Field Template™ History 101

1985 The 1985 USITT convention was held at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City. While viewing the show floor, Shelley realized that he wanted to purchase a new lighting template. He imagined, in his mind’s eye, a general idea of what the template should look like. By the end of the convention, he realized that the template he wanted didn’t exist. Shelley hand-drafted several versions of a potential design, and then tried to find a manufacturer. After a time, he gave up and put the plans away. This process was repeated several times over the years; he would refine the design, search in vain for a manufacturer, and put the plans away. Early Field Template hand drafting Circa 1986 1988 After he joined American Ballet Theatre, Shelley transferred the design to MacPaint. Soon after that he submitted the design to Lighting Associates, but was told that the template would be ”cost-prohibitive”. Field Template Version 16; MacPaint printed on Imagewriter 1989 Spring 1989 In 1989 Shelley learned that the USITT convention, to be held in Calgary, was going to include a competition for ”new ideas’. The winning entry would win $500. Since the template design had so far not earned one red cent, Shelley decided to enter the design in the competition. At this point ABT was performing at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. Since Shelley couldn’t attend the USITT convention, he prepared a presentation to be sent to the competition. He paid a USC student to print out the current design on a ”laserprinter”, but still needed to mount the pages onto cardboard stock and mail the packet. He called his acquaintance Fred Allen, who at that time was working for UCLA. Fred provided Shelley the use of the UCLA offices and mail room supplies to prepare the package, while Fred was in meetings. Fortunately, Fred came out from a meeting before Shelley had completed wrapping the drawings. Fred saw the template design, and said ”What’s that?” Shelley stated that it was a template design that had never been produced. Fred said ”I can make that”, and Shelley replied ”if you can do that, and we ever make a profit, I’ll split it 50-50 with you”. And that was the beginning of Field Template. 1989-1990 Fred found a company called Berol RapiDesign, who at that time had a manufacturing plant in the LA area. He negotiated the deal for the first template, and after another 20 modifications, Shelley submitted a final design. At the same time Shelley also started writing the patent. After the 5th prototype, the design was approved. In February 1990 the first 1/2” Stage Fixture template was produced. [After the fact, Berol informed the pair that, although they produced templates for NASA, ATT, and IBM, this template was the most challenging. Or maybe they said anal. Whatever] Since then Shelley has designed and Fred has produced the award-winning collection of plastic templates known as Field Templates, Reference Manuals in Plastic. The entire Family of Field Templates can be purchased through our authorized dealers. The FT Family is designed by Steve Shelley, and distributed exclusively by Fred Allen and Associates. Contact us here.

The Field Template History. The Field of Plastic-Holey Dreams. © 1995-2008 Steve Shelley / New York, New York Contact our webwonk with any site comments or suggestions.