It would have been even easier if I had a drawing to the bottom(floor) grid in the assembly room. Even without that, the grid allows exact location of different size cylinders. Then the big cylinder--all on the floor grid.

Then, back to directors camera view and ensuring the smaller cylinders are of greater height, doing tha booleen exercise seems pretty simple.

For me, it beats going via an ai file, or in the vertex or spline rooms.  

Good learning exercise for me TerraMatrix. Thanks.

Lets know if you would like screen shots.

bwtr