The Art of Television Production and Design - part 3
Summary
TLDRThe speaker discusses the design process behind TV show sets, emphasizing the balance between functionality and aesthetics. They highlight the importance of collaborating with experts like commercial kitchen designers and lighting directors to create sets that serve both the show's needs and the technical requirements. The speaker also shares insights on working with limited resources, adapting to changes, and the iterative nature of set design, culminating in the concept of 'Tele-Tecture'. They reveal a preference for neutral colors to allow for versatile lighting effects and discuss the significance of architectural training in their career.
Takeaways
- 🏗️ The design of Hell's Kitchen set is a blend of reality and TV production, with hidden-camera aisles and mirrored surfaces to capture everything up close.
- 🤝 Collaboration is key in set design; the speaker brought in experts like Mark Peel and a commercial restaurant designer to ensure the kitchen was both realistic and camera-friendly.
- 🔍 The speaker emphasizes the importance of knowing one's strengths and weaknesses, and when to seek help from others to achieve the best results.
- 🌐 The concept of 'nothing is more than fourteen hours out of your reach' is highlighted, showing the dedication to finding resources anywhere in the world to meet production needs.
- 🎨 The speaker's favorite color for set design is white, as it allows for the most flexibility in lighting and can be transformed into any color needed.
- 🛠️ The process of set design involves creating both 3D computer models and physical models to explore different ideas and refine the design.
- 📐 The use of CNC and VacuForm technology allows for the creation of custom textures and designs that are not limited to existing catalog options.
- 🎭 The speaker discusses the iterative nature of set design, with many revisions and renditions needed to find the right concept that fits the show's theme.
- 💡 The importance of designing a set that is right for the show is emphasized, suggesting that budget cuts should not compromise the core essence of the set.
- 🏫 The speaker reflects on the value of an architecture education for a career in set design, highlighting the skills in historical styles, construction, and communication.
Q & A
What is the key challenge in designing the set for a show like Hell's Kitchen?
-The challenge is creating a set that functions both as a real working space, like a commercial kitchen, and as a shootable environment for TV production. The balance between practicality for chefs and visual needs for cameras is crucial.
Why is collaboration important in TV production, according to the speaker?
-Collaboration is key because no one can do everything alone. The speaker highlights that bringing in experts, like commercial kitchen designers for Hell's Kitchen, ensures the set is functional while also meeting production requirements.
How does the speaker solve issues related to sourcing materials for the set?
-The speaker emphasizes that nothing is more than 'fourteen hours out of your reach,' meaning they are willing to go to great lengths to source materials, even flying items in from different locations like China or Philadelphia to get what’s needed quickly.
Why does the speaker use both computer models and physical models during set design?
-Computer models can sometimes be deceptive because they allow for camera angles that aren't possible in real life. Physical models, on the other hand, offer a more realistic perspective of how the set will look and function, ensuring practical design.
How does the speaker respond to feedback during the design process?
-The speaker revises designs based on feedback, as seen in the example where a love triangle-themed set design evolved from being too stiff and masculine to a more balanced and visually appropriate concept. They experiment with colors, textures, and structures to find the right solution.
What is the speaker’s favorite color for set design, and why?
-The speaker's favorite color is white because it allows for flexibility. White can be lit in various ways to produce different colors on set, giving the lighting designer creative control while maintaining a neutral base.
How does the speaker collaborate with lighting designers?
-The speaker designs the set with the lighting in mind but allows the lighting designer creative freedom. They ensure the set has elements like pockets for lights but trust the lighting designer to choose the colors and placement.
What role does technology like CNC and VacuForm play in modern set design?
-CNC and VacuForm technology allow designers to create custom textures and elements that aren’t limited by existing catalog options. This flexibility lets the designer realize their vision more accurately and efficiently.
What advice does the speaker give about the process of set design?
-The speaker stresses the importance of persistence and constant refinement. Even though some people might nail a design on the first try, most have to go through many iterations, making adjustments based on the show’s needs, camera work, and production feedback.
What background does the speaker believe is beneficial for set designers, and why?
-The speaker believes that an architectural background is very helpful for set designers because it teaches historical styles, how to build things, and how to communicate those ideas effectively to others involved in the production process.
Outlines
🎥 Designing Hell's Kitchen: A Blend of Realism and Set Design
In this section, the speaker discusses the design process behind the show 'Hell's Kitchen.' They describe how the set is built like a real building but designed with hidden camera aisles for filming. The set balances practicality for chefs and shootability for the camera crew. They emphasize the importance of surrounding oneself with experts and knowing when to seek help, such as bringing in a restaurant designer for the first season. The speaker highlights that in television design, nothing is too far out of reach, often involving resourceful methods like flying in materials from distant locations. Ultimately, creating a functional and visually appealing set requires collaboration and continual refinement.
🔄 Adapting a Set for Audience and Theme
This paragraph focuses on the evolution of a set design for a love triangle-themed show. The initial design was deemed too stiff and masculine for the predominantly female audience. Through several iterations, the design shifted to a softer, more feminine look, involving adjustments like changing an 'X' to a 'Y' shape. The speaker explains how constraints, both in budget and aesthetics, lead to creative solutions such as using simple scaffolding and columns. The process involves constant feedback and refinement to meet both the aesthetic and functional needs of the production.
🎨 The Importance of Texture and Lighting in Set Design
In this part, the speaker explains how set textures are chosen and created. Shops often provide catalogs of existing textures, but new designs can also be custom-made using modern technology like CNC and VacuForm. The speaker stresses that creating the right set for the show is paramount, and budget considerations come second. Lighting plays a crucial role, and while the production designer leads the process, collaboration with the lighting designer is necessary to ensure the set is lit effectively. The speaker shares insights on how the design process influences camera placement and overall set functionality.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Set Design
💡Commercial Kitchen
💡Collaboration
💡Lighting Design
💡3D Modeling
💡Physical Models
💡Budget Constraints
💡Fabric Sourcing
💡Tele-Tecture
💡CNC and VacuForm Technology
Highlights
The challenge of designing a real kitchen set for 'Hell's Kitchen' that also functions for filming, balancing practical use and camera needs.
Importance of surrounding oneself with experts in areas outside one's expertise, such as consulting a restaurant designer to ensure authenticity in 'Hell's Kitchen.'
The concept that 'nothing is more than fourteen hours out of reach,' referencing how the crew sourced fabric from a manufacturer in China to meet design needs.
Tele-Tecture: The integration of architecture and television production, constantly evolving sets through multiple revisions to meet creative and practical demands.
The use of both 3D computer models and physical models in set design, with computer models providing flexibility but physical models offering more realism.
The iterative nature of set design, involving multiple versions and revisions to refine the look and feel of a set.
The importance of lighting in set design, particularly how using neutral colors like white allows for flexibility with lighting to create different atmospheres.
Collaboration with lighting designers and directors, ensuring the set design aligns with the camera work and lighting demands.
The balance between aesthetic design and budget constraints, with core elements prioritized and the rest simplified if necessary.
Custom textures and set elements made possible by CNC and VacuForm technology, enabling designers to realize unique concepts beyond standard catalog options.
The role of architectural education in teaching communication, historical styles, and building techniques, which are crucial for set design in television.
The significance of design flexibility, allowing the team to adjust and improve sets even during the building process.
The concept of designing sets for specific themes, such as creating a love triangle-inspired set with symbolic structures.
A key takeaway: the most critical part of set design is ensuring it aligns with the show's concept, as removing budget-dependent elements will still leave a strong core design.
Favorite color for set design: white, as it allows for full lighting customization, giving it the ability to change into any color depending on lighting choices.
Transcripts
hell's kitchen, you guys, some of you guys saw this
really a phenomenal
show that we do
uh... built like a real building
designed like a set
you know there's
hidden-camera aisles, this is all mirrored, goes along the kitchen
You'll see it in the next shot better, so that you can shoot everything up close
uh... its
its designing all of this is mirror
so you can literally stand behind it for those of you who work there
uh...
your your designing a set that has to be real but it also has to be shootable and they're
not always compatible
and its
the balance of figuring out how do you
uh... do that
and this shows also a good example
of number thirteen, no one does this alone, surround yourself with the best people
when I got the show
even though I'm an architect, I don't know how to design a commercial kitchen for a restaurant
so we got Mark Peel who owns Campanile in Los Angeles and we got a commercial restaurant
uh...
designer, and I brought them in, we sat down
I showed what I needed it to do, for camera
and they told me what it needed to do for chefs
they helped us out with season one and we haven't had to use them again
we learned it
but we knew we needed the help
you know it's like
know what your strengths are, know when to get the right people to help you do it
just as important
a couple more shots
this last season's
if you watched it, you maybe familar with it
Nothing in the world is more than fourteen hours out of your reach
Hell's Kitchen is an excellent example that we will get
my decorator will come to me and show me a fabric
and I love it
but there's only one bolt of it, there's thirty yards, we need a hundred
Well, don't tell me that
the factory where ever it is only made one thirty yard bolt
they sent out
hundreds, thousands, of bolts all across the world
find where they are, if one fabric store doesn't have it,
another one will
if no fabric store in LA has it
someone in New York will have it
you know we found a great fabric, that was actually on a pillow case this year
and I couldn't find it anywhere in stores, we called the pillow manufacturer they had thirty yards
the pillow manufacturer gave us the name of the manufacturer in china
so we can get the rest
now nothing is more than fourteen hours out of your reach, that's because
you can fly to china, and get it if you have to
and uh... and believe me I've
flown stuff from China, I've flown stuff from Philadelphia, I've put it on an airliner because
it's faster than overnight
you do what you need to do
so that's kind of the overview, now how I go through a show
and work on TV, I'll give you a run-through quick example of of a small gameshow
I start working and plan
I think three-dimensionaly when I work and plan
I combine it with visual research, magazines, tear sheets, books, my library, go through and
find
images of kind of what I'm thinking of
I create 3-D computer model
and all these things happen simultaneously
I build a physical model. Why do both?
Because a computer model is really good at lying to you.
I can set a camera or lens in a place where you could never do it
in real life
and I can make a phenomenal shot that you will never get
but you can't do that in a physical model
uh... then we draft didn't revise it
we build on stage and
we still adjust it because it's never too late
to make it better
so this is the first sort of rough uh... plan
I knew what the show was
it's a two people
it's a love triangle, somebody has to decide between two people they are two timing
uh... so there's two entrances, there's a host there's the two timer
a place to sit
early computer model
I'm playing with different surfaces, in different textures
on, on, the different pieces
a little more refined, is a little more consistency to
to the the look
and then this is the first one
That we presented to production
uh... they felt it was a little too talk show like, a little too stiff with just columns
um... they wanted something a little more
that played more with the love triangle theme
so the second concept
played with a triangle theme
but they felt, here's rendered version of that,
but they felt, that these mid-ground
structural elements, were a little bit to
strong, that there was a feminine viewership for the show
and that that X was a little too macho
I went through
uh... first let's change the color make it a little softer
that doesn't work
try a different, it's a Y instead of an X
you know make it little a smaller, well now let's get really frilly and make it more feminine
not working for me
you know I've shown you three out of
thirty options I might have gone through
So, I got rid of the problem
I just took them out
but I realize that again, now I've lost my mid-ground
its going to look incredibly flat when I when I do that
so the solution both budgetwise and
you know sort of tone, character wise was
to do a simple set of columns with scaffolding
and that's what the final
renderings looks like, that they bought off on
Instead of just being a column, I cut a circle out of it put a round tube on it. This is actually a
a lighting instrument that goes on the end of it
and then we build the model
look surprisingly like the computer rendering but they did tell us to change the height
on a few things
set of drawings for
typical drawings
everything's elevated
the platform we'd tell the shop how we want the platform more or less structured
and we build it
um... this is sorta halfway through the process not lit
but all the elements there
without lighting it's not much
but when you get to the finished product
it's really pretty,
you know, delicate and and uh... and lacy
very simple set, really
there's a site for background, and change of color
this is just a quarter-inch thick
uh... MDF that
was cut out, in the triangle patterns
laminated with uh... reflective surface
and in the mid-ground of the columns with one more layer to sort of ghostly see-through
and I that can change color
and finally
nothing takes the place of working hard whether it's small show like this
or one of the big ones that I've shown you earlier
I will do
rendition, after rendition, after rendition, until
I find, what I feel, is the right thing
and then I'll present that to our producers
you uh... you know some people are lucky to be totally naturals in the first thing they
put on paper works
most of us are like that
the show's change
the the way they want to block the show and position cameras, changes
you have to keep working at adjusting it
uh... looking at where the opportunities are to create a better set
with every step through the process it didn't matter whether it was the first rendering
uh... you know when we when we start doing the working drawings for for the shop
I put another level of detail in those drawings that aren't in the computer model that aren't
the the physical model
but uh...
so with every step you you try to take it one step forward
and ultimately that's what I call Tele-Tecture
and uh...
hopefully you've learned something that it took me seventeen years to do
and hopefully you find TV is a little
more interesting than the
unglamorous reputation
Student: What's your favorite color?
What works good on TV
um...
you know
I don't, I can't say that I have a favorite color. What my, okay I'll tell
you that my favorite color is white
and
if you look thru
this slideshow, half of those sets
were shades white and grey
and the reason for that is is because
if you
color a set
red, dark blue, whatever
it's more or less going to be those colors
but if you give it shades of color soft toning
then the lighting designer can make it paint red, yellow, purple, whatever color you want
any given moment
and like that last, that last uh... that last set
this is all silver and white there's no color in this set
it's black, silver, and white
Yet, its full of colors
because the way its lit
white is my favorite because you can make anything of it
and my house is the same way, I let sunlight play over it
Student: With all the different wall textures that you have, do you
get an idea for a texture in your mind
and then try to tell a shop to
build it, or like do they have textures setup that you have to decide which one you want?
Both a lot of shops will have a catalog of VacuForm textures that
they have made for other shows that you can
draw off of, there's always brick textures, there's always
uh... you know all kinds of different
existing things
but we'll make, we'll make what we feel is right. I mean the most important thing
you know when you're creating a set
uh... is that you create the right set for the show
and I'd try to do that
not totally without regard to budget but
that to me is the most important thing, because if you get that right
then you can distill set to it's essence
to trim money if you have to
uh... but if the core is right, then if it's missing a couple of pieces for the sake of
budget
it's still going to be fundamentally
the right thing
uh... so you know it completely changes, this was designed out of the need for you know
love triangle theme
and that's the beauty of actually the CNC and VacuForm technology that we have now
you're not limited to what's in the catalog you can think it up, and the shop can make it just
about as easily is using something they already have.
Student: So when you decide on a texture
do you work with the lighting people
or do you just give them ideas?
umm...
no, I mean you don't work with them, you know like, shoulder to shoulder, it's their jobs to light
the set
But, in many ways
you've already
usually, the production designer comes on before they hire a lighting designer and
more often than not
the first thing, more often than not, I'm hired before the director hired.
uh... because we have a longer lead time than a lot of those guys
My first two questions are whose Lighting it and who's Directing it.
Because how I designed it
is going to
uh... affect how somebody shoots it or how somebody wants to shoot it
will affect the set
I need to know the basic Eyelines
uh... you know for a game show or for a sitcom or whatever I'm doing
and uh... so
by the time I've designed a set I've already handed in to both the lighting designer and the director
as to what they can do
I've already determined where there's entrances and where there's exits
uh... you know what's a decent backing, where he's got space to put a camera and where he
doesn't
So, it's collaborative
but you gotta remember that you come first and and so you can steer them in ways
you can give them opportunities. I mean I'll build in
pockets like on that dance your ass off
uh... pockets where you can put lights
and I'll put the lights in
so I've already
told 'em you're gonna turn that on sometime during the show
but you know do I get to choose whether it's purple back there, not necessarily
you know where he hangs his other lights that's up to him
I'll, you know in the middle of the process if we're
doing rehearsals and I really think something isn't right
I'll go and say look can you try a different color on this
it's not feeling good to me.
But, it's his domain and I can't dictate it entirely
Any questions?
Student: If you had to do it over again?
Student: Would you go to Architecture School?
Student: Realizing that you are in fact still an Architect.
Student: But if you got rid of that
part of it, would you have gone to Architecture School or something else?
umm... law school
the uh... look architecture is a great background for what we do it teaches you historical
styles, it teaches you
how to build things, its teaches you how to communicate to other people how to build stuff
uh... you know
which is the single most important thing you got to get an idea out of your head
you gotta communicate it to a client
uh... you've got a then communicate it to a shop
and for the people who actually put it up
uh... as a background for this it's it's a tremendous education
you know as a career path well
goes back to that success matrix
which dollar sign do you really want
I left lawyer off of that, that would have been
ten more dollars signs
Student: What would say was your favorite project?
uh... I enjoy all of them for different reasons
uh... even something this small
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