Hello. No post last week, because life. But I'm back with arms full of wondrous narrative treasures.
One of the cool recent happenings was the set I worked on this past weekend. It was a short film that was being shot at Silver Dream Factory, a funky studio with all sorts of sets that I often had to tunnel through to get from point A to point B, ensuring my life felt like an extremely genre-confused movie.
Since I just sort of arrogantly strut onto sets without any real background or formal education in set design, every set I work on is a guaranteed learning experience. I'm fortunate enough to even have quasi-mentors, aka unnecessarily kind and intelligent production designers who patiently teach me how to do shit. I got recruited on this set by someone I've worked with in the past, who taught me a ton on our last gig and even more on this one.
On this particular set I was not the production designer, but the set decorator. When movies have larger budgets, the art department sometimes gets the luxury of stratifying its responsibilities. Here we had our production designer, the head honcho and final authority (besides the director) on all artistic decisions, the set decorator who gets to do the fun stuff like decide what goes where in the picture, and the prop master who makes sense of the chaotic mess of props and furniture and keeps the most important pieces on hand. Now, I say that divvying up these duties is a luxury, but on this set it was definitely a necessity. We had so much shit, both to do and to keep track of. In the end, three people was hardly enough to undertake our undertakings.
90% of this shoot was wallpaper. Lots. and lots. of wallpaper. Sickening amounts. The surface area we had to cover was unbelievable. And because we couldn't actually apply the permanent adhesive of the wallpaper to the set walls, we had to lay down a complex matrix of painters tape and carpet tape beneath it... essentially, we covered the same four walls three times. Specifically, these walls:
After about 12 straight hours of staring at a wall, getting evil mutant tape boogers stuck to your fingers and scissors, trying to match the edges of wallpaper patterns together, and pretending not to hear the DP's passive-aggressive remarks about how long this is taking, you are sometimes tempted to hate the world and everything inside it. But then, eventually, you step back:
And you think, "Well, we are some bad-ass interior decorating motherfuckers." And you know you are right.
For me, this weekend's shoot had a lot to do with transformation. The above photos are a drastic example, as well as the transformation of the kitchen. The kitchen transition, however, will actually appear in the movie, since there is a flashback that takes place there. Behold:
We also completely redecorated a bathroom, created rain effects with a pvc pipe and a spray bottle, and used a wind machine... which both sounds like and vaguely resembles what Leonardo DaVinci would one day coin "the fan." Because that's exactly what it is.
That's enough of that chatter. Another exciting development is the newest addition to my job collection: agent assistant! Yyyeah buddy, it's official now. I'm working in comedy and comedy development. I go in a couple times a week and talk to stand-up comedians and casting directors and watch comedy reels and it's super fantastic. Plus the perks are bomb diggity. Last night I got into a show at the Laugh Factory for free, where I both watched and met like a metric buttload of big-time comedians. There were a couple exciting drop-ins (speedy comedy vocab sesh: celeb-status comedians who come by the club last minute and say "hey, lemme do some jokes," and then they do) including Dane Cook and Paul Rodriguez. Wut?!
Anyway, that's just me bragging about how great my life is. However, if we're talking full-disclosure honesty the truth is my work-work-life-work balance has been tough, in the sense that it is nonexistent. Between assisting my director, assisting my agent, production designing, being a friend/girlfriend, and requiring clean laundry, I find myself trying to mash my obligations together into a cohesive schedule. I'm going for jambalaya but winding up with succotash.
Every obligation is a conflict for the other, and I can't lie... it's really, really tough.
And out of sheer insecurity I feel the need to end this blog on a high note. Hey, check out this fat squirrel!
One of the cool recent happenings was the set I worked on this past weekend. It was a short film that was being shot at Silver Dream Factory, a funky studio with all sorts of sets that I often had to tunnel through to get from point A to point B, ensuring my life felt like an extremely genre-confused movie.
 |
| But I prefer the term "genre fluid." |
On this particular set I was not the production designer, but the set decorator. When movies have larger budgets, the art department sometimes gets the luxury of stratifying its responsibilities. Here we had our production designer, the head honcho and final authority (besides the director) on all artistic decisions, the set decorator who gets to do the fun stuff like decide what goes where in the picture, and the prop master who makes sense of the chaotic mess of props and furniture and keeps the most important pieces on hand. Now, I say that divvying up these duties is a luxury, but on this set it was definitely a necessity. We had so much shit, both to do and to keep track of. In the end, three people was hardly enough to undertake our undertakings.
90% of this shoot was wallpaper. Lots. and lots. of wallpaper. Sickening amounts. The surface area we had to cover was unbelievable. And because we couldn't actually apply the permanent adhesive of the wallpaper to the set walls, we had to lay down a complex matrix of painters tape and carpet tape beneath it... essentially, we covered the same four walls three times. Specifically, these walls:
After about 12 straight hours of staring at a wall, getting evil mutant tape boogers stuck to your fingers and scissors, trying to match the edges of wallpaper patterns together, and pretending not to hear the DP's passive-aggressive remarks about how long this is taking, you are sometimes tempted to hate the world and everything inside it. But then, eventually, you step back:
And you think, "Well, we are some bad-ass interior decorating motherfuckers." And you know you are right.
For me, this weekend's shoot had a lot to do with transformation. The above photos are a drastic example, as well as the transformation of the kitchen. The kitchen transition, however, will actually appear in the movie, since there is a flashback that takes place there. Behold:
 |
| Dirty scary kitchen |
 |
| Clean un-scary kitchen |
That's enough of that chatter. Another exciting development is the newest addition to my job collection: agent assistant! Yyyeah buddy, it's official now. I'm working in comedy and comedy development. I go in a couple times a week and talk to stand-up comedians and casting directors and watch comedy reels and it's super fantastic. Plus the perks are bomb diggity. Last night I got into a show at the Laugh Factory for free, where I both watched and met like a metric buttload of big-time comedians. There were a couple exciting drop-ins (speedy comedy vocab sesh: celeb-status comedians who come by the club last minute and say "hey, lemme do some jokes," and then they do) including Dane Cook and Paul Rodriguez. Wut?!
Anyway, that's just me bragging about how great my life is. However, if we're talking full-disclosure honesty the truth is my work-work-life-work balance has been tough, in the sense that it is nonexistent. Between assisting my director, assisting my agent, production designing, being a friend/girlfriend, and requiring clean laundry, I find myself trying to mash my obligations together into a cohesive schedule. I'm going for jambalaya but winding up with succotash.
 |
| Seriously. This is how god punishes vegetables. |
And out of sheer insecurity I feel the need to end this blog on a high note. Hey, check out this fat squirrel!
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