Based very loosely on the 2013 story of Mayor Rob Ford caught smoking crack on video, a young journalist, Bram (Ben Platt), meets a source who has the video for sale.
Friday, March 06, 2020
Production Designer Chris Crane on Building Sets for ‘Run This Town’
Based very loosely on the 2013 story of Mayor Rob Ford caught smoking crack on video, a young journalist, Bram (Ben Platt), meets a source who has the video for sale.
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I found this article very interesting because I don’t know anything about designing sets for movies. I would love to know more about the different positions and people involved with designing the set for a movie, because form this article it seems like there are so many different people who are involved in choosing the color, designing the set, and having the final say. I think it is really interesting what they did with adding color into the set. They talk about how they chose orange, and I think orange was a good idea because if we are thinking about most offices that are beige, then orange isn’t that off so it is still a recognizable office space, just with some color now. I don’t know what the process is like finding locations to film on if you want to not make a new set, but Crane said they had trouble finding a location so I would like to learn more about this process and maybe why they had trouble.
I don't know anything about this production or the backstory, but having to move away from the colors that we typically see as office colors when this story is realistic is quite that challenge. The reason designers do research and tend to stick to the research and those norms when it is supposed to come off as realistic is because that's what the audience knows. That, those colors, are what we as people associate with an office so when we see that on screen, it would be believable. It's how manipulation is used to a designer's advantage. Having to step away from that brings in the risk of things not looking quite right. It's things like that that causes the production to look off, and you end up not being able to tell what exactly isn't right because it's something unexpected like the colors in the office throwing things off. With that being said, though challenging, it is not impossible. This is where research, inspiration and creativity needs to blend together seamlessly. It takes a good eye and a knowledgeable person to pull this off, and it seems as though Crane did just that. This was a good opportunity to bring in interesting set dressing and props, or even have a less-boring floor treatment. Though the director may have requested color, texture and patterns could have also been used to bring some variety and pull away from the beige, sterile office.
I really like how almost all of this article comes down the the choice to use the color orange. That one simple decision is what has grounded this design and continued to be a point of return any time something was being considered for the set. I appreciate this not only for breathing life into an office space, but also because it shows how something as simple as a color choice can and will have major impacts on the feel of the show. This article also reminds me a lot of a podcast I listened to about 'The Office' and how the setting of that show came to be. Similar to 'The Office', Crane let people stylize their spaces to give a more organic feel to the office space. the discussion of how the space "grew" as they worked on it, which is a very organic way of looking at the design and ensures that it doesn't grow monotonous. This is certainly a different design world from the stage, but in many ways I think we can learn from the film industry and adapt it to our spaces.
This article captures good basics for set design and set decorating. Crane said he made sure that the office desks were all personalized, that if anything is in shot, it is rightfully there. Details and specificity are everything in the film. For this reason, I really respect that the art director and production designer paid attention to many details in the set while designing and building. For example, they made custom desks, pillars, and walls. It all makes the story more convincing. This is so tricky because as soon as something is off, the audience will be able to tell. People are familiar with spaces and it’s easy to spot mistakes and break the world of the story. I very much enjoyed the designers’ choice to add orange. It’s funny how orange was chosen as the color so spontaneously and randomly. Their effort to echo this color in the film is cute too, like adding orange objects on top of the office desks.
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