Stiegelbauer outbid his competitors.
Friday, April 12, 2019
SNL Sets are Built at Frenzied Pace in Brooklyn
Stiegelbauer outbid his competitors.
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Stiegelbauer outbid his competitors.
Stiegelbauer outbid his competitors.
13 comments:
I am someone who likes to believe that I can work fast, or that I can work well under pressure. However, hearing about the job of this contracted company, who really do have to work lightning fast, and under immense pressure, I don't think I could ever do it. The article starts off with Stiegelbauer saying that other companies wouldn't understand how to work for SNL, and that sounds incredibly valid. For all of the departments they reuse what they can, but they have to work fast and efficiently in order to create actual products for a show, with a timeline from two days to perhaps even hours. It's no secret that SNL is a crazy show, and it takes a lot of cooperation and planning on everyones part. Having practice and experience makes the process go smoother. Being able to witness CMU's own shop (which of course is for school theater, not a commercial television company) a lot of time goes into planning - plus there are school hours which aren't actual shop hours. In this shop people are there for much longer hours. I'm sure it's probably a rush to build and create sets so fast, and I applaud the type of people that find some enjoyment in this line of work.
This is an absolutely crazy process to me. The fact that this shop turns around over a dozen sets within a day seems unreal. Through the video, I can see how much of the process is motivated by excitement and adrenaline, but there must also be a hefty amount of organization that allows the process to run smoothly. I’m sure this shop has continued to be hired since the conception of the TV show because they have an excellent team that communicates well under pressure. This is a prime example of how key communication is, especially when a last-minute change could be added at any moment—and it could imply an entirely new set to be designed, processed, built, and delivered. I love seeing the team test set pieces in the marked-out elevator dimensions to see if it would fit in every choke point. It shows how this team in sync and constantly thinking ahead.
The work they do is really something. It really must take a toll on people having to do that regularly. They quite literally build sets, or course not in their entirety, within hours for them to then be transported and installed. That is quite a day and quite a job. While it is amazing, it just seems like a burn out process. That isn’t a way to live, to work, or to believe. It also appears the scenic company is pretty much only working for SNL. I can’t imagine they have too many other larger projects if they do this frequently. They have also seemed to turn into a storage facility. They house rugs and cars, and other items just for SNL. This is great if you are SNL or if that’s all you want to do. However, it just seems odd and uncomfortable. It also appears to be a negative working environment having to exist solely for the beck and call of SNL. The owner even explains that others can’t outbid them because they don’t get it, I think it’s the other way around. This company doesn’t seem to be in it but rather, they just do it.
This is so crazy; the whole process seems totally exhilarating and fun but also just completely exhausting. I am in awe of this shop for being able to build and move so many sets in such short amounts of time. To make this effective, the whole team must be so streamlined and work so well together in order to avoid communication issues and make sure that everything goes smoothly and, if there is an issue, it can be fixed quickly. I can’t quite tell if this process would be just completely draining or if the people involved actually find joy in this work but, from the outside, the process seems completely fascinating. I think these people, while it may be incredibly difficult, must have found themselves in an environment and a group of people that works together perfectly and, while it may feel constrictive, this is the kind of working environment that I hope to be in one day.
Working in this navy yard in Brooklyn must be exhilarating. I would love to see what the technical design process is for these sketch sets. How detailed of a design do these people receive? How detailed are the technical designs? How does they break up the process amongst personnel? By this I mean, does one person or one group of people get one set or unit and then tech design and build it, or are there people that tech design, and others that build? Since time is sort of of the essence, do units even get full draftings? Not only is getting things complete in the very small window important, but so is completing things at a high quality. It must help to have so many pieces to reuse, but even still, the people in this navy yard must be very skilled. I would be interested in getting to watch their process start to finish.
Over spring break, I got the chance to go see SNL which was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. SNL has been my favorite show for the longest time, and I had been watching it every saturday night with my parents in the living room. It a show that’ll never die because it evolves with society, and it is ever changing. One of the highlights of the show as the transitions from scene to scene. Each stage flat had multiple different sides and versions of the scene on them. Each transition took about 30-45 seconds and asked for at least 5-7 people per flat. This meant undressing the set and furniture and flipping the flat to the right position and the connecting them all in only half a minute. It was evident that the transitions alone were so heavily choreographed and rehearsed that they could do all of the so confidently and successfully.
Wow, that sounds immensely stressful. In theatre, there is a bit of a “mudge” factor; as often as not, the audience is far enough away that small errors do not read. In film, however, that is certainly not the case, particularly in the age of ultra high definition cameras and televisions. I imagine that the company, besides having a vast array of stock scenery and props, must have a great deal of stock materials on site. Although it is certainly easier to get specialty construction items in New York than in Pittsburgh, for example, if they are building on Saturday they are likely to be severely limited in what they can purchase. I imagine that the first thing that happens is a major adjustment of the designs such that the majority can be pulled from available stock, but the video also shows a carpenter building some sort of lectern - actual furniture - from scratch. I imagine that all the painting happens overnight at 30 Rock once the sets have been installed.
I am simultaneously in awe of and worried by this process. I'm in awe of it because it is so incredibly efficient. There must be a huge amount of planning, communication, and dedication going into absolutely every aspect of these sets. I’ve often thought about the design process for these sets and how quick they have to be thought about and designed, but I never really gave much thought to the building side. I love watching the Snl changeover videos, to see the run crew in action working with the set.Yet at the same time, I can't help but feel that doing this quantity of work on a regular basis is not necessarily something that can alway be healthy. I know personally this would be super exciting, but there seem no room for error or self care. When your working that hard, the product has the risk of becoming ultimate thing in like when in reality it's the health and safety of the people, not work. This I see in the student population and myself when time is tight. I truly hope in all of their complicated amazing systems they have obviously put a lot of thought into they have left room for the people to thrive and not suffer.
This level of frenzy really takes a great resource and a lot of efforts on management side of the shop. The schedule of the shop must be rely heavily on through out understanding of how fast work can be done on designated group of crew. Personally I really enjoy their attitude towards efficiency, there are many times in the short video that people are emphasizing their tight schedule and seemed satisfied with it. Getting the job done is always a great slogan for the commercial scene shop, and SNL pushed it quite far into the customization. The part of the interview about the revision of the set surprised me a lot. The shop is definitely going through a lot of remake and redesign about the set. The pressure in such timeline could be devastating to other styles of shop management. But in this article I can feel that SNL is one that survived and thrived in New York's competitive entertainment industry.
As Chase said wow this seems stressful. SNL had always been a wondrous program to me ever since I was a little kid but as I have moved into this field and I have seen and started to understand the work that goes into a program like SNL more and more. i can't think of another place that the level of the work needs to be as high as it is in SNL. In most film and television the timeline is so long and has so many people involved that every detail can be carefully thought-out and worked through so that they are done perfectly for however the film needs it. There is no 40 foot rule like there is in theatre where we can cut things down in the name of time. For something like SNL the details and the execution needs to be spot on so that no expense looks skipped when shown on tv.
Many of us like to put on our resumes that we do well in fast-paced environments and thrive under pressure, but I’m not sure how many of us would actually be able to handle working somewhere like this. I’d previously seen videos of scene changes happening on SNL and been overwhelmingly impressed with the speed, coordination, and preparation of the crew members doing the scene shifts, but hadn’t thought about where all the different sets were coming from- it’s really interesting to learn that the entire design and build process occurs at a similarly fast pace. Having read several articles recently about the stress culture and overworking common in the theater industry, I hope this is a sustainable working environment and that the pace doesn’t burn out their workers instantly. There clearly is a huge amount of organization and teamwork that goes on to make not only the sets but every part of SNL possible, and every time I hear more about it I get more impressed.
This is yet another thing that makes Saturday Night Live so impressive to me. I have always been in awe of how quickly they are able to turn over their writing and creative ideas. There week long process is a crazy, hectic tornado that they do over and over again every week. The sets are no different really. Now granted, their sets are never anything outlandish or extremely impressive, but the fact that they are able to pull off so many variations on such short notice is really impressive. Two days is a crazy short build time for anything let alone multiple different sets that all have to finished at the same time. Their paints department must have to pull crazy hours too in order to get everything finished and dried on time. That is really the most mind bending part of this, because some paint treatments can take days or even weeks to finish, but this team has two days to go through build and paints.
I would love to walk through the space that SNL's sets are built in. Just from the image alone, it actually reminds me a lot of the shop that we have here at Carnegie Mellon. I can't imagine what an average day might look like, with different backdrops and Scenic elements whizzing in and out of that giant space. the statistic that a typical 10 truck loads heads to 30 Rock on most Thursdays with more moving out on Friday is really insane. They also mention that everything is out of the warehouse by Friday night so that it can be loaded in all day on Saturday, which makes me wonder if they even rehearse in the space on the set before the show. This is what makes SNL so interesting to me - there is no other show that is still producing this much at this high of a caliber every single week during the season.
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