From the Production Designer: Project Updates

I’ve been riding with Oakdale 1959 train since the very beginning. I remember when it was called The Emperor, I remember when it was going to be a feature (maybe it still will be), I remember it all. I’ve been in it to win it since the beginning.

Back then, I thought all I’d be working on were technical edits to the script. Little did I know that years later I’d be in charge of the production design, art, social media and marketing.

But I look back at a lot of things and say “Little did I know years later I would…”

The production design for this script is not going to be easy by any means. It’s a period piece. That’s an instant roadblock. We might treat people with mental illness almost the same now as we did in the 50s but the cars, houses, clothes, food, etc we have now are a lot different.

And that’s intimidating since I’m responsible for recreating that world and making it believable. It’s the small details in a movie or a short that either make it or break it for me. I remember a few years ago I was watching some blah romcom starring Miley Cyrus that supposedly took place in Chicago. It took one aerial of her “apartment” for me to check out. It was an aerial of the Renaissance Center, which is in Detroit.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to do as piss poor a job of recreating 50s Oakdale as whomever licensed that stock footage that was supposed to pass as Chicago.

I have to look that intimidation in the face and tell it to fuck off. It’s not the first time I’ve done so, it certainly won’t be the last. Mental illness and I are thick as thieves and I’ve been waging war with it in one way or another for almost two decades of my life. That fight is part of the reason I want to do so well in recreating the world the story is set in. I don’t want viewers to check out of the story because of a detail that doesn’t quite square.

That begs the question, where do I start?

In this case, I didn’t go directly to Google. I took a gander at the lookbook that Josh had created to get a feel for the world he was trying to create. It was a little surreal. It was very 50s. And it very much elicited the idea of the American Dream, but not the reality of it.

Then I went to Google.

Approximately 85 tabs later, I had a pretty good idea of what the world I was going to create needed to look like. I also have some very serious concerns about the Jello mold obsession people seemed to have during that era. But I digress.

The thing about this script and the set is that it is going to be very art heavy. This is good since I love doing arts and crafts and designing and things of that nature. This is also bad because I have no idea where to start even making a list of things I’ll need and because it has the potential to get very expensive very fast. I was lost.

But then, the most wonderful thing happened. I was talking to one of my coworkers about all this and she told me that she used to do exactly this. She had worked art on films, she did script breakdowns, she could send me a template of a sheet that would help me get everything sorted. She came to me like an angel out of the heavens (Heather, if you ever read this, you the real MVP and I owe you).

So apparently, that’s where I go from here. I have an idea of some of the pieces of key art that I need, I have a sense of the mood and the style, but there’s so much to be done that staring it down feels like staring down a tidal wave. With Heather’s advice, though, I feel a little more like I’m surfing that tidal wave instead of about to take it to the face.

And I guess that’s why you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to people about your project. A lot of people are willing to help if they know you’re working on something. So be open, be honest, and if you don’t know something, just ask.