Jon Buswell Theatre Lighting Design

Secret Heart at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester UK

I have been using PowerDraw / PowerCADD since PowerDraw5. I was given an old PowerBook 140 and told to "get drawing." I was used to pen-and-trace drawing and for a time drawing plans on PowerDraw took just as long. Once I got going though things got much better.

When I went freelance in 1996 as a Lighting Designer I bought my first PowerCADD 3 and was amazed at the way it had come on, I then started to really get into it and now I guess I'm regarded as the man to talk to when other Lighting Designers in the UK start with PowerCADD. I became a trainer, as I was increasingly being asked to train people formally. I reckon that more or less anyone who has drawn lighting plans and uses computers fairly regularly can be up and running on PowerCADD in a couple of days.

But it was just last year that I got a groundplan that had many "organic" shapes to it. I thought I was going to have to be there for days drawing these shapes, but I tried to scan the plan into the computer and place it in to PowerCADD as a layer.

Using an A4 scanner, I scanned sections of the drawing into the computer and pasted them together in Photoshop. I then exported the drawing as a bitmap, placed it in to its own layer in PowerCADD and scaled it appropriately. It's not the most accurate thing in the world, but it saved me a few days, many bottles of red wine, and it did the job.

What can I say about PowerCADD, well it does the job, and if you can think of something new for it to do, it can still do the job!

Jon Buswell

Jon Buswell

Jon Buswell is a Theatre Lighting designer based in the UK. He has worked in London's West End with Sir Peter Hall, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson and most recently, Dawn French. Internationally he has worked at The Lyric Opera of Chicago (Othello), Denver centre for Performing Arts (Tantalus) and with the RSC in New Haven at the Wharf Theatre (Macbeth). Telephone: 07973 844540 Email: jon@jbld.com Website:www.jbld.com

I submit this for consideration to the Drawing Room. Last year I was so grateful that PowerCADD was able to accept a scanned plan manipulated form Photoshop that I just wanted to stand on the roof and tell the whole neighbourhood. Seeing that probably wasn't the right thing to do I wondered whether anyone would be interested on the web. Having been in the Drawing Room just now, I see that it's kind of common practice. I still think though, when you're staring at an A1 sheet of paper hand-drawn with many 'organic' shapes, a feeling of horror and the need for coffee comes over you. Knowing that I don't have to sit for days on a plan is just brilliant. I normally draw a lighting plan in about four hours now.

As we zoom in on the drawing, you can see the scanned image of the original drawing.

And how about this for a title block, complete with a photo of Jon.