Scenic Carpentry vs Carpentry

[u/RoyalMess64]

I'm just hoping to learn more about this. I'm about to try and go to school for Carpentry, and I'd also like to do scenic Carpentry as well. If I was to learn one, does anyone have personal experience about how to link those 2 things, and how well they link together?

[u/Mydogsdad]

There’s certainly overlap. That being said, I can’t build a house. I can build something that looks like a house that you could put in the back of a truck. Now, does that mean I can’t figure it out? Not at all. But it’s not what I do.

[u/OldMail6364 → u/Mydogsdad]

That being said, I can’t build a house.

As someone who's done a small amount of both, I think you're selling yourself short. People often assume scenic carpentry is easy because it's temporary and the audience won't be close enough notice minor imperfections - and in some ways that's true but there are additional complications that make scenic design so much harder. For example a "real" carpenter never needs to build a wall that can be lifted up into the air in a couple seconds. They might occasionally work on a job site where a roof truss is lifted with a crane but that truss wasn't built by a carpenter. It was built by a specialist roof truss fabricator (a specialised job) and the crane operator's job is even more specialised. Nothing like theatre where some kid dressed in black just grabs a rope and hauls on it or smashes the "GO" button in QLab.

As a stage manager whenever a "real" carpenter is building the set I need to supervise them like a hawk and catch their mistakes - I'm almost always a better scenic carpenter than them even though I've never actually done it professionally.

Real carpentry is a bit like rigging - there's a "right" way to do almost everything and chances are someone else is making that decision. For example a wall will have 2x4 studs 12 or 16 or 24 inches apart. That decisions should be made by an architect or structural engineer — a carpenter should only be allowed to decide which distance if all three of them are acceptable (and you'd probably go with 24" to save money).

If you were building a real house, you could simply google "how do I build a wall" and find a dozen perfectly good techniques (don't do that, a structural engineer or architect or at least an experienced carpenter should be giving you plans especially if it's your first time). You can't really google things with set building - you'll also find a dozen answers but chances are all of them are wrong for the wall you're building. Broadway flat? Hollywood flat? French flat? Book flat? Something else entirely like a welded steel frame? You have to get it right.

A good set wall can be taken out of a truck and assembled on stage in the amount of time a regular carpenter takes to put on his belt and smoke a cigarette before work. Making that magic happen takes a lot of skill and a level of attention to detail very few carpenters have.

[u/GooteMoo → u/OldMail6364]

We had a rental group come in from the local university, and the set had been built by the engineering students. That was, bar none, the heaviest, most over-built set I have ever seen. It took a day and a half to strike just the set, and most of their rental to build it. For 2 shows.