BFI Academy Day 2 - Production Design and Art Direction in Film

Today, we had our first masterclass with the BFI Academy. It was on production design and art direction in film, and we had a specialist speaker come in to tell us about what she does, what the role involves, and let us try out some stuff on our own.

A production designer is someone who plans, designs, and dresses the sets, who deals with both the background props and the action props (something an actor can use), and who decides on a lot of things, like the colours and the look of a room. To design a set effectively, a production designer should work to suit their actors - a location is almost as important as the character itself; it adds another dimension to them - so, creating a visual extension of the characters is incredibly important when designing a set.

Ken Adams is a very important figure in production design - he designed the set for Dr Strangelove (1964). This is said, by many famous film figures, to be the best set ever designed in film. Ken Adams has a particular talent for drawing, however, this isn't the most important thing when being a production designer - Stuart Craig is the designer for the Harry Potter set, and he had a whole team of people, all of whom had different skills.

In production design, there are quite a few roles.
First, you have the production designer - this person deals with the colour schemes, the props, the set itself, the set dressing, etc.
The supervising art director helps to employ the staff, they look after the budget, and they deal with the general finances.
The art director does the model making, the drawing, and the research into the location.
The standby art director is the person on the set, who looks after things when the filming is going on.

When designing a set, there are many stages.
1. Script analysis - this stage is when a feel for the text can be gained. A very general idea of how the set will look is created.
2. Research - after gaining an understanding of the script, research into colours, furniture, room shapes, props etc. is done.
3. Presenting - this research is then put together into one presentation - usually in the form of a moodboard or scrapbook.
4. Surveying and location - a location is found to create the set in, and a plan is made to see the available dimensions.
5. Design and drafting - an elevation sheet is created - this consists of a birds-eye-view drawing of the set, and the side elevations.
6. Model making - a small, model version of the set is created - in film, the scale is usually 1/4":1', and in the UK and on television, the scale is usually 1:50. Model making is a good way to know how to read the plan - it helps the director, the lighting crew and the cinematographer gain a better understanding of how to light the set, where the characters should be, and how it will look when it's built.
7. Construction - the model is then sent off to a company who build the set. Sets are usually built from 'flats' - these are just single pieces, which can be put together quickly, which is really useful in a location where you don't have much time.
8. Buying and set dressing - this is the stage in which the props and furniture are decided on and bought. Most, if not all props are hired from specialist places called 'prop houses' - there are many of these with a specific theme, such as A+M Hire Ltd., who hire out a lot of period furniture and props. There are also companies who you can hire plants from - greenskeepers are people who look after these on set.
9. Action props and graphics - action props are carefully considered by the director and the art department. You have to be very careful about what you include in terms of products in your props - a general rule in the film industry is that if there are 6 or more brands in shot at the same time, it's okay, but if there's less than that, it is considered product placement, and rights from the company have to be bought. Therefore, during this stage the art department have to be very careful about where they get their props from, and so they often just design their own.
10. Get-in - this is when the set is built in the studio. Final colours and placement of objects is decided - these can be used to make things stand out or blend in, and they can also be very important in revealing things about the characters.

After learning about all the different roles in the art department, and stages in set production, we were told to draw a birds-eye-view plan of the room we were in, to scale. We were given a tape measure, and some squared paper. Firstly, as shown in the picture, we drew a very rough version of the room. We then went round and measured all the walls, and wrote these measurements on the plan. Then, we simply had to draw it onto the squared paper - with the scale, 2 medium squares = 1m. This task was actually a lot harder than we thought it would be - there were a few walls we couldn't actually measure due to furniture being in the way, and so we had to calculate the lengths in a different way. There were also many windows, a lot of angled pieces surrounding them, and a curved wall. However, we did manage to create a fairly accurate to scale birds-eye-view plan of the room, and doing this helped us gain an insight of what designing an actual set would be like.