Small Update

Just a little update on my life:

Being sick is possibly the worst thing that can happen at this time in the semester, mentally i'm feeling strong but physically my body is just not having it (let's just say I've been very limited). I'm still pretty icky but now we all guessing that it may be an internal issue rather than just a really really bad cold. Hopefully all goes well, but on the bright side (in some odd way) being sick has given me time to devote to all my interests like sketching and animating. I'm actually really proud to say that there looking really good (pretty quirky and adorable actually).

I'm also excited to say that I'm back art directing and production designing for a student film back home. I've been working with the script for a couple of weeks now and I've finally developed the final color schemes and began sketching the costumes. I guess the reason why i'm so excited is because the writer and director have given me complete creative liberty, which is rare usually they want you to draw their vision. It's still in the early phases of production but I'm excited to be working on something that isn't a project or for credit, its purely just for fun.

Not so fiction related news: I've began watching A LOT of Netflix documentaries, and for future reference if you're ever stuck in bed or have a long weekend, just skim Netflix and watch a couple! 

I wish you all a happy break!

Learning from our Mistakes

WE FINALLY SHOT OUR FILM. I REPEAT, WE SHOT OUR FILM IN ONE WEEKEND. I cannot put into words how much better I feel. I am ~glowing~.

Obviously we made mistakes this weekend, some of which could have been prevented early on. If we don't learn from our mistakes, how are we going to get better at anything? So, I compiled this list of some issues we ran into and how we can fix them (for next time).

1. Insufficient budget - Our third day on set was very low budget when it came to crafty, and when the people need crafty, they need crafty. Perhaps we could have set up an Indiegogo campaign like Stopover City did. Then we wouldn't have to worry about paying for food.

2. Poor(ish) location - I threw the 'ish' in there because there were some great things about our location. For one thing, it was a two minute drive from campus--this made it super convenient to haul equipment, cast, and crew there and back. It was also Connor's friends apartment, which made coordinating times to shoot fairly easy and we didn't have to pay for it. However, Danby is a highway where cars drive by at 40 miles per hour and I could hear every single one. This is going to make my life a living hell when I try to edit the sound. I tried to prepare for the damage by putting lavalier microphones on our actors. Next time we'll have to look for a place in a quieter neighborhood, far away from any main roads.

3. Bad timing in the semester - Due to group members' commitment to various other projects, this weekend was literally the only weekend that worked for everyone. What sucked was that it was Cortaca weekend, which meant people's friends from home would be visiting, loud music would be playing, and people would want to take a post-game nap (understandably so). There were a number of times we had to hold for people moving in and out of the house, and I felt terrible keeping these people from sleeping at 3:00 in the morning. Next time we'll have to figure out more than 3 long shooting days and break it up.

4. Bad time of day - We shot our exteriors at Connor's house in the morning and it was cloudy, which was a great thing. But the next two days we were seriously rushing to get in all our daytime shots because there are only so many hours of daylight this time of year. This gave us ample time to shoot our night scenes because the sun went down by 5:00 PM. Next time we should definitely make sure that the call sheets have sunrise and sunset times on them and factor that in to the shooting order.

5. Production design - This also goes along with location scouting issues. Most of the walls in the house are white, which made production design a bitch. This kind of went along with our story though, because our antagonist is supposed to be obsessively clean. If we could do it again, it would be better if the location had different colored walls; this would also make lighting much easier.

6. Call sheet errors/lack of info - Our call sheets looked super professional and that's just dandy, but they were lacking information. Maybe it was because we were trying to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time, but for me they were hard to follow. I would like to see the specifics of what we're shooting on them. Instead of the scene number and a couple word phrase explaining it, I want to see the page number in the script that coincides with the scene, the exact actions the actor takes in the scene, and which actor(s) are needed for that scene. We realized after arriving on set that the call sheet for our first shoot listed both actresses, but we only needed one to be there.

I don't mean to be a negative Nancy, I just want to make sure that I or my group doesn't make the same mistake twice.

Looking back, looking forward

Now that we have (basically) wrapped on principal photography for Stopover City I feel a huge weight off my shoulders, and have started functioning like a normal human being again???! Obviously a lot has to be done in post production (our editor already has a rough cut), but I have confidence in my team that everything will be just dandy. Now I can do things again such as: sleep, eat meals, and look ahead to future projects. I had a ton of fun doing developing Stopover, and it has inspired me to start development on my senior thesis which I'd like to create next fall. It's honestly never too early to start pre-production, so why not start now! Pretty recently I decided not to take any production classes in the spring because this semester was so intense--I'll definitely work on other people's films here and there but I need a semester-long breather from production classes. 

Being less stressed has also allowed me to think ahead to future semesters logically--I turned down the offer to produce ICTV's late night show After Hours (which I currently Assistant Produce) because I realized that producing isn't my thing. The upside to turning it down is that I was given the offer to design a new set for the spring semester. Here's the current setup of the show:

It looks nice once cameras are framed up, but the walls are super heavy and those brown beams are literally falling apart and every Tuesday I fear that one of the PA's will get hurt. Fortunately Porn: the Musical is donating 5 of their thin white walls to us, which i can manipulate any way I'd like. I'd personally like to make the set a bit wider, and 86 the bland white walls altogether. It's definitely going to take some time & careful effort to plan, but I'm hella excited to do it.

It definitely won't be as extravagant as Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but hey, I'll do my best with what I have. 

What's in the /BOX/?!

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. 

On set experience for Stopover City, pt. 1.

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.

Rosemary's Mise-en-scene

In preparation for shooting our film I've been going through my netflix que and watching every old horror movie I can find. Many horror films share similar thematic and cinematic tropes with one another, so it's been an incredible helpful exercise for me when I was writing the script. I've just finished the film "Rosmary's Baby"

One of the biggest hesitations our group has in shooting at 918 Danby is that many of the walls if not all of them are stark white. I've been told this will cause issues with lighting and wardrobe, and for the past few day's I've been really worried that our locations pure white walls would be the end of us. However after watching Rosemarie's Baby (a film shot in an apartment painted entirely mental asylum white) I found that I really like the way the white backgrounds interacted with the characters. 

First off our main characters are young newlyweds and are fairly new to the city of New York. This motif is reflected in many of the shots where we see them talking and interacting with each other.

The light background sort of blends together to highlight the drama surrounding the couples problems communicating to one another. The background also helps to give us an idea of how new their relationship is both to eachother and to their new city. We see evidence of this when the two young lovers go next door to visit their elderly neighbors. 

Herbert's study practically overflows with visual intrigue. Just from this one shot we can tell what kind of man he is and what kind of life he leads.

Rosemarie's baby is certainly a must see if you're interested in production design.

Money, money, money...

...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???

Thesis shoot, pt. II

As I spoke about in previous posts, I did production design on the media thesis film for my dear friend. After 2 weeks of intense pre-production and two weekends of non stop filming, I AM DONE!!!!!
(and can now put my entire focus on this film). Since I did a recap for the first weekend on set, I thought I'd do another one as a more ~overall~ review for my role as production designer on set.

The first and second weekend's shoots were very different. Week one was a lot of set up at the beginning of the weekend and break down at the end, while this past weekend included multiple locations for a shorter amount of time, and less set dressing. Since I couldn't do as much set dressing (i.e. shooting in a catholic church did not allow for much drastic changes due to time) I had to get creative to get the character's color palates into the frame. For example, the father's main colors were black and red, but due to a last minute actor change the red shirt I had would not fit the actor. So I searched around the church and found some red prayer books to put in the pews. It's subtle, but it adds to the story. Take a look below:

I am really happy with how this shot looked, but at other times I felt that the DP&director didn't care about my efforts for the shot design. I was involved with checking the frame during the first weekend's shoot to make sure the proper colors were in there, but when the second weekend came around I backed off a bit, because I sick of them doing whatever the heck they wanted; them changing all their shot directions when I had planned for specific angles and shot compositions. (part of this was because neither of them had been to one of the locations so they were going in kind of blind???? This had to do with how fast pre-production went (hence why I was disintegrating every single day hahah) and the director being too busy to meet with us (grr).

I had many qualms with the film, but it honestly looks incredible. (even with a lack of planning in some parts) Overall, I learned a lot from the experience and it was a really fun set to be on. I know I could have done better work with a higher budget and more time, but I did what I could and it still looks good.

On set experience – THESIS weekend 1

The past few weeks I have been working tirelessly on the production design/art direction of my close friend’s thesis film. I am working on this film because a. he asked me to do so back in May and b. it is one of the “on-set designs & experiences” for my independent study in production design. This was (and still is) a serious work in progress for me, since I had never been the key designer on a project until now (someone else had always been telling me how to dress the set and it was their designs). But my friend the writer/director has always been behind the camera, so he didn’t have a super specific vision of what he wanted for the design, it was more of the colors and lights he wanted; the rest he let my imagination run wild.

Even though principal photography was this past weekend, my part started weeks ago, starting with the breakdown of the script to learn more about the characters, in addition to determining a color palate, and figuring out which props & costume I need. Then I joined the location scout process, which included looking at various churches, apartments, and bars. This part was/still is tough for me because I was unable to go to all the original scouts due to other commitments. Thankfully for the apartment scenes I was on the original scout, so storyboarding and planning the design was easier. Planning this upcoming week’s shoot has been more difficult because I haven’t seen all the locations in person—only photos for some of them!

From September 25^th-27^th  we filmed the interior of the characters’ loft- a location that we scouted & secured all the way in Rochester, NY. Keep in mind, this was not even a real apartment (it was a studio that the producers rented on craigslist from this 24 year old who runs a sound recording business) so there was 1 bathroom with no shower, and we were staying there for 3 days and 2 nights!!! Can’t you smell the sweat just thinking about 17 people in a hot apartment for 3 days? (because I certainly will never forget the smell).

me on a giant ladder hanging makeshift "walls" from the ceiling...Innovation at its finest.
Also, I look like I'm descending from production design heaven.

We arrived on Friday evening (I felt like such a soccer mom driving 4 people PLUS all art things in my Rav4) and I immediately got to work. First, I took pictures of everything in the studio so I could put it back the exact way I found it. Then, i took everything off the walls, and moved all furniture I wasn't using to the part of the loft that we weren't filming in. Then I put up the "walls" for the main character's bedroom--there was no real bedroom so we cheated walls with dark blankets (trust me, it looked super dope). Then I set up the design for the computer "room", living room, and the "bedroom". The whole thing took about 5 hours and by the end I was WIPED out. But then we woke up at 6:30 AM the next morning and the set was dressed & ready to go!! We filmed on Saturday from 8 AM to 10:30 PM and Sunday from 8 AM to 1 PM, then it was time to break down the set. That part was difficult because I was exhausted from the weekend's events and it was sad to take apart the set! (Got plenty of pics though, and of course it was all captured on camera for the film ha). 

Overall, I’m really happy with the way my work has turned out so far. With conjunction of the DP, lighting department, and director of course, we were able to accomplish a very beautiful visual for every shot. I’m super excited for this weekend’s shoot, and of course, the final product of the thesis film!

On student films, being strung too thin, and powering through.

If I were to sum up how I've been feeling the last few weeks, it would be the following action done by George Michael in Arrested Development.

Basically, I am straight up burnt out of energy.

I was going to write this weeks blog on one of my favorite films of all time, but I feel as though a ~student film~ journal entry of sorts would be more beneficial to my mental health & self-learning. So if you feel the need for some relatable quips about an overbooked film student, journey on. If not, I suggest you stop reading immediately because I'm about to get very honest.

In the few short weeks that the semester has been in session I have found myself strung more thin than ever. Which, in turn, has turned me from my usual bubbly and patient self into the Grouch, because of lack of sleep and an endless list of tasks.

me in the summer: enough sleep/am less stressed

me the last few weeks; literally disintegrating with garbage!!!!!

Between doing a thousand and one different things plus trying to put my 110% into our fiction field 2 film, I find myself constantly working on some sort of task with no time to stop and breathe. Most pertinent of them all is getting everything done production design-wise for my friend's media thesis film (which we're shooting all next weekend in Rochester!) It’s not that I’m not doing it all, it’s that there’s always something that needs to get done. And I always get it done, but it usually means sacrificing one of the three elements that are key to a college students’ success (and also sanity). That being: enough sleep, good grades, and a social life.

So you see, only:

A. superhumans

B. sleepless vampires

C. those ghosts in harry potter that choose to come back to life(???)

Are the real ones that can achieve the ~trifecta~ of success.

Most of the lack of sleep comes from trying to make everything perfect and to please everyone, which is a fatal flaw of mine. It's something that I am trying to work on because it keeps me from getting things done in a timely manner to be honest. But college is all about learning about to balance everything, right? right????? *buries head in the sand*

I'm going to wrap this up to avoid getting whiny. Really the only way to combat these problems are to just suck it up and deal with it, which is the approach I'm taking. Even though the day to day has been quite the struggle, i'm trying to keep a positive attitude (which probably doesn't show at 10 AM in our class, my apologies). Basically I want all the productions I'm working on to the best they can be, and if that means giving up certain aspects of my life then so be it. 

I'm really happy with the way the screenplay for Stopover City has come out so far, and I'm very excited to begin filming my friend's thesis. Things are "chugging along" and I'm "managing" but I suppose this is just the life of a classic Parkie. Now I'm off to do some more tweaking of our film's screenplay with my lovely co-writers. I shall end this post with this:

Go all with everything you have because hard work pays off, as Leslie of Parks & Rec always shows.

Production Design in Narcos

This week I watched two episodes of Narcos, a Netflix original series. (I'm really bad at binge watching television.)

Narcos is about the most notorious drug dealer of all time, Pablo Escobar. Much of the story takes place in Colombia in the late 70s and early 80s, where Pablo and his team produce mountains upon mountains of cocaine to sell in other South American countries and the United States. ('narcos' = narcotics. If you didn't get that, it's cool--I didn't until at least halfway through the first episode). The story is told by Steve Murphy (played by Boyd Holbrook), a DEA agent who moves from Miami to Colombia to stop Escobar.

Pablo and his cocaine. Bffs 4 life.

Th production design in Narcos, as I would expect with any major drama series, was excellent. Scenes in episodes one and two take place in the middle of the jungle, a fancy Colombian hotel, a random street in South Beach, Miami, the airport, a plane, a bowling alley, and a ton of other places. There was so much effort put into every little detail--as it should be.

This has inspired me to get involved in this part of production for our project, which was recently retitled as Dollhouse. In class we talked about using our location to resemble a dollhouse, so I started to think about exactly what that means.

I may have had this exact dollhouse growing up, actually.

I played with dolls (Barbies, Polly Pockets, Bratz) all the time growing up. However, I think what makes dollhouses a little creepy is when all the furniture is glued down. Not all dollhouses are like this, but the ones for very young children are, so they can't pick up the tiny furniture and start eating it. Maybe glued down furniture is an element that we can play with. We want the dollhouse to reveal characteristics about our antagonist, Hannah, so very minimalist designs might be best. Perhaps we could have shots of her straightening or tidying things around the house as she talks to Vivian, our protagonist. Vivian's room, in contrast, will look like the "normal" college student's--pictures and posters on the walls, some laundry on the floor, homework sprawled across the desk.

Obviously, we don't have the money that Narcos did, but that doesn't mean we can't put a lot of effort into our production design.

HIMYIM...in the 1960's

This summer I finally watched How I Met Your Mother (and in a span of 3 weeks). And let me tell you, it was one hell of an emotional roller coaster. It is set in Manhattan in both present day, and many years in the future when Ted Moseby is talking to his kids about how he met their mother. The show has everything from comedy to drama, and keeps you entertained every second of the episode. HIMYM has six main characters: Ted Moseby, a single architect looking for his soulmate; Marshall Erikson, an aspiring lawyer from Minnesota; Lily Aldrin, a kindergarten teacher and aspiring artist; Robin Scherbatsky, a career oriented journalist who Ted is in love with, and Barney Stinson, an extreme playboy who has a mysterious position at a bank. All of them always hang out at this bar named McClaren's, a sort of similar situation to Friends' Central Perk cafe.

So when it came to choosing a show to set in a different time period for my Production Design Independent Study project, my first thought was OH LORDY I NEED TO DO THIS ON HOW I MET YOU MOTHER. The professor running my study also thought it was a good idea, and told me to run with it. After much deliberation between different time periods (including the 1970's, 1990's, and even the ~future~) I decided to go with the 1960's, because it was a very prominent decade in terms of social issues, pop culture, in addition to the very distinct design style.

Part of the project is to take two characters and design their houses/costumes in that time period. To do so, I'll have to print out a script from an episode and do a character breakdown based on that. This will take the form of a COW sheet (what the characters say, what others say, what the writers say). My plan is to redesign Robin & Barney as characters from 60's, including their costumes and rooms. This will be especially cool since Robin is a reporter, so I can base a lot of her style off of reporters from the 60's (i.e. Jessica Savitch). Then Barney will be one of those high up business moguls (I am particularly excited to design his room because he always has the latest gadgets).

For period piece research, I will be using old Life magazines (on file on googlebooks) in addition to other periodicals that are at the Ithaca College Library! The library also has various large books telling of the cultural events of the 60's, which I will definitely be delving into.

I am super amped to get started on this project because I think it will be very enriching experience, in addition to building a hella cool portfolio of my own designs.

A Second a Day

Going in the opposite direction from last week's blog, I'm going to talk about videos that effectively use extremely short takes to get their points across. In the past few years, there has been a trend (mostly amongst youtube videos) of people taking a picture of themselves every day for a year to show how much they've changed. Although I am terrified at the thought alone of allowing the entire world to see every awkward phase I've been through in my lifetime, it is interesting to watch others do so. Here's an example of a transformation video:

Many times these videos are used to not only show change in looks, but also to shed light on issues, whether they be diseases, like the girl above, or social problems. In 2013, a Serbian news site called B92 funded a video campaign to raise awareness of domestic violence towards women. The video was posted to youtube as if it was a real person's story of abuse, stirring controversy and gaining a lot of attention.

TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence

The sign reads "Please help me. I don't know if I will get to see tomorrow."

Recently, the idea of the "photo a day" video has evolved. People have been posting "one second a day" videos, showing different aspects of their daily lives as they grow. Here's one of the most adorable babies in the world, from birth to one year old:

Personally I believe the one second video compilation is much more effective than the photo series. I feel more attached to the subject and although each segment is only a second long, I feel like they tell much bigger stories.

And as the media world goes, this form of video was used in another social issue campaign. Save the Children, an organization dedicated to helping children in need worldwide, created a short film to highlight their campaign to help the children in Syria.

Not only is this film extremely effective in terms of its message, it is an accomplishment in effective storytelling as well. Because the takes are so short, everything needs to be precise. The production design, dialogue, makeup, camera work all have to be exact and planned out to a T. Additionally, each second progresses the storyline. In the beginning, we get exposition: family members and their relationships, the girl's attitude, etc... Then snippets of the war are subtly sprinkled between average days, showing a realistic progression of a country in crisis. Lastly, the symbolism of starting and ending on the girl's birthday really hit home the change not only in the girl, but the world around her. Although the film is a campaign for an organization, I found it impressive as a stand-alone piece.

The Neverending Shot Story

1982. A year of big hair, The Rolling Stones, and a lack of child services intervention. Kidding... kind of. Jeremy Breslau's latest award-winning short film gives us a look into a man's memories of his troubled childhood, and the result is incredible.

From the detailed production design to the flawless camera work, what you get is an astonishing piece of visual art. The film starts in the modern day, with a father putting to bed his scared son in the middle of a thunder storm. From there, we dip into a montage of the father's childhood, where the true filmmaking magic happens.

The camera never stops moving. The entire flashback feels like on long sequence, with seamless transitions and barely any cuts during each memory. I was floored, pausing and replaying each scene, wondering how and where each transition took place. The flashback takes up most of the ten minutes, but you won't be disappointed with any second of it. Here's Jeremy Breslau's "1982":

                                                        1982 from Gina Breslau on Vimeo.

Does the camera work look familiar to you? If you've ever seen the film "Children of Men", that's why. Cinematographer Frank Buono was the man who designed and shot the infamous four minute long, one shot car scene. Here's the clip of the scene, plus a behind the scenes look at the making of it.

Besides Alfonso Cuarón, Buono has worked with filmmakers such as Spike Jonze, Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, and now, with 1982, has obviously proved himself as an accomplished cinematographer. 

The editing, done by Alan Edward Bell, also stood out to me in cooperation with the cinematography. The transitions were fluid and basically seamless. Additionally, although shot with a "real time" feel, Patrick M. Sullivan Jr.'s work on the production design brought a real sense of change, which really drove home the "montage-ness" of the scene. 

Finally, the small, subtle attention to detail truly amazed me. From the scar on the boy's hand to the quick moment where the father lingers his hand on his neighbor's for a second too long, it all seemed natural and not in your face. This only attributed to the "real time" feel, as there were no cuts to exaggerate or emphasize a particular moment in time, which I felt was an excellent decision.

Brasleau is currently in development of his next short film, "The Chaplain". If you want to learn more, you can check it out on his Kickstarter page here.

The Insane Production Design of AMC's 'Mad Men'

I recently finished watching a number of different shows and was in need of something new to sink my teeth (and my rapidly decreasing free time) into. Knowing that I am both into advertising and the 1950s, a friend of mine suggested that I watch Mad Men. I had not previously intended on getting into the series, mostly because of all the hype the show had received over the years. I didn't want to be disappointed if it turned out to be just another run of the mill drama. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong.

Mad Men is a highly stylized and highly entertaining show, created by executive producer Matthew Weiner for AMC. The show's website sums it up well:

"The series revolves around the conflicted world of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the biggest ad man (and ladies man) in the business, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Advertising Agency. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels. The series also depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values."

While the writing is outstanding and the acting spot on, the most impressive aspect of Mad Men is the production design. From the wallpaper to the liquor bottles, everything is hand picked to transport the viewers into the world of New York and LA in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The creative team, guided by Matthew Weiner's vision, responsible for crafting the look of the show is headed by Production Designer Dan Bishop and Art Director Chris Brown. Along with a large team of professionals ranging from graphic designers to historical researchers, the duo makes sure that the show is as authentic as possible. Dan Bishop says in an article,

"...we want to try never to be inaccurate. The question is, did it exist in 1962? Then the next question is, was it in common use in 1962? And then, was it in common use in New York City? Sometimes we will say, "You know what? Probably most people didn't have this in their home in 1960, but this character is modern and up-to-date and maybe they had it shipped in from the West Coast."

An example of this meticulous attention to detail can be seen in the Drapers' kitchen:


Part of the allure of this show is that you are given a glimpse of life in transition between two very different decades: the demure '50s to the wild '60s. The sets and props are designed to change with the times. You can see how the outside world affects the characters' own worlds through both the costume design and the set design. For example, the Drapers' living room gets a makeover in the third season to keep up with the trends of the time. Their original living room is filled with '50s pastels and light floral accents:

When it is redone, the room has a more modern feel with the bold prints and primary colors of the '60s:


Since the show's beginning in 2008, Mad Men has been given awards left and right. The show has won the Excellence in Production Design Award from the Art Directors Guild consecutively for the past four years as well as many Emmy's for "Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series." These prestigious awards and the excellent quality of the show itself will keep it running for many more seasons, which give me many more years of nerding out about antique rotary phones and floral wallpaper.

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Here's a short video piece that talks more about the design choices with Dan Bishop and set dresser Amy Wells:



To read more, try these links:
'Mad Men': Production designer Dan Bishop - latimes.com
'Mad Men' series designer Dan Bishop discusses how he gets the sets so right - washintonpost.com
'Mad Men' Has Its Moment - nytimes.com