This is how Colin Irwin, a production designer, starts his projects:
First I read the script to get a feeling for the story and try to find something that summarizes what the script says to me. Then I pull out research material. I keep a cutting file from Architectural Digest, Metropolitan Home, and whatever magazines that have inspirational material. For specific information, I go to reference libraries.
Now that you have a pile of research material staring you in the face, the time has come to sort it. There it is—books, photographs, clippings, fabric samples, color chips, family albums, and some catalogs. First, organize the pile so that you can find what you need for each set.
Here are some general categories:
Iowa, general landscape
Small towns (general)
Houses, exterior (Patty)
Houses, interior (Patty)
Newspaper offices (Richard)
Kitchens, 1939 (Mrs. Harrison)
Parks, Iowa small town
Hotel rooms (Sweden)
Go through the pile and place the material in subject-labeled folders. Then, while you’re making sketches, you can find individual categories without having to sift through the entire stack. Clear some flat workspace in your vast studio or on the breakfast bar where you can lay out the folders.
Iowa, General Landscape
For this project, the general landscape material will be of limited use because most of the sets are interiors. The things in this folder will be useful when it’s time to find or create backings to use outside doors and windows. If this were a film feature, this file would be one of the most useful because a film production on location would be concerned with the appearance of the landscape more than a studio production with just interior sets.
The most we will need to see of the landscape – other than generic scenes used as stock program opening establishing shots – are some glimpses through doors and windows and in the park scenes to be shot on the stage. If individual houses seen in exterior photography are identified as places where specific characters live, you will need to take detailed photographs of these structures from many angles in case you will need to reproduce portions of them on stage.
Small Towns, General
The material in this folder is similar in nature to the general landscape group, but it shows buildings and architectural style and detail, again useful for background design and painting.
Most old towns undergo “modernization” along the way. If you were to design these lower facades to look like their original condition, what would you do to alter them?
Is this a contemporary house design, or an updated old house? What do you see in this photograph that makes you think so?
Houses, Exterior (Patty)
Look at the forms of the houses, and the materials, colors, and textures created by occupants and weather conditions. Is the house covered with aluminum siding, which is wider than the original wood siding? Has the house been painted many times, revealed by peeling coats of paint? Is the house in keeping with Patty’s background as you know it from the script? What kinds of downspouts, roof surfaces, and chimneys do you see? Is the house well-kept? What kind of shrubbery grows around the house?
Houses, Interior (Patty)
Our study of the script tells us that only the front hall, the inside of the front door, and the living room will be needed for the pilot episode. This does not mean that you cannot use elements from other rooms if they seem appropriate and useful for the two areas you need to create. Patty’s living room might be a combination of old and new, because this is the house in which she has lived all her life. Therefore, the room would probably contain old and new furniture and objects.
Look at the walls and windows in your research photographs. Houses change and have their own personalities. Do you see a combination of tall older windows and aluminum-framed picture windows? Are the walls papered? What are the colors and patterns? Has someone installed printed wood panels over the original wall surfaces? What kinds of moldings show at the baseboards and door frames? Are the floors carpeted wall-to-wall or does wood flooring show around the edges of area rugs?
Study the ceilings because you may want to include portions to keep the cameras from overshooting the upper parts of the set. Observe the styles of furniture in your photographs. Perhaps Patty’s old sofa would have been reupholstered in a contemporary fabric.
Newspaper Offices (Richard)
When Richard took over the newspaper building, how would he have changed it? Would he have left the inside and outside as he found it? Once again, imagine his character, age, and future hopes as described by the scriptwriter. How would he alter the office and living quarters?
Because the previous owner retired at the age of 75, he probably was still using the same typesetting equipment and press he had started out with. Richard might put in more contemporary devices. His living quarters would reflect his all-absorbing interest in the business but not so much in his quarters.
Mrs. Harrison’s Kitchen (1938)
Back into the past with this set. You have found reliable research material and have studied it thoroughly, watching out for the old demon – the new toaster in the old set.
Pay attention to the windows in the research photographs. Curtains and frames help establish a sense of time. You will need a backing outside the windows, so think about using a wood fence in front of a stock generalized small town scene. Perhaps a miniature water tower between the fence and the backing would help give depth to the exterior view.
Refer to the script to see if the characters enter and exit through interior doors. If they do, provide suitable wild (movable) walls that the camera can see through open doors.
Parks, Small Town
Instead of walls, floor, and ceilings, these photographs show ground, sky, and vegetation. To be convincing, exteriors on stages call for much thought and skill. If you try to get by with some plastic tree trunks and wrinkled grassmats, expect to hear cries of rage from the director. Select research material that shows examples of local vegetation. Remember that avocado trees do not grow in Iowa parks.
Don’t try to create a forest. Create the illusion of a larger park using economical means such as foreground shrubbery and overhead branches. The audience will believe that the rest of the trees and shrubs are just outside the picture. If the plantings do not have to be in place for more than a day or two, cared-for live plants will work. Realistic artificial plants are more practical, and chemically preserved natural foliage is available at larger production centers.
Look at the ground surfaces in your photographs. A park can have large areas of gravel or concrete, which is a way to avoid the wrinkled grassmat disaster. Some stages at large studios have real dirt floors, but because you may not have that advantage, think of ways to cover a vinyl-covered stage floor so that it “reads” as grass, dirt, or concrete.
What do you see beyond the ground surface? A possibility is a view of the town in the distance, depicted on a painted backing. Another could be a building beside the park coming into the camera frame at an angle.
If you decide to use a backing, think carefully about how to blend the ground surfaces into the painted scene so that the camera does not see an obvious line where the ground meets the sky. A built-up hill can solve that problem, or irregular rows of shrubbery, which diminish in size as they move away from the camera. Be sure that the lighting director does not allow the shrubbery to cast shadows onto the painted backing.
Place some three-dimensional objects in the set to give the director and actors opportunities for action. A set of swings, some benches, a water fountain, and picnic tables will provide visual interest as well.
Hotel Rooms, Sweden
Proceed the same way, from general to specific, with this set. The hotel might be an old building. Find furniture that says Sweden. A tile corner stove would say a lot about the locale. What do old Swedish hotel windows look like? How are they different from American hotel windows?
If you can’t find a backing that depicts a Swedish city, perhaps you can squeeze the set budget to permit having one painted from your research photographs. If this lavish approach is not possible, put a piece of tiled roof outside the window with the sky showing behind it. Would it be too much to put an appropriately sized Swedish flag waving in a concealed electric-fan breeze above the roof? If the little water tower worked outside Mrs. Harrison’s kitchen window, a flag might do the job in Sweden.
All research material does not have to be of specific objects or places. Production designer Larry Miller uses general material for inspiration:
Sometimes I find a picture that has just the right color sense for the film, but has nothing to do with the story. When I can’t decide on a color for something, I can go to the picture and find the answer.
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Now that you have some visual ideas rattling around in your head, put them together and make them visible to others. Turn to the next chapter to see how.