Art Direction for Film and Video Read online

  Art Direction for Film and Video

  Art Direction for Film and Video

  SECOND EDITION

  Robert L. Olson

  First published 1999

  by Focal Press

  70 Blanchard Road, Suite 402, Burlington, MA 01803

  Simultaneously published in the UK

  by Focal Press

  2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN

  Focal Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

  © 1999 Taylor and Francis

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Olson, Robert L., 1925–

  Art direction for film and video / Robert L. Olson. — 2nd ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes index.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80338-8 ISBN-10: 0-240-80338-8 (alk. paper)

  1. Motion pictures—Art direction. 2. Motion pictures—Setting and scenery. 3. Television—Stage-setting and scenery. I. Title.

  PN1995.9.A74048 1998

  791.43’025—dc21

  98-25752

  CIP

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  To Gabor Kalman,

  a friend indeed

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART I THE ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRODUCTION DESIGNER

  Chapter 1

  WHAT IS A PRODUCTION DESIGNER?

  The Production Designer’s Place • Design Beginnings • What Does a Production Designer Do? • Pictures Begin to Move • Work in the Movies? Never! • Television Changes the Film Business • The Visual Future

  Chapter 2

  WHAT DOES AN ART DIRECTOR NEED TO KNOW?

  An Art Director Should Be Visually Aware • Drafting: That Dreaded Word • Materials • Lighting • Helpful Personal Qualities • Wish You’d Stayed on the Farm?

  Chapter 3

  THE PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT

  Lines and Dots • Different Perceptions • How Does the Video Picture Get from Here to There? • Bold Is Best • The Production Stage • The All-seeing Eye (Almost)

  Chapter 4

  SCENIC BUILDING BLOCKS

  Types of Flats and Materials • Platforms • Materially Speaking • Backings

  Chapter 5

  PRODUCTION DESIGNERS USE SPECIAL EFFECTS

  In-camera Effects • Miniatures • Through the Looking Glass • Matte Painting • Laboratory Effects • Rear Projection • Modern Effects • The Digital Present and Future

  Chapter 6

  LIGHTING EQUIPMENT

  Two Types of Lighting Instruments • Light Controls

  Chapter 7

  TECHNIQUES FOR EFFECTIVE LIGHTING

  Film and Video • Lights for the Actors • Different Lighting Methods • Location Lighting

  PART II OUTLINE OF A JOB

  Chapter 8

  MEET THE PRODUCER AND THE DIRECTOR

  The Producer • The Director • The Production Designer Asks Some Questions

  Chapter 9

  HERE’S THE SCRIPT

  Analyze the Script • Research the Characters and Settings

  Chapter 10

  USING RESEARCH MATERIALS

  Designing from Materials • Nonspecific Research

  Chapter 11

  MAKE SOME SKETCHES

  Materials • Patty’s Living Room • Get Cost Estimates • The Tour Bus Is Leaving

  Chapter 12

  TOOLS FOR CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS

  Your Drawing Board • Drafting Paper • Pencils • Erasers • Your T-square • Architect’s Scale • Triangles • Your Work Area • Computer-aided Drafting

  Chapter 13

  THE CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS

  Types of Construction Drawings • The Next Step

  Chapter 14

  FINISHING THE CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS

  Transfer the Drawings • Look at the Details • Off to the Blueprinter

  Chapter 15

  MODEL MAKING

  Different Types of Models • Our White Set • Making the Model • Showing the Model

  Chapter 16

  SUPERVISING CONSTRUCTION AND SETUP

  Getting Bids • Construction and Setup Supervision • Set Decoration • The Prop Master • Keeping Records • The Critique

  PART III TYPICAL SETS AND OPPORTUNITIES

  Chapter 17

  A PRODUCTION DESIGNER ON LOCATION

  Patty’s Town Moves • Off to Location • Back to the City Again

  Chapter 18

  STAGING A TALK SHOW

  The Production Meeting • The Great Chair Search and the Proper Height • Different Approaches • Be Imaginative!

  Chapter 19

  STAGING A NEWS BROADCAST

  Background on the News • The Art Director’s Role • Make It Look Like a Newsroom! • Harold Gets Busy • What’s the Decision?

  Chapter 20

  DESIGNING A COMMERCIAL

  Storyboards • Commercial Production Personnel and Procedures • Here’s the Script • The Basic Set • Designing Other Environments

  Chapter 21

  HOW TO GET STARTED AND WHERE TO LOOK

  Get Your Foot in the Door • Getting Your Act Together • Where to Look • How to Look

  From the Author

  Index

  PREFACE

  This book details the thinking and basic drawing techniques art directors and production designers need and follows the progress of typical projects from script analysis to setup on stage and location. Even though other helpful books are available that communicate techniques, this book, based on the work experience of a film and video art director, relates technique to everyday work experiences every art director encounters.

  WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM THIS BOOK?

  Film students can make their projects more professional looking by knowing how to realistically ask for help with location and set projects. Producers, directors, and writers can see how an efficient art director can work with them more effectively. Designers such as graphic artists, advertising art directors, layout artists, and painters and sculptors, can learn how to adapt their skills to film and video projects. Anyone considering a career in video and film art direction can see what the profession is really like.

  The second edition includes a lot of new material that will enhance the reader’s perception of realistic work experiences and technological advances now available to production designers and art directors.

  A new chapter – “Production Designers Use Special Effects” – illustrates how designers utilize digital editing, improved miniatures, and stage and laboratory techniques. Statements from special effects experts and production designers describe concepts and processes they use to accomplish the compelling film effects audiences marvel at today.

  Also, chapters detailing the process of design–script analysis, sketching, construction drawing–set decoration, and stage and location work, feature quotes from working designers and craftspeople who share their experiences in solving production problems.

  In this book, readers can learn enough basic skills to function as beginning art directors, which are the preamble to using advanced techniques in future careers in the film and video industries.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The author has worked as an art director and set de
signer at the major motion picture and television facilities in Los Angeles, as well as freelancing for many corporate, entertainment, and cable television producers. Along with professional work, the author created and taught a continuing art direction curriculum for the UCLA Extension program, including several one-day design seminars featuring top Hollywood production designers. Other seminars include a week-long course for the Televisa Mexico design staff in Mexico City, a Stanford University Summer Workshop, and courses at The Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author wishes to thank the editors and staff at Focal Press for their valuable assistance in preparing this second edition, and the many talented, creative people in the film and television industry who have contributed their expertise.

  INTRODUCTION

  This book is for anyone who wants to learn about production design and art direction, whether they are students, producers, directors, writers, or designers from other fields who want to work in film and video. Easy-to-understand practical terms encourage the reader to apply imagination to everyday design problems.

  Due to the wide-ranging nature of this book, I have divided the information into three parts: “The Role and Responsibilities of the Production Designer,” “Outline of a Job,” and “Typical Sets and Opportunities.”

  Part I illustrates where production designers came from, what a production designer is and does, and basic materials and tools used by designers. Various examples show different projects and solutions.

  Part II tracks a dramatic series pilot from script to wrap-up. By following the detailed illustrated instructions, a beginner can learn to analyze the script; research the characters’ environments; work effectively with the producer and director; produce sketches and construction drawings; make a model; and supervise the construction, setup, and decoration of the set.

  Part III details several typical design challenges met in professional work situations: a series pilot shot on location, a talk show, a new broadcasting environment, and a film commercial. The last chapter tells the beginner how to prepare a portfolio and résumé and how to look for work in the film and broadcasting industries.

  Part I

  THE ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRODUCTION DESIGNER

  To understand the origin and development of production design, we will first see how the increased popularity and improved technology of motion pictures required better stories and acting, as well as more believable settings. Many designers came from the theater, along with theatrical setting techniques, but as the film industry developed, designers created design and building techniques that satisfied the needs of a new medium.

  Part I describes the production designer’s responsibilities, basic set elements, the production environment in which the designer works, and illustrates lighting techniques that affect the designer’s work.

  1

  WHAT IS A PRODUCTION DESIGNER?

  Production designers develop a visual plan for an entire production, including sets, props, costumes, color schemes, lighting, and frequently the entire flow of a film. Because film is a visual medium, the “look” the production designer establishes can involve the audiences emotionally as much as story lines and dialogue.

  Up until the late 1930s, the title “art director” generally meant the same as “production designer” does today, but when David Selznick gave special recognition to William Cameron Menzies for his comprehensive work on Gone with the Wind, this special title later came into general use. Because art directors became “production designers,” art directors now carry out the production designers’ overall plans for films.

  According to Bruce Block, visual consultant for the Meyers/Shyer Company, Burbank, CA:

  Real production design means that you have designed the production. If it’s on stage, you design the sets, costumes, and the lighting, and you’re through. If it’s a movie, you have to figure out what the camera is doing. The visual components are space, line, color, movement, and rhythm. That’s what production design is all about.

  The production designer has to understand what the movie is about. It’s not the plot; it’s what I like to call point of view—what you want the audience to feel about the movie.

  In Father of the Bride, we wanted the house to be a character in the movie. The house was not a backdrop; it was a part of the family like Steve Martin was, so we had to find a production designer who was smart and understood what point of view means and who could bring something to the table besides wallpaper and paint samples.

  THE PRODUCTION DESIGNER’S PLACE

  The production designer has several bosses: the producer, the unit production manager, and the director. Assisting the production designer are the art director, who executes the production designer’s plan; an art department coordinator, who handles the paper work and tracks the budget; one or more set designers, who do the construction drafting; a set decorator; and an illustrator, who creates sketches. The art director and production designer also supervise the work of the construction and paint departments.

  DESIGN BEGINNINGS

  Production design has a strong history in films. As the popularity of special effects films escalates, the respect awarded production designers, whose imaginations create fantasy worlds inhabited by heretofore unimagined characters, increases as well. In some productions, a production designer can have as much authority as the director has.

  WHAT DOES A PRODUCTION DESIGNER DO?

  The production designer makes a thorough study of the script, does research, and confers with the producer and director to develop the “look” and flow of color and design from one sequence to the next.

  Companies usually retain a production designer for the duration of production. Sometimes producers hire the designer to create a general design scheme and the designer – after providing them with detailed information on the design plan for the film – turns the project over to a staff of art directors and set designers.

  Early Production Designers

  Who originated the title production designer? In America in 1939, David O. Selznick first bestowed the title on William Cameron Menzies for his contributions to Gone with the Wind, which included the direction of some sequences. Before that, art directors were responsible for everything that didn’t move, but they didn’t have the comprehensive visual authority of today’s production designer. To understand how the profession of art direction and production design evolved, let’s start with the early development of the film medium.

  PICTURES BEGIN TO MOVE

  Scholars can argue endlessly about when motion pictures were first invented, in what country, and by whom. We know that in 1888 the Thomas Edison Film Laboratory demonstrated a primitive motion picture device, which was the forerunner of a revolution in popular entertainment.

  Few paid much attention to motion pictures at first, because they were regarded as only a fascinating novelty. When movies lengthened, though, the public went for them in a big way. People paid a nickel to watch anything that moved as they peered through the machine eyepieces or marvelled at images on flickering screens in rented halls.

  The Audience Increases

  The novelty of simple movement wore off before long, however. Motion picture producers saw that they needed to make longer and better films, so they turned to the most obvious source of material – the theater. With the actors and plays came theatrical sets and painted backdrops, as well as theatrical techniques.

  Filming took place outdoors to take advantage of free sunlight. Producers perched cameras and sets on rooftops where tall buildings did not block the sunlight. They hoped the wind would not be strong enough to ripple canvas backdrops and flats or flap the dining room tablecloth during dinner party scenes. The audience would laugh in the wrong places. Wind, rain, snow, and ice would slow production and deprive clamoring audiences of amusement and the producer of cash.

  Filming moved inside glass-roofed stages, which solved producers�
� problems with the elements for a while. If they didn’t want to hire a set designer, producers hired local carpenters to build realistic rooms. It became apparent, however, that filmmakers needed the talents of set designers. Sets built by house carpenters and decorated by the producer’s sister did not look right on film. The camera’s eye demanded more.

  Movie Makers Move On

  Producers ground film through their cameras, processed and edited the footage, and rushed the finished product out to any exhibitor who paid the rental fee. Due to some unpleasantness over camera mechanism patents, producers moved south and west to distance themselves from the patent law enforcers and to enjoy more shooting days per year than the weather allowed in the northeast United States.

  Florida, Arizona, and the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California had thriving film studios, but the variety of terrain and reliable weather in Southern California attracted the major part of the growing film industry. An added attraction was the proximity of the Mexican border, which allowed producers to throw their clandestine cameras into cars and to speed across the border to safety, leaving the process servers hired by the camera cartel on the other side of the border.

  Versions of Paris

  Movie moguls discovered that once they owned a piece of land, they could build their own plaster-and-chicken-wire cities, western towns, and mountains. The lot system also gave movie companies some control over the weather. Many studio backlot sets included cables stretched over the streets that could support opaque canvas covers to provide shelter from unwanted rain and could help simulate night during the day. Overhead perforated pipes could spray rain, which might fall gently or be whipped into hurricane force by motor-driven fans. Some studios constructed dump tanks, into which portions of ships were deluged with tons of water for sea storm sequences.

  Walter Winton, a studio staff set decorator during the 1930s, recalls: