Art Direction for Film and Video Read online

  Everything we needed was right there on the lot: upholstery shop, drapery department, electrical, carpenters, painters, greens. We hardly had to go outside unless we needed something very special. The property department was huge; full of furniture and accessories that had been made or bought for other productions.

  The Studio Production Line

  The studio lots became film factories, cranking out features and shorts on a production-line basis. In the 1930s, MGM had 117 backlot sets, 23 soundstages, and made a feature film a week. Its regular payroll supported over 2,000 employees. Studios recruited designers from the theatrical worlds of New York and Europe. They designed portions of cities on Hollywood lots and in the barnlike stages. If a picture needed a French drawing room, carpenters built the set on a stage and decorators dressed it with appropriate furniture and drapery. The next day the standing set could be dressed as a townhouse or gambling casino.

  The lot system delighted movie producers. They wanted to keep production under their close scrutiny. Studios kept dozens of actors under contract and assigned them to emote in one picture after another. Each studio had its backlot versions of the cities of the world. Many of the directors, as well as art directors, were from Europe, so the flavor of backlot architecture varied according to designers’ nationalities.

  WORK IN THE MOVIES? NEVER!

  At first, theatrical set designers looked down their noses at the movies’ vulgarity, but many changed their attitudes as the quality of films improved and creative possibilities revealed themselves.

  Architects put their skills to work in the film industry, seizing the opportunity to put their imaginations to work on never-never lands of plaster fantasy. They could say goodbye to dull apartment houses and office buildings and live in the magical world of motion pictures.

  Studios recruited art directors from architecture schools and put them to work on castles, roads, curving city streets, and villages with town roads and city halls. The management lured designers from the theater and put them to work on musical films.

  Both groups had to adjust to working with surfaces rather than internal structure; easier for the illusion-experienced theater people than for the architects who now had to design surfaces and portions of buildings rather than complete structures.

  Some Art Directors Became Stars

  As the major studios grew, they employed many staff art directors. Supervising or executive art directors guided the art department designers and developed the studio’s visual style, much as today’s production designers create a look for an individual film.

  MGM’s Cedric Gibbons became one of the most colorful art department heads. Some say that Mr. Gibbons never picked up a pencil, while others claim to have seen him laboring over an architectural detail. He created the Art Deco-influenced Big White Set look, which became Metro’s trademark in the 1930s. Walter Winton remembers:

  Even though we [the set decorators] were pretty independent, Mr. Gibbons kept close watch on what we were doing. He wanted the most rich look we could get; cost be damned—an ideal situation for us. Mr. Gibbons always had the final say, even over producers and directors.

  Although many art directors made notable stylistic contributions to Hollywood films, here are several who stood out.

  WILFRED BUCKLAND, New York stage designer

  Brought to Hollywood by Cecil B. DeMille in 1915

  Championed the use of artificial lighting.

  VAN NEST POLGLASE, RKO’s supervising art director

  Studied architecture and interior design

  Designed Art Deco musicals

  WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES, Freelance art director

  Directed some sequences of Gone with the Wind

  Awarded first Production Design credit

  TELEVISION CHANGES THE FILM BUSINESS

  The United States saw its first public exhibition of television pictures in 1927, but not until after World War II did this new electronic medium become as fascinating as motion pictures were in their infancy. Television receiver design progressed from huge revolving disks and forests of wire and tubes behind tiny, blurry screens to an acceptable piece of furniture that dominates many living rooms today.

  Seeing this trend, and alarmed at the way people stayed home to watch free television, the motion picture studios developed wide-screen processes, enhanced sound systems, and epic movies to lure people back into theaters. Just to be on the safe side, the studios produced programs for television as well.

  Just as theater designers had been reluctant to work in films, many motion picture art directors did not want to work in television. Television had lower budgets, limited production time, and lower prestige.

  Make Way for the Sitcoms

  Major studios and independent producers jumped on the television bandwagon. Large studios had the facilities and used them to feed television’s growing appetite. Staff art directors accustomed to big budgets and plenty of time were now assigned to television series that had neither. They used the big outdoor sets and standing sets on soundstages. Sometimes a series used sets built for feature films not released until after the set had been seen on television. Studios that were accustomed to finishing a picture a month now had to crank out what amounted to a picture a week for television.

  Film to Tape Transfer

  Videotape recording changed television practices and programming. During the live television days, film cameras aimed at cathode ray tubes recorded broadcasts. These film records – called kinescopes – were the only visual record of broadcasts. Later, magnetic tape recording eliminated that laborious and technically inferior process, and gave the appearance of a live television broadcast when played back. Programmers no longer feared mishaps. They could be edited out much more easily than on a kinescope film. Present day digital editing techniques have improved tape editing as well as film processing.

  Improved Technology Affects Art Directors

  In its infancy, television equipment made many demands on art directors. They had to work with a limited range of gray values, and had to avoid extreme contrasts of value as well as certain patterns. The old camera tubes could retain an image if held on the same picture too long. The system required high, even light levels, which limited the amount of contrast and atmosphere sets could present.

  Motion picture color film process suppliers required the services of color consultants who needed art directors to work within the limits set by laboratory processing. Film art directors had to work with limited color palettes and saw their sets flooded with intense flat light. Mood and atmosphere took a backseat, the same as in early video.

  As video and film technology improved, art directors had a greater range of choices. They could use glitter, lights shining into the camera lens, and a more subtle color range. Many art directors chose to specialize as the programming range widened. Some freelancers set up design studios that specialized in situation comedies, game shows, or news broadcasts.

  THE VISUAL FUTURE

  The onward march of technology, including high-definition video and digital manipulation, will change the role of the art director. Virtual reality systems, which use two small color screens placed in a headset, and sensor-equipped body suits can place viewers in synthetically created environments.

  Art directors are already creating new visual worlds, and some predict the day when drawing boards will be artifacts of the past. Perhaps all sets will be made of zeros and ones stored in chips, and some predict the same fate for actors. Will you be ready?

  •

  The next chapter discusses what qualities art directors and production designers need to have, and how they can put their talents and technical skills to work.

  2

  WHAT DOES AN ART DIRECTOR NEED TO KNOW?

  Production designers and art directors are supposed to know a little about everything, and have to keep a sharp eye out for detail. Robert Cecchi, art director and set decorator recalls:

  I was working on a period picture which
took place on a farm. Some kids had to slide down a haystack and the crew thought you just pile the hay up. Well, the haystack had to withstand six kids sliding down for take after take and the haystack just collapsed each time. I showed them how to pile the hay in layers, like the farmers did to shed the rain and snow.

  Larry Miller, Hollywood production designer says:

  When I assemble my staff, I look for people with a high degree of skill. I seem to be sympatico with people with theater training where ideas are developed through characters. That’s what designing for film is all about. You just can’t design a place—you have to design a place for a character and a time.

  According to visual consultant Bruce Block:

  A production designer has to understand the characters and the story from an emotional point of view. They have to have great taste and have to understand what happens to things when you photograph them. Some production designers and art directors are more like interior decorators; they don’t understand what happens when things go onto film; how film will change a color or flatten things out. They have to know what’s going to happen when the cinematographer gets on the set.

  AN ART DIRECTOR SHOULD BE VISUALLY AWARE

  The world around us is a feast of images: people, trees, houses, animals, buildings, clouds, and sunsets – all of which enhance our enjoyment of life, as well as provide design ideas. When you walk down the street, look at everything as design. That sign up there! What vibrant colors, and the bank of traffic lights! Imagine it 20 feet high with the lights pulsing to music. Down the street is a building being demolished. The floors are peeled away, revealing a four-story collage wall of decades of wallpaper and paint. It could be hanging in a museum.

  Many production designers and art directors carry pocket cameras. One production designer was having difficulty finding the right color and texture for a newly discovered planet to be seen in a science fiction series. She stepped out of her car one day, glanced down into the gutter, and saw a piece of refuse that was exactly right. She snapped a picture of it, had the photo image computer-wrapped around a sphere, and created the new planet, all because her eyes were open to the world around her.

  You’re in Demand if You Can Draw

  Drawing is learning to see. If the art director is visually aware, the ability to draw is helpful, if not essential. Some production designers don’t draw well; they have someone else do it. If the designer works at a major studio, the art department supplies sketch artists and visualizers to communicate production designers’ ideas in the form of sketches and illustrations.

  If you freelance, it’s creatively helpful, economical, and quicker to make your own sketches. Also, during the creative process, ideas present themselves that can be worked into your plan immediately. It’s fun to see a brilliant idea creep over the top of your drawing board. If you can draw, you can capture it before it gets away.

  Another Dimension

  An art director needs to understand three-dimensional design. How else can shapes work together from more than one angle? Cameras shoot from many positions. Although a set may look terrific from straight on, how will it look from other angles?

  Making sculpture is an excellent way to learn to think in the round. While working with clay, metal, plastic, and other materials, the sculptor rotates a piece, much as the camera roams about a set. The set presents itself from many different angles as the actors and camera move.

  What Colors Do You Like?

  Bruck Block notes:

  In Baby Boom the wall colors were based on Diane Keaton’s complexion color and in Father of the Bride we keyed the wall colors to Steve Martin’s complexion to help make the house a member of the family.

  Art directors need to know the physical theory of color and how it works. The human eye’s retina has 125 million receptors, called cones, which are sensitive to the light and dark values that the lens focuses on them. The retina also has seven million rods that perceive red, green, and blue. Our brains mix these values into what we know as colors.

  This type of color mixing is known as additive mixing. Television picture tubes are composed of rows of red, green, and blue dots, which fluoresce in various combinations when struck by the cathode ray beam, producing what we see as thousands of different colors.

  Paints, dyes, and inks follow different rules. When white light falls on a yellow card, for example, the yellow pigment absorbs all colors except yellow, which is reflected, making our eyes see the color yellow. This system is called the subtractive system, as colors are absorbed.

  Color description is a subjective process, so to provide an objective view, art directors provide color chips and color sketches for scenic artists and set painters. Production designers use color for psychological and stylistic effect by keying certain colors to characters, scenes, and sequences. Some designers work out the general color progression from scene to scene before they do other design schemes. If a character’s personality is dark, the designer can use low-key colors. If the character is a happy type, the chosen color scheme can be in light values.

  DRAFTING: THAT DREADED WORD

  Production designers and art directors need ways to communicate building information to cost estimators and construction shops. Construction drawings provide detailed information, as you will see later in this book. Usually, production designers do not do their own drafting but read and understand construction drawings. The set designer, a member of the production designer’s staff, does the drafting.

  According to Colin Irwin, a production designer:

  The set designer turns the production designer and art director’s ideas into floor plans and elevation drawings which the construction coordinator can use to get bids on set building costs. Usually, the set designer does not have much creative input, but on a very large project the production designer and art director have to do a lot of running around dealing with producers. I spend 80 percent of my time dealing with producers and politics and 20 percent designing. I usually end up going in on Saturdays on my own time when it’s quiet and the phones don’t ring. It’s the only time I can concentrate without distraction.

  Film and television drafting differ from other types because they deal more with surfaces than with internal structure. Architects and engineers are concerned with the mechanics and engineering of buildings and mechanical devices.

  MATERIALS

  To design a set, an art director needs to know materials and what they can do. What good is a set that cannot be built? Sets are built by carpenters in construction shops and on soundstages, but building plays a major role in location work too. An existing location structure may have appropriate general qualities that need alteration. To save time and money, sets that have no architectural relationship to the location buildings or landscape can be constructed within convenient reach of the location company.

  LIGHTING

  As part of the set design process, an art director needs to know the basics of lighting. Without light, the set will not be visible to the camera, and because sets should be presented in the best possible way, the art director should produce designs that don’t create major problems for the lighting director.

  It isn’t necessary to know how many ohms resistance are in how many feet of cable or how many lighting instruments one dimmer can handle. It’s enough to know a few basic requirements, such as the following:

  • An exterior opaque backing should be hung about eight feet away from a window.

  • Large areas of shiny surface require extra time (money) and care to light.

  • Sets with ceilings can complicate the lighting process.

  Make the lighting director your friend. As you will see later, lighting can make your work look better than you hoped, or it can destroy hours of hard work and enthusiasm.

  HELPFUL PERSONAL QUALITIES

  An art director needs to know how to work effectively with other members of the company. An art director’s staff welcomes clear information so that the result will ha
ve a cohesive look. Art directors should find the best solution to each problem in a knowledgeable and innovative way. How easy it is to dig out an old set of drawings and have a reverse print made that can be presented as a new solution. Every production has its own needs and requires a different set of solutions.

  Be Flexible

  Designing a show is like assembling a collage. Directors and producers make changes over which the art director has no control. What if the director asks you to change the most beloved part of your design? First, explain the reasons you designed the set the way you did. Second, be willing to consider the director’s view. If you hear valid reasons, be willing to change. After all, the director is the director.

  What a Business!

  An art director needs to have an effective business sense. Popular belief is that sensitive creative people like us can’t balance our checkbooks without help. Some of us can’t, but we have to keep track of where the production money goes. Cost estimates and budgets are a vital part of the business. Art directors deal with large amounts of money, at least on paper, and parcel the funds out to many suppliers, all of whom need to be kept happy.

  It’s OK to Be Disorganized Sometimes

  When you’re getting your ideas together is the best time for confusion: When you have some facts and ideas for your particular brand of creative process to grind up. Put down every idea with possibilities. When you settle down and the waste-basket is full of terrible ideas, pat yourself on the back for coming up with some brilliant solutions, and, then, calmly set about bringing them to reality. This is the time to be organized.

  Passengers! Try to Remain Calm!

  Each production is different. When everyone is in a hurry, tempers flare and resentments build. Patient attention to detail is a discipline to practice. Many times things go wrong at the last minute. What if it rains? Is the cyclorama really flameproof? Will the party-scene ice sculpture melt too soon?