and easy way to share files, or just move files between computers Drop Box is a great solution.