CMU School of Drama


Friday, November 06, 2020

Variety celebrates the talents of its Artisans Elite list

Variety: Meet the artisans behind the best looks, VFX, lenses and designs in film and TV in the last year, from sci-fi to contemporary productions, these behind the scenes craftspeople add dimensions and layers to the directors’ vision.

3 comments:

Katie Pyzowski said...

There are a lot of people and a lot of occupations covered in this one article. To be honest, after I read the article title, these were not the occupations I would have associated with the title of “artisan”. I always associate artisan with occupations that physically make things, and wouldn’t think that composers, editors, or cinematographers would fit into that classification. However, I guess the definition of artisan is “a worker in a skilled trade” and that “making things by hand” bit is a secondary part of the definition. I loved getting to read about composers – sound design in film and TV is really neat and essential to how we subconsciously interact with those forms of media. Like Nathan Barr’s synopsis mentions, it's the sounds that the audience doesn’t notice that makes the most impact. I read an article once about how the music in horror movies is crafted specifically to raise your heart rate to make you more spookable for when the scares in the movie happen. And I think all of that is really neat.

Ariel Bernhard said...

I like the use of the word artisans in this article. The article highlights a variety of names, many of which I hadn’t heard of and do not get nearly as much credit as they deserve. Reading about a variety of design choices from color to lens selection for cameras was very fascinating. I watch The Mandalorian and yes it is partially on me for not familiarizing myself with the wider names of those who contribute to the design, but I had not heard of Barry Idoine in relation to his LED contributions that are vital to the show being what we see on screen. I had heard of most of the composers highlighted in the article. This article also encouraged me to think about how even in animation, those who design the attire, are the costume designers. It was really nice to see make up designers, stunt coordinators, editors, and more getting recognition as well. There should be more articles like these which hopefully are given enough attention to give the production teams what they deserve. They are integral to the production, everyone is, and they deserve to be recognized for their work.
-Ariel Bernhard

Taylor Boston said...

This is content I enjoy learning about reading, as opposed to actors and directors. It's not often that these people are put into the spotlight, and reading this was interesting and informative. A lot of these medias I have not seen, but, for instance, I have seen "Over the Moon" and reading that due to it's digital nature, the costume designer was able to recreate ancient brocades that might not have been able to be reproduced on physical fabric was something that I think is fascinating and not something that I had thought about when creating outfits for digital characters. Reading about the Masked Singer was nice as well, because the costumes that are worn is definitely a talking point of the series. I do wish that there was more detail about what these people have worked on and maybe some videos for each person as opposed to only some. It always seems that it's the actors and directors that get so much more when these lists are created, and the same respect should be given to SFX people as well. Even the Hall of Fame could have had more details, as I don't think many people will go beyond this article to research these people and their works.