The Art of Television Production and Design - part 4

Summary

The speaker discusses the intricate design process of reality TV shows like Hell's Kitchen, emphasizing the challenge of creating believable environments. They highlight the importance of dedication and hard work in the industry, valuing team members who go beyond limits to achieve the best results. The speaker also shares insights on assembling a crew, adapting designs for live audiences, and the fast-paced nature of TV production. They recount personal experiences, including career opportunities and the variety within TV design compared to other fields.

Takeaways

• 🎥 The speaker finds reality shows like 'Hell's Kitchen' satisfying because the environment, while not real, must be believable, and it only gets one chance to be set up perfectly.
• 🍴 Success is measured when audiences believe the set is real, as shown by people flying to L.A. to visit 'Hell's Kitchen,' thinking it's an actual restaurant.
• 💪 When building a crew, the most important trait is dedication and the ability to think creatively and work hard to find solutions.
• 🎨 The speaker emphasizes attention to detail in design, noting how they went through many fabric samples for 'Hell's Kitchen' until they found the right one.
• 🏆 'Hell's Kitchen' has received four Emmy nominations, making it the only reality show to achieve nominations for design, a testament to the team's meticulous work.
• 👥 Surround yourself with people who lift their weight and match the project’s needs, and don’t hesitate to replace someone if they aren't the right fit.
• 🔧 Use people according to their strengths—one art director excels at design, while another is great at managing the technical aspects of the set.
• 🎭 Designing sets for live audiences introduces new challenges, such as managing audience shots and avoiding distracting scenes like people sleeping on camera.
• 📅 The TV industry operates at a fast pace, and opportunities must be seized quickly. The speaker got their big break by being available immediately for a project.
• 🌍 Location shooting varies depending on the type of show, with many TV stages located in and around Hollywood. However, reality shows may film in diverse locations, such as Fiji, Hawaii, or Mexico.

Q & A

What distinguishes reality shows from sitcoms in terms of set design?

Reality shows, unlike sitcoms, create environments that have to be believable and realistic for the participants, even though they are not entirely real. In sitcoms, the audience knows it's a fake environment, but in reality shows, the set must convince people it's real, even to the point that people leave tips at the fictional Hell's Kitchen.

What characteristics does the speaker value when putting together a production crew?

The speaker values dedication and hard work. He looks for people who are resourceful and don't give up when facing challenges. They should be willing to keep searching for solutions, such as finding the right fabric for a set, and continue working until the project reaches the desired level of quality.

What advice does the speaker give about dealing with crew members who aren’t the right fit for a project?

The speaker suggests making changes when needed. If a person isn't a good fit for a project, it’s better to have an honest conversation and replace them early, allowing both parties to work in environments where they can thrive. This can be done in a nice way, preserving the relationship for future opportunities.

How does the process of designing a set for a live audience differ from designing for a typical show?

While the core of the set design remains the same, the presence of a live audience introduces additional challenges. The designer has to consider factors like audience shots, lighting for the audience, and how to avoid showing people who may be disengaged, such as those who fall asleep.

What is the importance of being available when opportunities arise in the TV industry?

In the TV industry, opportunities come up quickly, and people are often needed immediately. The speaker highlights that when he first got the chance to work in TV, he was only available because his architecture firm gave him time off. He emphasizes that you need to be ready and say yes quickly, as opportunities can pass by fast.

What advantages does the speaker see in working in TV compared to architecture?

The speaker finds TV more fulfilling because of the variety it offers. He has worked on hundreds of shows and thousands of sets in 17 years, something that isn’t possible in architecture. TV also allows for more creative freedom without having to deal with the limitations of building codes and regulations.

How does the speaker approach the reuse of set designs?

The speaker prefers not to reuse sets exactly as they were, as each show has different requirements. However, he acknowledges that he uses similar tools and techniques across different projects, like backlighting and layered textures, but he adapts them to fit the unique theme and tone of each show.

What factors influence the location choice for TV shows, according to the speaker?

The location for a show is often chosen based on convenience for the executive producers. Proximity to their homes or offices is a big factor. The speaker mentioned that a location for 'Master Chef' had to be changed because the head of Fox was uncomfortable with the initial location in South Central Los Angeles.

Why does the speaker emphasize attention to detail in set design?

Attention to detail is crucial because it contributes to the overall believability of the set. For example, in Hell's Kitchen, the team focuses on every detail, including fabric choices, to make the environment convincing. This attention to detail is one reason the show has received multiple Emmy nominations for design.

What are the challenges of designing sets for reality shows in various locations?

Designing sets for reality shows like 'Endurance' can be challenging due to the diverse and often remote locations, such as Fiji, Mexico, or the Sierra Nevada mountains. The location must be suitable for the show’s theme, and the design has to adapt to the natural environment, adding complexity to the set design process.

Outlines

00:00

🎥 The Delicate Reality of Design in TV Shows

The speaker discusses their experience working on reality shows like 'Hell's Kitchen' and contrasts them with sitcoms. Unlike sitcoms, reality shows require the design to feel real, even if the environment isn't. The speaker takes pride in the authenticity of the designs, sharing an example of visitors mistaking the 'Hell's Kitchen' set for a real restaurant. The importance of dedication, creativity, and teamwork in the design process is emphasized, along with ensuring the right people are placed in the right roles.

05:01

😴 Audience Participation in Live Sets

The speaker talks about the challenges of designing sets for live audience shows. Managing audience engagement is crucial, as having inattentive or bored audience members on camera can be detrimental. There are also additional costs and logistics in lighting and accommodating a live audience, which presents unique design challenges. The speaker reflects on the fast-paced nature of the television industry and the importance of being available for work on short notice.

10:05

🚀 Grabbing Opportunities in the TV Industry

This paragraph recounts the speaker's journey into the TV industry from architecture. A missed opportunity with Bruce Ryan led to a six-month wait before another chance arose, which the speaker grabbed quickly. The lesson shared is to be ready for unexpected opportunities and not to overthink potential projects, as they may be the break needed. The speaker contrasts the flexibility and variety of TV set design with the more rigid structure of architecture, sharing the excitement of constantly working on new and diverse projects.

🌍 Adapting Set Designs for Different Shows

The speaker explains that while tools and techniques may remain the same, each set design is unique and tailored to the theme of the show. 'Hell's Kitchen,' for example, has a consistent design language that evolves with each season, but the overall tone stays the same. The speaker notes that while some designers are known for repeating a strong visual style, they prefer to adapt each set to fit the specific show’s needs.

📍 Location and Logistics of Set Design

This paragraph delves into the practicalities of where TV shows are shot, largely depending on proximity to the producers or executives. The speaker shares examples of filming in Hollywood, various theaters, and remote locations like Fiji and Mexico. The location often depends on the convenience of those in charge, which can sometimes lead to significantly increased costs, as seen with a 'Master Chef' set moved from South Central LA to Marina Del Rey for the comfort of Fox executives.

Keywords

💡Reality shows

Reality shows are unscripted television programs that capture real-life situations and interactions among participants. In the script, the speaker highlights the authenticity required in designing for reality shows like 'Hell's Kitchen,' where environments must appear realistic to both the audience and participants. The speaker considers reality shows a design challenge because they are not scripted like sitcoms, and there are no retakes.

💡Hell's Kitchen

'Hell's Kitchen' is a reality cooking competition show that serves as a prominent example throughout the script. The speaker emphasizes the meticulous set design required to make the restaurant environment believable. The fact that people visit thinking it's a real restaurant is a marker of success for the design team, showing how well the set imitates reality.

💡Dedication

Dedication refers to the commitment and hard work necessary for success, particularly in demanding fields like television set design. The speaker stresses that no matter the type of show, success requires persistent effort. For example, the crew on 'Hell's Kitchen' tirelessly searches for the perfect materials until they find what works best for the design, illustrating their dedication.

💡Design language

Design language refers to the cohesive aesthetic elements and styles that create a consistent visual identity for a show. In 'Hell's Kitchen,' the design language is marked by warm woods and consistent tones, even though the plan and finishes may change. The speaker explains that maintaining this consistent design language is key to creating a recognizable and immersive environment for viewers.

💡Audience interaction

Audience interaction refers to the role that the live audience plays in the dynamic of a TV show. The speaker discusses how audience involvement can affect set design, particularly in shows where the audience surrounds the set, like 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.' The challenge is balancing the need to showcase the audience with the visual appeal of the set while avoiding issues like sleeping audience members detracting from key shots.

💡Use of strengths

This concept involves assigning tasks to team members based on their specific skills and strengths. The speaker provides examples of how they utilize different art directors for their particular talents—one for his design sense and another for managing the show efficiently. This strategy ensures a smoother workflow and higher quality output, as everyone works in their area of expertise.

💡Set design

Set design involves creating physical spaces that reflect the theme and tone of a television show. In the script, the speaker emphasizes how the design of sets like 'Hell's Kitchen' is integral to the show's believability. Set design must be carefully thought out to ensure it enhances the storytelling and the audience's immersion.

💡Timing and availability

In the television industry, opportunities often arise suddenly, requiring immediate availability. The speaker recounts personal experiences where being ready to start a project on short notice led to career-defining moments. They emphasize that missing an opportunity by even a day could mean losing the chance to be part of a significant project.

💡Creative problem solving

Creative problem solving refers to the ability to think beyond conventional solutions to overcome challenges. In the script, the speaker discusses how finding the right fabric for 'Hell's Kitchen' required sending the team out multiple times until they found something that worked, demonstrating persistence and creative thinking to meet the design's needs.

💡Environment realism

Environment realism is the degree to which a television set convincingly mimics real-world settings. For reality shows like 'Hell's Kitchen,' creating a set so realistic that people mistake it for an actual restaurant is a major goal. The speaker highlights this as a design success, showing that the immersive environment is critical for audience engagement in reality TV.

Highlights

The speaker discusses how reality TV shows like Hell's Kitchen create a believable environment, despite being artificial settings.

Reality shows differ from sitcoms because they cannot reshoot scenes, making the design process more challenging.

Success in set design is when the environment is so convincing that people mistake it for reality, such as tourists visiting Hell's Kitchen thinking it's a real restaurant.

Dedication and hard work are key qualities the speaker looks for in a team, especially when faced with challenges like limited resources.

Set design involves a meticulous process, such as searching for the perfect fabric, with an emphasis on persistence and attention to detail.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of using people's strengths when assembling a team, mentioning how different art directors excel in different tasks.

Live audience sets present unique challenges, such as managing audience behavior to avoid distractions on camera.

Set design for live audiences requires strategic placement and lighting to balance between audience interaction and the televised action.

Television production is fast-paced, requiring designers to be ready to start projects immediately when opportunities arise.

The speaker's career shift from architecture to TV design highlights the flexibility and variety in television, compared to the rigid and slow process in architecture.

In TV set design, there is freedom to experiment with new ideas every week, unlike in movies or architecture where projects can last for years.

The speaker points out that some set designs are unique to their shows, such as the distinctive design language of Hell's Kitchen.

While certain techniques and tools are reused across different shows, each set is tailored to the theme and tone of the specific program.

Location plays a crucial role in set design, with proximity to executive producers' homes or offices often influencing decisions.

Sometimes, production decisions, such as choosing a set location, are influenced by factors unrelated to design, such as the executives' comfort with the area.

Transcripts

you know, it did delights me, the delicacy of which the the little features came

out at

you know in the bigger picture I'd have to say things like Unanimous

uh... Hell's Kitchen

The reality shows in a way, have been most satisfying to me because

the shows that I do in reality are not shows

like in a house or with a camera shooting on the street

they're an environment that is clearly not real but it has to be real

so unlike a sitcom where it you know it's fake

these episodic shows which, they try to be fairly realistic too

uh... but these are environments where it's not an actor

uh... that's pretending, it's not a

you know situation where you can yell cut let's take that shot again

you have one shot at really getting the environment right

and that it's it's there for on month while everybody interacts with it

and uh... and that to me I think is really the ultimate in terms of

design

is it good enough to be believable by anybody walking in

we have people who go to Hell's Kitchen and

they leave a tip

you know they get out of their they they fly in to L.A. they ask the cabby to bring'em to Hell's

Kitchen because they want dinner

they don't realize it's not a real place

to me that's success

STUDENT: So if you were putting a crew together to go do

something like Endurance

What would you look for?

What kind of characteristics do want in the people that are around you?

Well I think number one is uh...

dedication none of these shows are easy you know it doesn't matter really whether sitcom

or a reality

They all take a lot of hard work and

you know you want you want the people that

will not stop at oh, you know

there's one roll of fabric left in town

you want people who think beyond

this is the only answer or this is the one solution

I don't have anything else

you know it's it's just the comes back to working hard if that's not genius

99% of the time it's just

working at it, working at it, working at it,

you know and

I can't tell you how many fabric samples we've gone looked at for

like Hell's Kitchen

until we find the right one

and I'd just keeps sending my people out until they find one that we all like

most importantly that I like

and um...

and they go do it with a smile

because they know it matters

you know they know in the end

all the pieces have to come together

to to bring it to that level and that show has four emmy nominations so far

and which is you know there's no reallity show to get any nominations for design that's the

only one and it's because we

deal with it that way, to the littlest detail

and those are the people that you want to surround yourself with

so when your crewing up a little show

you know, hopefully you can hire a friend

but make sure the guy is lifting his weight, otherwise hire somebody else

or if you get in a situation where

you're in a show and

there's a personality that isn't the right fit for it

save yourself a lot of agony, save that person a lot of agony, say look

I'm gonna replace you, you don't need to be unhappy here

we need you at hundred-percent

let's make this split now and work together another day

nothing wrong with that

but save yourself the trouble

make the changes when you need to, you can do it in nice way and and work together with

that person where they're at their strength

and I try to use my people where they're strengths are, I have one Art Director that

I designed with because he is a great design sense

he understands what I'm thinking.

I've got another Art Director that I use to run the show

Kevin

on Hell's Kitchen I think you guys might have met him

uh... because he's really great at at all functioning pieces on stage

Robert on the other hand who with designs me

that's not his forte

use people to their strengths they're gonna be a lot happier,

you're gonna be a lot happier, you have a better product

Student: When you design sets that have a live audience. How much different is the process?

um... you know it

it's not a lot different um... because the primary action

is still whats being televised

but, what you suddenly have to contend with than is

you know, do you have audience shots do you have

you know it also depends on how you incorporate the audience, some shows

you want the audience like uh... uh... you know millionaire where the audience's wrapped

around set

well then it becomes a really big issue

but there's a handful of challenges with that

you know some folks in the audience

fall asleep in the middle of the show

you don't want that behind your host on camera

so uh... you you try to work it in in in a strategy where you can get them when

you want them

but not in a way that that the damages a key shot

and uh... you know right now it's all the rage to put audience all the way around

a set but there's there's a lot of the issues to it, it's expensive because, you gotta buy

that audience most the time

still gotta light that audience

and that you know if they're sleeping

it's um

it's a bad look

so there's techniques for it but

the core of the set, more or less stays the same

you starting on sunday

yeah

the uh... you got there at all you know in advance

uh... you know this business is funny

when somebody wants you, they want you instantly they want you for a project tomorrow, we work

in a very fast pace

uh... and so you have to be ready and available you can't

go, well you know, I'm surfing today

I can do it monday

they want you, they want you now

and when I first got the call from uh... Bruce Ryan

it was a wednesday and I had that I was working in architecture firm and he needed a model

for some T.V. show and I said look I can't

can't do it uh... you know tomorrow I can do it saturday, sunday, over the weekend and he

said promptly said

well there's another guy I've worked with before, I already know what kind of work I'll get from him

he's also available only on the weekend. I'll just go with the guy I know, thank you, good bye

but send me, you know

here's my FAX number, FAX me a resume

six months later

I get a call

and it's Bruce again

fortunately that very day, the firm that I was working with said, look John, take two weeks off

um we've got a bunch of signed contracts you're done with the elementary school

in Van Nuys

take some time off

phone rings and it's Bruce, Are you available? Can you start tomorrow? Well ya, sure I can

and I went in and I did a model and then guy realize that that uh... coming from architecture

to T.V. the model making was really quite easy

uh... and he said you want to do a show and that was it

uh... but again if I hadn't literally

been told they take two weeks off. I'd probably would've said I can do it for you on the weekend

and it would never have happened

when those opportunities come you got take them quickly you can sit around thinking about it

maybe it's the right one, maybe it's not the right one

but you don't know, until you say yes to it

that's the story

would've been that easy not to be in this business

you know, in looking back, it's like

I couldn't stand doing architects for the last seventeen years and I know I wouldn't

have been driving to work laughing out loud

Student: mumbles

that's probably true

but uh...

anyway it's it to you know it's a terrific career. T.V. for all the little stigma it has

has so much more variety than you can do

uh... in just about any other medium and in the last seventeen years

five designed for I don't know

couple of hundred shows

in

within those shows probably several thousand sets

you don't get that movies

can't do that in architecture

and you don't have to deal with uh... you know building department

nobody cares too much about it, as long as they like the look

and you can try a new thing every week, I'm on my fourth and fifth show of the year

and it's the middle of april

and the good news about that too, is that

sometimes you get on a show that you really can't stand, like Dance Your Ass Off, the

producers were just awful

two months and you're done with it

beats working on a movie for two years and

with people you don't like

STUDENT: How often does a Design get repeated?

STUDENT: You're doing so many, somethings have to come up more than once.

uh... well they don't they don't sit on a shelf and and

and I pull them off

I mean, fortunately each show

each show does have different requirements and again the first thing I look for

is what is this show about

I will never use this set for any other show

you know that background was derived out of the shows theme

you know Hell's Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen is is a character now it's a place it has a design language that

stays somewhat consistent

and that's more in tone

because the plan changes constantly

the that finishes you know change but the sort of

warm woods and whatnot tone

uh... that stays consistent

uh... I'd like to think that although I use a set of tools

the texture the backlight the built-in lighting the layers

I'd like to think that every one of those sets

is different

there are guys that have a really clear design language and they're hired again and again

and again

because they have a really strong visual

it's a different way of marketing yourself if you've got something that people love and it's hot

I find it much more interesting to try to create each show

for what it should be

INAUDIBLE STUDENT QUESTION

well like I said, what would follow through are tools that I use

you know the the the techniques

and hopefully and you know we can go backwards

you know obviously that's not like the last one

nor this

but let's go to a similar show

another game show

same techniques

not at all like

the previous one

extremely not at all like the previous one

but it employ's the same

uh... you know thought process

you know, again the same tools

doesn't look like the last one either

you know

it's not wrong to repeat, I'm mean I'm not inventing reinventing the wheel with any one of these

sets these are all forms and shapes that people used for you know

hundreds of years

it's just how you put them together

you had a question

STUDENT: I was wondering what location do you normally shoot at?

um, you know most of the studios are

in and around hollywood um... it's somewhat depends on the type of show if you're doing

you know music and award shows you're gonna

more often than not be at one of the

real theaters that

you know, The Shrine, or The Kodak

we've been at the Pasadena Civic, Santa Monica Civic

uh... if you're doing stage shows

most of the stages are in, and around hollywood there are now more stages on the west side than in

downtown L.A.

uh... reality shows they can

be anyplace

I mean I've done Endurance in Fiji,

Mexico, Hawaii

the Sierra Nevada's, you know it all depends on what's right for the show

most of the time what determines it is

how close can you get a stage to the executive producers house

so he's less travel time

I'm not kidding about that

it's actually a really big factor

or close their office

in fact

uh... the

Master Chefs set

was sort of south-central, because that was the only place we could find a warehouse that

worked for it, last year

but the head of Fox did not feel comfortable driving to South Central, Los Angeles

so we were forced to find a new location for it and we found one in Marina Del Rey

that worked suitably

uh... it cost

probably over half a million dollars to use that location instead of

one we had been at

but it was for

the executives peace of mind

as this business is kinda crazy

anything else