Customer Reviews

Developing and Maintaining a Design-Tech Portfolio: A Guide for Theatre, Film, &TV

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My uncle ordered this book for me when I told him that I planned to interview for MFA Programs in Costume Design. This book was an indispensable resource while developing my portfolio. Although you could spend hours researching different portfolio options and blindly guess how you should prepare for interviews, this book will very clearly explain everything you need to do to make your best impression.

The book has five chapters: The first chapter outlines what a portfolio is, its purpose, simple do's and don'ts, and introduces you to various portfolio options (with many great pictures included). If you're more interested in developing a digital portfolio--the second chapter has all the necessary steps very simply explained. The third chapter (most important to me) is all about preparation for the portfolio's presentation. This chapter includes--like all the rest--simple do's and don'ts, resume preparation, and suggests that candidates create business/networking cards to hand out to potential employers/professors. The fourth chapter explains portfolio maintenance, how to choose the best work, self-assessment, and planning for jobs. Finally, the fifth chapter gives a short biography of each of the contributors and includes some pictures of their work. The last chapter was very helpful because it gave me an idea of what current graduate theatre students and theatre professionals are up to, what conventions they are attending, what committees they are in, etc.

This book is an exciting resource for the theatre student or professional looking to take their design/tech portfolio to the next level. If you carefully read through all of the information this book has to offer, I have no doubt you will be impressed with your newly assembled portfolio; giving you the confidence to succeed in your interviews.

Thanks for a great book Prof. Jaen!

I'm crazy about this book ! It is the best resource that I've ever found for assembling a portfolio ! Author/Designer/Professor Rafael Jaen holds the reader's hand and guides the reader through the whole overwhelming process of pulling all one's work together, organizing it, and clearly presenting it with labels and 'keys.' I have repeatedly referred to this text as I've purchased my case, drawn and painted my renderings, found swatches, and constructed each page. Reading and following along with each chapter's exercises, is like taking a semester long university course in developing at portfolio, all at the reader's own pace. Professor Jaen gives readers the all the necessary tools to confidently create and maintain a winning portfolio.

The book is pretty thorough and does a good job of broadly covering subjects with "Do's and Dont's" as well as more detailed explanations. The one negative is that it is more suited toward costume designers because of the background of the author, though it definitely covers other areas extensively and in detail. You may not get everything you need from this book, but you'll certainly not regret the purchase.

Jaen's book was indeed very useful to me. I am neither a costume designer nor a student of costume design; I am a professor interested in the art and culture of costumes, and I learned much about the business and the practice of theatre costume design by reading this delightful book. While its principal aim is to help students and professionals alike with the construction and maintenance of their design portfolios, the book is also very informative about the aesthetics, culture, theory, and practice of costume design (as well as stage, sound, and lighting). Jaen illustrates his book with many diverse examples, including his own beautiful sketches. I recommend this book to those, like me, who are outside of the theatre world but who have an interest in learning how it is done from the inside.

This book is excellent for tech portfolios. It really takes costume and set designers by the hand on creating their portfolios. However, not much is said for filmmakers. In film a DVD or webpage portfolio might be better, and the theories in this book can apply to that, but the book demonstrates the CD portfolio.

This book is only okay. It does have some good ideas but if you are already in the business, or are currently in a theatre program, you probably already know most of what's in this book. It also seems to advocate a larger portfolio but in my experience it seems that smaller and more portable will prove to be more useful. If you are starting from scratch it's worth a quick read but I would borrow it as yoou will probably out grow the advice quickly.