History of Field Template™
1985
The 1985 USITT convention was held at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City. While viewing the exhibits, Shelley realized he wanted a new lighting template. In his mind’s eye, he imagined a general idea of what the template would look like, and set about to find it. After combing the show floor, he realized the template he wanted didn’t exist.
Shelley proceeded to hand-draft several versions of a potential design, after which he would attempt to find a manufacturer. After time, he gave up and put the plans away. This process was repeated several times over the next four years; he would pull out the plans, refine the design, search in vain for a manufacturer, and put the plans away.
1988
After joining American Ballet Theatre, Shelley converted the design to MacPaint. Soon after that, he submitted the design to Lighting Associates, but was told the template would be ”cost-prohibitive”.
1989
In 1989 Shelley was informed that the USITT convention would be held in Calgary, and hold a competition for ”new ideas." The winning entry would win $500! While he was loath to reveal the design [and risk the chance the design would be stolen,] Steve also recognized that the template design had yet to earn a single penny. Shelley decided to enter the template design in the competition.
At this point in the tour, 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 then 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 how Field Template was born.
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 US Patent Office issued Patent 5,333,033. In February 1990 the first 1/2” Stage Fixture templates were 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]
For 24 years, Shelley designed and Fred distributed the award-winning collection of plastic templates known as Field Templates, Reference Manuals in Plastic.
2014
In 2014, Fred decided to hang up his spurs and focus exclusively on his dance floor company, Mister Marley. That same year, Steve released the Beam Spread Stencil, one of the new breed of Field Templates.
2016
In it's ongoing mission to provide clarity and accelerate drawing speed, Field Template LLC will continue to push the envelope into the future. The entire Field Template Family is designed and distributed by Steve Shelley, and can be purchased through authorized dealers.
