DPI:

How do you document your work on a show? Video, pictures, ground plans? Wiring diagrams? Written instructions?

Hal Eagar:

If I'm building the show and running it, I rarely get around to any real technical documentation, but if I'm handing it off to someone then I try and do as much as possible. And when I pack up and back up a show I try to do at least a nice long text description of the setup.

I've tried taking photos of a setup, but it always seems useless. The video of what the piece looks like is really useful though. It may not help you remember any of the tricks of the video system, but it's great for trying to recreate the piece.

I really like to color code my wiring diagram, and I seem to almost always have the flash
IDE open on my computer so I'll end up doing a wiring diagram with little
handmade graphics of the video devices in flash. I also like to build it in layers, so you can
output a diagram of all the VGA cable, and of all the composite cable, and of
all the computer cable separately.

I figure I really ought to be using a drafting program but, it works so far.

But at least 50% of the documentation is just in a textual description of how everything should work, and what order to do things in.

And if possible what things to check if something is going wrong.
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We are in the process of assembling points of view from as many digital performance practitioners as we can. We thought it only fair that DPI's Director, Hal Eagar, be the first answer the questions he drafted.

The questions:
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