Steel, the king of all building materials.

Plywood, the queen.

The following film explores our relationship with this studio matriarch.

Plywood is a sandwich. A delicious wood sandwich. Plywood is more flexible, and generally stronger, than lumber of the same species and dimensions. See how a load along the grain causes the wood to fail easily, while the wood readily supports a load across the grain.

Plywood takes advantage of wood’s grain properties by alternating the wood grain with each ply. Plywood’s strength and flexibility is in her cross-grain constitution.

In the studio, plywood is 7-ply, ¾ inch, AC fir. AC refers to the quality of the exterior plys, A being the highest quality, C being average quality — just like school.