<p>My son is only a middle schooler right now, but I've been lurking here out of curiousity. I'm hoping one of your would be willing to help with something.</p>
<p>My son is applying to a tech theater and production program at our local arts high school. He's got his interview this week and he needs to put together and present a portfolio. I feel as though I'm getting conflicting advice about what they're expecting. On one hand, we've been told that they're looking for potential, not experience, and that recognize that many kids will have no experience. On the other hand, they include a list of suggested items that has things like prompt books, and production drafting, that most middle schoolers won't have.</p>
<p>I think we have a good plan for what to include in the portfolio. He's going to include photographs of some of the larger props from the last few shows he's done, a science project where he had to sketch an environmentally friendly house and make a brochure, a photo of the set of the school TV show where he's on the production team, and a drawing he did in art class. </p>
<p>My bigger question is, how do people usually store, organize and transport their portfolios. Is there a standard way? Should he bind the pictures together somehow? What's the best strategy?</p>
<p>I purchased an 11 x 14 art portfolio for my D at Michael’s. The book has plastic sleeves with black backing paper that is removable. (like scrapbooking) She took the pages out, added what she wanted, and put it back into the sleeves. I like it because she can reorganize the pages easily as she needs to.
One piece of advice for high school: save EVERYTHING!!! Take pictures of EVERTHING! Keep all of his prompt books, notes, documentation of anything. If he is working on set pieces or props, take pictures from the beginning concepts to the end product. It will make it easier when he is a senior and getting ready for college interviews.</p>
<p>Thank you! I’ll look for a similar portfolio.</p>
<p>I will definitely be saving things from now on, not to mention taking pictures. It didn’t occur to me to save stuff for this because it didn’t occur to me that a 13 year old would need to audition, but in case he decides to do this for college I’ll definitely save everything going forwards.</p>
<p>CuriousJane, good luck to your S. I’m so impressed that he has identified his interest so early in his young life. My advice (even for college app portfolios) is that the decision makers are really looking for the student’s creative eye and not specific experience as they are well aware that many are just moving into this area. So any artwork (especially if he has won awards) is good–including sketchbooks, sculpture, any media. My S2 had no scenic design experience–none–and was admitted into 11 programs including CMU BFA for scenic design, based on his portfolio and interview. The tendency, btw, for college and professional design portfolios are posting them online, but having one printed out is necessary if you are having an in-person interview/portfolio review.</p>
<p>Best of luck. And I’ll just add that there tend to be few young people who pursue tech theatre at your son’s level, so I’m going to guess that arts HS will grab him fast.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>We just found out that none of the pictures he or I took for the portfolio turned out – something went wrong with the camera.</p>
<p>The hard part of putting together the portfolio is that he’s not an artist, at least not the way I think about artists. He’s amazing at quietly organizing and motivating people and solving social problems, and at finding ways to implement other people’s ideas, but he doesn’t seem to have much interest in designing things. When we researched careers he was interested in stage manager, production management, technical direction, master electrician, etc . . . I’m not really sure what those people put in their portfolios.</p>
<p>It’s all somewhat moot since I think he’s likely to turn down the school if he gets in. This quarter he’s gotten really into being on the production team for his school’s TV show. Our local public school has classes in TV, and film, plus a great theater department. It also has his favorite sport. At the arts school all they do is tech theater which he loves, but I don’t think he’s ready to specialize.</p>
<p>A Stage Manager would have all sorts of things to put into a portfolio. The Stage Manager is responsible for creating and maintaining the prompt book (sometimes just called “The Book”). The Stage Manager has to create schedules, announcements, and so on. I remember one play I worked on as an Assistant SM I had to write out the process for a complicated set change (each actor was needed to go to a different specific place and do a different specific thing). All of these things can be put into a portfolio.</p>
<p>A technical director or master electrician is going to similarly have technical documents that execute the ideas of the designer. Like a lighting plot or special effects plot.</p>
<p>So, yes, what these folks do is exactly what your son wants to do, they quietly organize the show and implement the ideas of the more artistic folks, such as the designers. But to do this organization and implementation usually requires some sort of paperwork. And, yes, then photographs of what the results looked like are a good idea.</p>
<p>But also note, for example, that in all but the BIGGEST theaters the lighting designer and the master electrician are usually the same person. Very few theaters can afford to hire separate “tech” and “design” people, and so anyone interested in this area of theater is going to need to learn at least a little bit of both sides.</p>
<p>Thanks! I think the problem is that he’s not creating those things yet, the theatre program at his middle school is not that sophisticated.</p>
<p>What do you think of this idea? We’ve got 2 videos, a 2 minute clip from the most recent play that includes a close up of a prop he built, and a similar length clip from the TV show he works on. Would it be appropriate for him to go to his interview with a laptop with the videos cued up to the spots that highlight his work? He’d also have some paper samples of his artwork to supplement.</p>
<p>Sounds good. BTW, does he have any marked up scripts from his middle school shows? Even if it’s just when he cued people, or notes? Those might be good. Often times the interviewer really just uses the material to draw out the student in a question about a production. Something as open ended as–so what did you do in “X”? Seeing the script will help prompt some of these casual questions and your S’s answer can be as detailed as he feels he’d like to make it.</p>
<p>Can you do a screen capture of the shot with the prop, then print it out and put it in your portfolio? And screen captures from the other video?</p>
<p>Do these props that he built still exist? Could you go somewhere and photograph them?</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>A screen capture is a great idea, thanks!</p>
<p>I wanted to say thank you! He had his portolio review yesterday. The screen capture worked relatively well, and the portfolio looked great. </p>
<p>I wasn’t there, I dropped him off outside and waited in the car. This might have been a mistake because he said that other kids had parents there, but I’d heard that they like to see that kids are independent. He was his typical understated self about it, telling me it went fine, but he did say that he could see the “score sheet” the interviewers used and they circled all 4’s and 3’s on a 4 point scale. I figure that’s pretty good for the first time.</p>
<p>Now, we wait to hear about callbacks.</p>