See, being a production designer is hella fun but it's also hella difficult. Much like regular paint and canvas, a lot of planning has to come first and you have to think about the final product even though it's not right in front of you. After viewing a small video on the importance of props, I kinda sat back and laughed to myself because it was so incredibly true. Most of my life is surrounded by props; I even bought my boyfriend a prop from Twin Peaks just because he liked the show that much. Anyway, what I really wanted to get to was something that I found when I was just googling some stuff for gifts. After kind of letting the wind take me wherever on the internet, a method I'm trying to utilise more now that Arturo had mentioned something of it, I found a website called Popcorn Garage. Check it out~
It's pretty much just iSpy, which is always a good time waster, but the key to this game is to find the prop and then name the movie. It pretty much just solidifies the whole idea of an object just becoming as iconic as the film and that's pretty chill.
As you know, we did our first shoot for Stopover City this past weekend, and it was an absolute blast. It was incredible to get to see the script I co-wrote come to life with all the components--pretty amazing to think that it all started out as just a random idea between us writers one night. As for on-set experience, it was stressful at times, but I think that overall the work I did was a success so far.
Here's the breakdown of what I thought about how things went in my department:
Positives:
-set decoration, costumes, and props looked AWESOME :-)
-my art squad was so on point and they are all wonderful humans. There were a lot of things to bake and one of them did all of that for me which was a huge time savor. (I am learning to delegate, it's a process.)
-there were many costumes but I kept it all organized by putting small stickers on them that numbered which scenes they were worn in!!!
-positive relationship with my lovely director, director of photography, and AD. We all understood that each other had a job to do and tried to help the best we could.
Negatives:
-only had ~20 minutes to set up EVERYTHING in the bakery. (holy heck that's not a lot of time)
-was also pressed for time setting up for the bedroom scene...everyone started arriving at my house at 9 AM and the room we were shooting in was rather small so we all had to take turns setting up stuff ha.
-I'm worried about some continuity errors with placement of ash on Hazel's face in one scene, but we have pictures so we can hopefully re-create something similar this Sunday
-someone threw up all in my car saturday after the shoot which wasn't fun at all and kind of threw a wrench in my ability to remain stress-free for sunday's shoot ha ha ha
I am so excited for the last day of filming, and can't wait to see the scenes that our editor has already cut together. Will check in next week with updates on this Sunday's outcome!!
Until then, I'd like to share this precious photo taken on set of the other 2 writers & myself that I love a lot.
...must be funny in a rich man's (not art department's) world. I quote this ABBA tune & say a little prayer that a money tree grows in my backyard tonight.
As production designer for our film, I am in charge of all the props, costumes, and set design for each frame, which entails 7 (kind of deadly) stages:
1. picking a color palatte
2. sketches of room designs
3. asking friends/other art people for common prop items
4. buying things online & praying they look like their picture
5. multiple trips to Salvation Army/Walmart
6. improvising....a lot (the prop weed is cotton balls rolled in glue, then rolled around in various spices, but hey it looks pretty realistic so thats ok)
7. crying because you have no money left
Depending on the project, an art department's budget can either be very minimal, or rather large. Because this is part of my independent study I went in with a "i'm going to plan for a lot of stuff and then get paid back later because I want this to look good and be worth it!!!" But right now I'm in that scary place of having spent money on art department and not getting paid back for it yet. Which means my bank account looks like this:
So I'm hoping that by some happy miracle more money is donated to our indiegogo so that I can afford to be paid back :) :) :)
Then again, if the film looks awesome, it's all worth the temporary debt, right???
Hello everyone!
I wanted to share some great information with all the Ithacan's who are searching for props and other free items for films!
Take It Or Leave It, in Clarke Hall in the basement, they have a ton of free stuff! Also if you're looking to get rid of some stuff before moving out of Ithaca soon, drop off your unwanted things instead of throwing them away! It's supported by the Eco Reps on campus! It's a great program and I think we should all support them!
I didn't find a whole lot of props needed for my final projet but, I did find a whole lot of really good set dressing there!
I hope the spread of this information proves useful for TIOLI as well as my fellow art department people in Ithaca!
Game 2:
1: "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too."
2: "I'm King of the world!"
3: "Rosebud"
4: "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."
5: "Go do that Voodoo that you do so well!"
6: "No dice, soldier."
7: "You idiots! These are not them! You've captured their stuntdoubles!"
8: "GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!"
9: "Shut the F*ck up, Donny!"
10: "Squirrel!"
Don't cheat!! ;-)
Also here's a trailer for the last movie I watched.
Breathless 1983 by Jim McBride
Meh, it was alright. I'm not exactly sure how this wound up in my instant queue. I watched it anyways and it was alright. If you're borred enough you could watch it and it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.
Alright! Let's do some Shots! NO, not those kinds of shots, Films shots! (It's not the weekend yet kids!)
Today, in class we spoke about the importance of shots and frame. Ever since we discussed this in fiction field 1, a year ago (time flies), I've payed closer attention to the films I watch and I note the placement of the characters. Sometimes, it helps me understand a little better of what's going on in the film. Have you ever watched a film where you were completely lost? Most people at that point shut it off and never return. I try harder to understand, I like to give em' a chance! They could explain everything later! Anyways, I found sometimes I'll try to interoperate the choice of the camera position, movement or even the placement of props, or the placement of the character's themselves.
In the shot above, The camera frame shows you exactly what the character is looking at, it also shows through camera angle how much bigger this creature is in comparison to the character, possibly imposing a threat. The fact that it's raining makes it harder for the character to run and hide, it gives us a symbolic sense of nature's wrath, unfortunate events etc.
This shot is much less distressing! I would interpret this shot to mean that these character's are getting closer either as friends or as lovers. Judging by the closeness of their bodies and given other cliche shots like this, I would bet that their next action is that they look at each other intimately.
For this shot I suppose you could say the same. Again it's very close and intimate. There's a feeling of safety even in a dangerous position. The expressions of the characters are a combination of amazement and admiration.
Another concept we were touching upon when talking about the way people used to watch film and the way we progressed from where we came from, is the concept that Hitchcock called the Kuleshov effect!
There is also an importance to not letting anything foreign be in the photograph. Set decorating is VERY important. Last year on the Market our art department team made a character who was a religious freak and very uptight person with very intense secrets. We transformed a girl's room from a girly bed room in to a dark, organized, bedroom with a ton of religious symbols everywhere. It looked like an ENTIRELY different place when we got through with it and if you pick the right people to do it, it really doesn't take too long. Here's an example of a set that was designed in the french film OSS 117: Lost in Rio:
The film takes place in the 60's and as you can see, nothing here is out of place or misrepresenting even though the movie was made in 2009! Not one thing in this frame is out of context nor is it distracting. You want things (props, set dec., etc.) to be appropriate but not distracting. I think this room sets up a mood of the scene as well as being absorbing/ believable.
I have more to talk about but I'll save it for next week! Hope you all enjoy the rest of the week!
