Technical Support
About
The Technical and Production Department (T&P) provide advice and support to all of our students whilst maintaining and updating our facilities and equipment to keep Central in line with current industry standards. There are five separate T&P departments which are run by industry professionals. They include the following.
Media
Media maintain a broad range of audio-visual equipment for Central’s community of students, faculty and visiting professionals. They provide advice and training whilst working alongside students to support their course based projects. A wide variety of equipment is available for students to explore and develop skills within the areas of photography, film making, content creation and video projection. This includes dedicated editing suites where Apple Macs run applications like Final Cut Pro (video editing) and a training suite with a selection of applications for Computer-Aided Design and image manipulation such as AutoCAD, Sketch Up and VectorWorks.
Scenic
The Scenic team supervise the large set construction and scenic painting workshop, which has direct access to The Embassy Theatre. This bright and airy space contains both metal and wood working equipment which includes a CNC Router by Mantech, a motorised paint bridge for working on large pieces of scenery and cloths, a wall saw by Striebeg as well as welding facilities. An additional workshop is used for smaller projects and the props workshop also houses 3D printers and traditional prop making equipment. The Scenic team also maintains our furniture store for school projects and provide inductions on hand tools and machine tools in all of the workshops.
Costume
Our workshops and large store of costumes is managed by a team of three plus freelancers. In the costume workshops there are facilities for making, dyeing and altering costumes as required on shows and other projects with a range of industrial and domestic machinery. Machinery includes sewing machines and interlockers by Bernina and Juki, steam presses and a fusing press by Comel and Miele laundry equipment. In addition to the great facilities the department provide high quality haberdashery and materials for selected projects and offer constant advice, inductions and support.
Technical
The Technical Office is responsible for lighting, sound and rigging in our venues. Each theatre has a range of equipment available plus the ability to draw from a floating stock. The staff cover all aspects of production technology and offer practical advice on how to use equipment, as well as techniques for approaching and running productions. Equipment includes lighting control by ETC, GrandMA and Avolites, lanterns by ETC, Chauvet and Selecon, sound consoles by DiGiCo, Genlec, EM Acoustics, loudspeakers by d&B, Genlec, EM Acoustics and many more.
Production Office
The Production Office is responsible, together with course leaders, for the planning and implementation of our programme of public productions. They provide financial and scheduling management for all of Central’s shows as well as the overall health and safety responsibility for them. The office also provides practical and technical advice for those mounting other projects across the school
Carbon Management Plan
Please visit the Environment webpage to view Central’s Carbon Management Plan.
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is committed to environmental sustainability.
Related links
The student experience and a collaborative approach to learning are at the centre of Central’s mission; we aim to support all our students to become employable and successful in their careers. All our academic staff are dedicated to high quality teaching and research, and are experts in their own fields, bringing a wealth of industry experience.
The Student Centre offers a range of support services to Central students.
Learning Skills is a service offered to all Central students throughout the academic year.
The Library is a world leading specialist collection of drama and theatre practice resources offered in a learning environment that is supportive and inspires creativity. Staff will help you to discover the information and resources you need to succeed and achieve as a student or researcher.
Studying at Central gives you access to a wide range of high calibre, industry standard facilities, which are available to students of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and short courses.
