Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Storyteller in Depth, a podcast where we go behind the scenes to learn more about the school of communications media arts and designs, people, places and things. I'm your host, Pat Quigley. Joining us today is Jim Lambie, an award winning, Emmy nominated set decorator with over 25 years of experience and an instructor in our broadcasting program. As you can tell by the title, this episode will take you on a deep dive into set decorating. You'll get an inside look at what the role entails, how Jim approaches set decorating behind the scenes, info on how important set decorating is to a storyline, and so much more. So sit back and enjoy this special feature episode on set decorating and hear how Jim approaches feature films, shows like the Umbrella Academy and so much more.
Thank you so much, Jim, for being on the podcast today.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we're gonna have an amazing conversation. And I have to be remiss to say that I didn't take your class back when I was at the story art center. But I had a lot of friends and colleagues who did, and they only had good things to say.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Well, that's very nice to say. And you know what, Pat? I was thinking, Pat didn't take my class, so I don't know if I'm gonna do this podcast.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Well, thanks so much for tuning in to storyteller in depth. And I.
But, yeah. So you began your career as an editor and a cinematographer and then moved towards the design end of production as an art director and set decorator. Early in your career. What was it about set directing that made you want to switch gears? Did you have a moment that clicked that this is what you wanted to pursue?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, no. And, you know, Pat, just before we go, and it's such a common thing for people too. It's set decorating. So. Yeah, and it's. No, you know what? Because there's so many positions that are so closely named under that great art department umbrella that it can get confusing.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: But, yeah. So the long and short answer, you know. You know what? Like so many things in life, it was, I came by completely accidentally. So, you know, I had just recently graduated from PMU, which was formerly Ryerson. And prior to that, I did a bit beyond my foundation year at OCAD or OCA there, but now Ocadu. And my goal was really cinematography, photography. That was.
Those were the things that I was pursuing primarily. And I found that when I was at school, editing became something that I became really interested in. And, of course, cinematography.
But when you graduate you have to. You're hustling through a lot of different jobs. So I'm a short contract doing some editing work, shooting a music video, helping edit somebody's reel. All these different things are kind of coming along.
One of the technicians at the school had a producer friend who said they're shooting this low budget feature film. It's going to be a lot of industry people working with a director, kind of a beloved director for his own passion project. Are you interested in going on board as an art department? Pa? And I was like, sure, that sounds great. I'm going to meet people.
It was a one set show in a church basement on Pape Avenue. So just down the street from Centennial, I thought, wow, this sounds great. I'm going to do this. And it all sort of started from there.
It was, you know, I really didn't have a great knowledge of how the art department worked, as so many students don't, because, you know, so much of film school, you know, broadcasting is often about directing, producing, camera. You know, art department is just kind of one of those things that everybody either knows it exists or wants to know it exists, but there's never enough information. So I started working on this project and loved it. And just coincidentally, the decorator, the set decorator, the job that I commonly do now left the project to go on to another project because it was fairly low budget and they kind of did what they needed to do and they were moving on. And so I took over. So my first job in film, I take over the key role, which was. Yeah, it was. It was truly. Oh, well. And it was not just a key role, but it was amongst industry people that had a lot of experience, a lot of CBC people that came out of, I'm trying to think of the law show at the time, of street legal and other CBC shows. So these are all seasoned professionals. And there's me, you know, basically a year out of university and no real appreciable experience. But, you know, I did it. I pulled it off, and it was an amazing experience.
And, you know, again, like I always mentioned to students, you know, you know, the connections you make. A job begets a job begets a job. You know, I was. After that job wrapped, I moved on to going back to doing some other smaller work, a small editing job here and there. But then I got a call to do another movie in the art department, but this time as the actual set decorator. So I, you know, you always hear these stories. You know, you. You work your way up, you know, you start out. As you know, there's so many different. There's so many different positions within set decoration department, so many different positions in the art department. But, you know, I went right to the top position, so, you know, you know, it was just. I'm just fluke and timing and, you know, I'm sure a little bit of hard work and some personality sprinkled in there, but there you go. So I started to continue to do this job, like, and when I'm, like, really, really fully kind of realizing the artistic potential of what the art department offered, you know, so it was really. It kind of, you know, I wanted a creative career. I never had aspirations to be a director. You know, I wanted to be a cinematographer, photographer, but I saw what the art department was offering and the potential, and it was just kind of blowing my mind, and I just thought, this is. This is a place where I want to be. And, you know, that's kind of the long, rambling answer, but that is kind of how I ended up getting there. And then again, it just. It's the momentum that takes you from there, you know?
[00:06:51] Speaker A: And it's definitely, like, a super important role when it comes to film and television and everything else. Right. Like, without anything to do with the art department, there wouldn't be a lot of tv shows or movies.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: There's nothing to look at.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Like, truly, like, I mean, like, you know, you. You know, locations. You know, locations are kind of under the art department umbrella because the production designer and set decorator will have a major amount of input into choosing locations just simply to do with what they'll need to do to those locations in order to make it work.
Obviously, of course, directors have the final say in all of this, but we're sort of. We all work together as a team. And outside of locations, you'll be walking into dressed locations, empty studio spaces, spaces that don't speak to the script that you're working on at all. It really is an integral job, for sure. Everything you look at is set decoration in scripted drama.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: So can you describe a little bit about how you approach a brand new project? Like, what are some of the initial steps that you take in coming into a new set or getting a script?
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Good question. Well, what I typically do, I mean, again, it sort of goes back to what I say often in the class, is that it all comes back to the script, no matter what. So, you know, when I'm handed a new script, which is usually very early on in pre production, I spend a lot of time with that script. So I'll read a script just as a story. First. I'll just sit down, find a comfortable spot. No pen, no way of making notes. I'll just read it. Just read it as a story so I can just understand the story, understand the characters, their relationships to one another.
That's kind of the first thing I'll do. And then I always say, often, too, I'm a three reader kind of prep person initially. So the second read, I'll start to make a few notes. I'll start to, in the margins, a couple question marks. What is that exactly? Can this be clarified? Is this just specific to any kind of scene direction? Specific to dialogue? I'll make those notes, just little rough notes. And then on my third go around again, this will all be happening over the course of a week. Just a walk away from it. I'll come back to it. The third go around, I'll start to put together really specific questions. And these questions are questions that I'll bring to the producers and I'll bring to the director, and I'll bring to the production designer, who I'm working directly alongside. And we'll kind of go in there and begin to sort of figure out these things. Because oftentimes when I'm brought in, the time that I'm brought in on a project, it isn't even really formed. There are no locations found yet. A lot of times they don't have cast. Many times they don't even have a script. If it's television, sometimes we just handed an outline. Here's an outline.
Here's what six episodes are going to look like when we write them. It's like, whoa. Okay. So oftentimes it's that preliminary, but three reads kind of get me to that sort of spot when I get in there. And then basically what I wanna do then is once we sort of clarify things, once we begin to really understand what's going on. And the script, of course, is evolving as well, will be changing throughout production. Also, you know, I'll begin. I'll do just very practical things, like, I'll hire a crew. So, you know, on a lower budget production that might be as few as eight people, because a set decorator would. Is considered the head of the set decoration department. So, I mean, I'm more like management and co creative, if you will, within an art department. The other half being the production designer. So I'll hire a crew. I'll do budgeting. Very, very important. I'll begin research.
Heavy, heavy into that.
All of these things. So all of these kind of become part and parcel with that process of just understanding the script and then beginning to build visuals from that.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And I want to branch off on the research part. Like, how much does that play in coming up with the art direction designs and the set designs that you create?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Huge. Huge. Can't even. It's almost pat. Imagine, if you will, standing in front of those, you've seen those images of those libraries in Europe that are just like two stories worth of books.
Think like that.
Like that amount of research.
My own personal library is probably, and this is one that I'll actually take oftentimes from production to production is, you know, going into close to a thousand books, whether they're photographers, artists, you know, we'll pull research from all sources, you know, the only thing, and we'll even be at time self referential and pull it from other films if we know that the films or suspected the films have done things accurately. So, you know, there's no wrong place to pull research from there. Probably the, I mean, I'll qualify that by saying, sure there is, but if you're pulling from very non credible sources.
But you need to understand that going in so tremendous amount of research, especially considering that I will often do like, one of the things that I do, and I'm known for professionally, is to do period pieces, period dramas. So, for example, I'll give you two examples. One was, it was very dramatic off camera as well as on camera. I was hired to do a sort of a 1940s to 1980s period piece feature film called Idol's Eye. It never, it never aired, but it is going to come back. This was about ten years ago, and it was a big deal, this production. It was Olivier Asias, french director Robert De Niro, you know, big, big stars. And it was about a Chicago mobster. I wont get into the details, but it was pretty dark stuff, but very specific because there was an incredible amount of reference and research material gathered through the FBI and other sources. So we needed to be absolutely historically accurate or we failed. So we pulled from amazing sources. We actually spoke to mobsters who had done time in prison who were involved in some of these acts. They offered to speak to us.
So we actually spoke directly to the people involved in some of these, some of these things, which was unbelievable. Also, we had a lot of reference material that were sort of, you know, that became access to information. You know, they were classified through the FBI and other places. So it was, I was on, I was prepping that particular project for months.
I also, because Robert De Niro who I'm sure you have heard of a little bit.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: He was playing Tony Accardo, the main character, and he's method, so he is very into his objects in his world. And set decorator's job is to really add breadth and depth and character to characters and to give these tools to actors within films. And so he and I had probably about a 40 minutes conversation over very early zoom, just talking about his character. That was like a thrill, professionally, to sit down with De Niro, to talk for 40 minutes about his stuff, his comb, what he had beside his bedev, how he would. Where he would keep his slippers, you know, what his closet would look like.
It was unbelievable. So, I mean, that is. And he was riffing on real research, but also what he needed as an actor. So there's kind of that balance between both. Right. And then the other analogy I'll give you is.
Or the anecdote is Murdoch mysteries. I did one of the Murdoch mysteries movies. There were three movies before the series, and the series is in its 18th season. Unbelievable.
Yeah, it's crazy. But anyway, the movies were very true to the victorian era, 1895. We put a lot. We didn't have a lot of money. It was low budget, but we put a lot of effort in. And we were paid off by winning a director's guild award for production design and set decoration, which was amazing.
It was a great honor.
But the people that they hired to do season one of the series weren't, you know, not all set decorators are created equal, and maybe they didn't do the same amount of research. And, you know, there could have been a million different reasons, but the network, who at the time, I think was chum anyway, weren't very happy with the world they created. And I wasn't available for the first season, so I would have done it, but I was on another project, and they called me on the second season and said, we absolutely need you to come in here and fix this.
Fix the police station. Make this 1895 Toronto. We need this fixed. And I took the job because research is my thing. Understand, like, historical significance. Like, I put a tremendous amount of effort and energy into it and have a lot of knowledge about it. So, you know, accuracy is really important. And if anybody ever tells you, oh, that doesn't really matter in film, I would say they haven't been on the receiving end of getting angry letters from viewers saying, that's wrong. Because I have seen and known people who had letter writing campaigns to tell them that they did things inaccurately. So the people that are the scrutinizers are watching.
Right?
[00:17:23] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Basically, after I've gone through my multiple reads of a script and have spoken to producer, director, production designer, etcetera for myself, I need to begin to create backstory for the characters.
Now, you would think that many of these scripts come with backstory, you know, with, you know, a lot of description sort of, you know, help the viewer along in understanding their particular role. But that's not always the case. In fact, I'd say even sometimes the backstory might be something as simple as, for example, the umbrella Academy original Hargreaves played by canadian actor Combe Fiore. They simply said adventurer and Renaissance man. That was. That was it. So, okay, well, for those who've seen the series, you know, that there's a tremendous amount more to his character, to who he is, you know, and a lot of this, of course, is revealed in subsequent scripts. But I'm tasked with the job of world building right off the top. So I need more in order to do that. Because without backstory, you know, without knowing where characters came from, without knowing their influences, without knowing their relationships, their education, all of these different things, you're just simply operating in a vacuum.
You would just be taking a shot in the dark, if you will, grabbing arbitrary objects, making a room look pretty, look well decorated, well appointed, but not necessarily speaking to characters. So my process is to create these elaborate backstories. And I can give you a couple of examples of that.
One was a television series I was doing for CB's called American Gothic. It only ran one season, unfortunately. It was really quite interesting about a well to do family and a murder. And it reveals itself in multiple episodes and, you know, a real whodunit kind of thing. But, you know, there's, you know, I had to establish these characters lives. And, you know, a lot of these kids kind of came back to the family home. They'd moved on or they'd moved out of their, you know, childhood rooms into, you know, their adult living spaces. And, you know, they're at all different stages in their lives. And I. So I created this very elaborate backstory that I shared with my crew directly, just so we had, like, again, not to work in a vacuum. So we had something to latch onto to really build these characters. And it was so elaborate that the showrunner, Karin Brinkoff, I believe her name is, apologies if I get it wrong. She. She came in one day and we were chatting about it, and she said that, you know, she'd discovered that I created this, you know, this multi volume almost. I'm exaggerating, but, you know, this rather elaborate backstory. And she said, you know, she was so overwhelmed and kind of overjoyed by it, you know, because she was the showrunner, she originally created these characters that she began to incorporate it, my backstory, into future scripts, which, you know, I guess sort of like, you know, a writing credit without really getting a writing credit. But it was very flattering nonetheless, and, you know, a great way for production and producers to get an insight into what set decorators and art departments do.
One other example was, for those who've seen the Umbrella academy, I decorated seasons one and two, and in season one, we really were world building. It was a, you know, we, we're creating it from scratch and, you know, there's so many different moving parts creating the academy itself and all those elements, you know, again, Reginald Hargreaves and who he was and how we would tell that story, but everybody kind of ran into a roadblock with the kids, the characters, the actual umbrella academy, because they all come back to the academy, you know, spoiler alert. For those who haven't seen season one, we're about to approach season four, but they all come back to the academy when they hear that their father, Reginald Hargreaves, has passed away. And they get back together to sort of talk about him and reconnect. And within that, we are introduced to all of their bedrooms and their living spaces when they were kids growing up. So, I mean, we're tasked with this idea, like, what do these spaces look like?
You certainly don't want to be generic. You really want to make it tailored to character. So I was sitting down thinking about this and making notes, and a light bulb went off.
And I just thought, well, again, for those who know the series, they're caregivers outside of their father, who's sort of not really there for them, not really as a father. And I won't even get into why. You'll just have to watch the series if you haven't. But their caregivers are Grace, who is an automaton, she's a robot, and Pogo, who is a chimpanzee speaking.
Quite intelligent, quite loving.
This is their loving family. But Grace has the emotional limitations, you know, inherent in her being a robot. Anyway, my idea was why, you know, who would have decorated their rooms as children, and it would have likely been Grace, because Reginald Hargreaves, her father, would have just wanted nothing to do with it. He had his mind on other things. And so Grace, literally, as a robot, would went to the Sears catalog and just flipped through and went to boy's room and chose all those elements and put together a boy's room, and there's Luther's room, and then, you know, went to, you know, at the time, girl's room and. And put all the elements together. And there was Vanya's room and, you know, Alison's room and Klaus's room and, you know, number five's room, and it just built from there. All the foundation was kind of out of, you know, a Sears like catalog. And then from that foundation, I could build on little specific elements that were more true to their characters now and how they evolved into the people that they are. So that was really, that was a big deal. And, you know, I basically had to pitch the idea to both the production designer, Mark Worthington, who terrific, loved working with them, did a lot of work in Los Angeles, came up to do the show, and the showrunner, Steve Blackman, and we sat together in a pitch session, and they loved it. It's just like, well, of course, that's the way that we'd want to proceed with that. So backstory is so incredibly important. It's so much of what you see is in that process of discovery. Within the whole prep period, I think probably a lot of. I find a lot of students to sort of think, well, it's all there in the script, and it's all just sort of laid out, and you just sort of fill in the blanks, and it's so not the case. It's such a. Such an evolving process and an incredibly exciting one as well.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: So is there something about set decorating that someone might not expect when watching a show or movie?
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yes. Funnily enough, that it even exists.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: I have more. And I'm even talking about crew people. My colleagues will walk onto a set, I mean, not on a period set, because obviously we've had to create these worlds. But, you know, I don't exclusively do period. We do modern. We do all kinds of things, but they'll walk into a space and say, did your department do anything in here? Did you do anything in here? And it's like, did we do anything in here? Hmm. And meanwhile, I'm thinking that we, when we originally walked in, it was completely stripped back to the walls, and we created everything within that space.
The density of the layering, from the wallpaper to the drapery to the, you know, you name it, all the way from the walls in, we did things. So that is. That is one big thing about set decorating. And, you know, you also hear a lot of people say that, you know, when they're watching a film, it's kind of the same thing. Like, you know, I'll have people say to me, you know, how did you find places that look like that? It's like we made them look like that.
The place, the place that you're looking at did not look like that. It looked completely different. And that's really the goal. And, you know, I would say within a scripted project, everything you're looking at has been touched in some way by production design and setback ratio.
And even if it's as simple as just moving furniture around, like, just that couch isn't going to be working against this window. We want to put it back here because in story, we need to do this. It works better for camera because we're not backlighting and having to control that. There's all these kind of elements, too. Very practical. So I would argue that, you know, in any kind of scripted drama, there are elements of set decoration no matter what. So that is one big thing. It's like, you know, you know, what do we even need you here for? Because it comes like, this.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Comes out right.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: I take that pat as the highest compliment because if people see that what I'm doing and go, oh, that's set decoration, then I don't feel like I'm doing my job properly.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: And I was going to ask you as well, like, you have to work with every other part, like every other department, right? So you're working with lighting, you're working with, you know, the camera people, you're working with directors and producers and everybody just to make this piece work. So it's really, like, more than just the labor of love for you, but you're making sure that everybody else looks good in that process, too.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Absolutely.
All departments coming together, you know, and also getting support from other departments. The rigging grips, for example, will put in the trusses so that we can hang 500 pound chandeliers.
The electric department is going to be working with us so we don't have cables running through the set and creating tripping hazards and disturbing the overall aesthetic of the scene.
I work since the advent of digital because I come from the film days.
Since the advent of digital, I work very closely with the director of photography for lighting. I mean, the joke is with many of the DP's I've worked with, the set decorator is like the second DP, because we are creating and they are lighting many, many sets now with practical lights. What I mean by practical lights are lights that you see on camera. So we will build lights to accept higher wattage bulbs. We will make sure they're flame retardant because some of these lights can run hot. Some of them are led.
Some of them are incandescent. It really depends on the nature and the need of a set.
So we're doing an incredible amount of building and lighting because really, there's a real efficiency to keeping big movie lights off the floor and having to move them when you're turning around for a shot and these things. So we're integrating them into the set. So that's a big cooperative thing, for sure. And, you know, and of course, you know, working with production, you know, set decoration is can in art department, art direction can be. Can be expensive. So, you know, we're working with budgets constantly. You know, my budget on, for example, the umbrella Academy, I think for the pilot episode, I had over a million dollars just for my department alone. Wow. Well over a million dollars. So, you know, we're working with in that regard. You know, we need. We have limited time, so each department needs to jockey for space on the floor to finish the work that they all need to do. So, yeah, it's. There is a. We are very much integrated into the. Into the production as a whole.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: So you're an award winning set director, including being Emmy nominated, receiving an art director Guild award for your work on the Umbrella Academy, a canadian screen award, and so much more. Is there something, you know, now that you wish you would have known when you first started out?
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, basically lift with your legs and not with your back, because, you know, when you lift with your back, you're gonna. You're gonna pay for it years later. No, I'm joshing, but I'm only kind of half joshing.
You know, being nominated for the Emmy was just an unbelievable career highlight.
It's to be that recognized by the television academy was amazing.
We didn't win that year, but the Handmaid's tale won, which is my good friend Rob, who was the set decorator, and he used to work for me. So we were all together in Los Angeles, hobnobbing and having a great time and just saying how thrilling that all was.
But to cycle back a little bit about what I know now versus what I know then, I was always very. I was always very careful in crafting my career in the beginning.
I can say now that I do, I'm a lot more particular about what projects I work on back then. I would work on a lot more. But, I mean, again, you really need to sort of build that resume and experience when you're starting out. And I think that's important. But, I mean, you still sort of, I think you, you know, shouldn't just go into every project. I think you should be, you know, just aware of the script and whether it kind of adheres to your values. You know, I tell students a story and they just, they're just, they look at me with their eyes and their jaws drop. The original american psycho with Christian, Christian Bale, which was kind of became a bit of a cult classic. I turned that job down.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: I was offered it as the assistant set decorator, and I turned it down because I just found in the screenplay they were being far too gratuitous. I just didn't like it as opposed to the book, which was a little bit more.
It didn't feel as gratuitous as the screenplay. So I actually turned that job down. That was pretty early in my career.
So I think those are kind of important things starting out, for sure. Know that you have the ability know that you have the ability to turn something down, but it's not going to destroy your reputation. You know, you don't want to become known as the person who turns things down. But, you know, I think being selective isn't bad for sure. And, you know, I would also say that, I mean, it's such a cliche pot, but life work, life balance, you know, the film industry is very all encompassing, immersive. I mean, when I go on a project, I mean, I know it's different from all kinds of different people because everyone has different jobs. But I'm, you know, I'm. I would be considered a method set decorator because when I get into a project, I take a deep dive into that project, into the characters, into the world. And because it's, you know, that's how I work and that's how I understand, you know, you know, the worlds that I'm helping to create.
And, you know, when that happens, you can kind of lose track of just your life and, you know, taking a moment to, like, you know, finding breaks between jobs, to spend time with family, you know, attend all those important, all those important life events. You know, I think those things are just really super important. And, you know, another really basic one is that there's a lot of largesse in film and television. Like there's food and there's snack tables and there's ice cream trucks, and there's just all these things that are brought in to sort of keep us happy and keep us working, and we're working pretty long hours. And I think it's just all in moderation.
You don't want to spend a career of 20 or 30 years eating from the ice cream truck, or you're not going to be. You won't be as healthy as you'd like to be. So, you know, again, a little bit of moderation. I know that seems like. That could seem like a lifetime away if you're starting out. It's nothing like seeing a whole table full of candy, but, you know, realize that if you're in the industry, on every day that you walk on set, there will be a table full of candy.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: That's some pretty good advice, honestly and truly.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: I mean, I know it seems kind of basic, you know, like work life balance. I mean, I know that. I especially know that generations beyond mine, starting the business are a lot more aware of that, and they're a lot better at boundaries, which is great. I think it's just a matter of don't keep the boundaries professional and don't become a person who is only about boundaries, because that may limit your success as well. It's just about balance.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: So you have over 20 years of experience in feature film, television, and commercials. In your experience and in roles you've taken on, what would you say is a major change that you've seen either in the industry as a whole or in set decorating, specifically?
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Wow. You know, I'm going to date myself. I'm actually, as of this summer, it's 30 years.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: I've been in the. I was. Yeah, I was talking to my wife, who I actually met working and saying, can you believe that? It's being, you know, and, you know, and it's amazing, Pat, because I'm 35, so I started very young.
I say the same thing.
I had to get one dad joke in there, so.
Yeah, well, so many things. That's such a. I mean, I almost don't know where to begin to. One of the biggest changes over the course of my career is that the transition from film to digital.
Back when I began, television series, features, commercials were all being shot on film.
Everything was being shot on film. It was being shot on 16 mil. It was being shot on 35.
Film was a thing, not, you know, having material come back from the lab and having to redo things. And, you know, that wasn't, that wasn't unheard of. That was very much a reality. And, you know, not having that immediacy of knowing what you got and what you need, like, in reviewing, there's no, there is no reviewing. Sometimes you could record off the video taps, but, you know, not always. So that was a big change.
Why it was a big change for set decoration going into digital is because digital cameras are just, I mean, you know, there'll be a lot of people that will, might write letters about this, but they're just so much better. They're just clearer and crisper. So what we might have been able to get away with in the film world, you know, the finishes on things, sometimes we would paint not, you know, the art department or the scenic painters would do this. They'd paint a wood grain on a surface to make it look like old Oakland. Right. Because, you know, plywood is a lot cheaper than old oak, and you can just paint it to make it look like old oak. And voila. You have old oak for, like, a mansion set or something. And digital cameras really wouldn't let you get away with some of the things you got away with. So we needed to sort of scramble and realize that a lot of what we brought to the table really needed to stand up to the scrutiny of digital. So that was a, that's just on a technical standpoint, that's one big thing about that.
Another thing.
Well, another big part of production that's changed is, again, when I started out, even within the union realm, non union union, it was very much wild west. You know, there were, it was, you know, there, you know, there were times when, at the ends of jobs, and this is, these are commercials, because I've done commercials and features in film and t and television where they would literally pay you in cash at the end of the day, they'd open up a briefcase and just handy cash. So, I mean, those, those days are, those days are long gone, but these are big companies. Like, this isn't sort of fly by night. This was kind of just industry standard practice. And, you know, once we kind of got closer to the streaming era, you know, production became a bit more corporate, studio integration, all of these different things. And, you know, that has led to a more corporate work environment, better accountability. It's just, it's just better. It's just, it's just better. You know, there might have been a lot of sort of, you know, not necessarily direct, but, you know, just, you know, there is no sort of code of conduct, really. And I think that was a really, really fantastic change within the industry. Absolutely.
You know, that's, you know, I mean, but one thing that I think are probably still the same in film and television is, you know, it's, it's, it's a business. Like, again, when I mentioned immersive before, you know, there's long hours involved.
You know, it's, it's, you know, they're long hours. It's, they're tight timelines. There's tight budgets. You know, sometimes these things are, you know, can be a bit unrealistic. You need to work in these. You need to work within these parameters quickly. So, I mean, really, that hasn't really changed. And I think, you know, what I would say is, you know, for somebody just starting out, and I say this to students often, is just to, like, you know, continue to continue to advocate and strive for just better conditions, you know, whether they be shorter shooting days, safer practices, you know, inclusivity. All of these things are really important. Like, I see these changes coming in and it's so refreshing and so wonderful to see. And, you know, this is, this is the generation to do it. You know, as, you know, as the industry evolves, you know, the attitudes evolve with it in a positive way. And I've seen a lot of that. And I, and I, you know, only encourage students to keep up that momentum because, you know, they're, you know, they're the ones who will create this change.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And, I mean, on top of all of that is like just all of the digital advancements that are spanning across the industry. Right? Like, what are some of your thoughts on virtual production and its impact on set design and decorating?
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Oh, wow. I mean, having some experience having walked in some volume stages. I mean, number one, you know, all I have to say is wow. Right? Like, wow. It's kind of mind boggling. But now, in terms of, it's funny because with virtual production, you know, you know, basically, you know, you're, you're, you're, you know, you're bringing up, you're bringing a photo backdrop to life, you know, ostensibly as opposed to green screen, which is, you know, you know, who knows what you're going to? Who knows what's on that background? You know, none of the actors know that. I mean, I think, I think the positives about virtual production.
You know, one of the big drawbacks of green screen, blue screen work is that the actors were kind of working in a vacuum. They didn't really know the world that they were inhabiting. You know, they might know it in story, they might know it in, you know, in direction, but they don't, they don't physically know it. So, you know, actors, actors respond very positively to the environments that they're in. You know, it just helps them become that much better at portraying their character to, to be in a believable world. And I think green screen really precluded them from that. Whereas the volume, whereas a virtual production really kind of allowed them to sort of get a sense of this fantastical place, like, I mean, think, you know, I mean, everybody will go back to this particular show, but the Mandalorian is kind of, you know, it's kind of the standard bearer. And, you know, it created this environment for these actors to suspend their disbelief and just be that much better at their performances. Now, how that affects design and decoration between green screen and the virtual stage, I would say there isn't really that. There's not that much of a change because actors still need to interact with elements in their environment. So they'll still need to climb a flight of stairs. They'll still need to hide behind a rock. They'll still need to climb out of a junkie spaceship. Whatever these things are, they still need to interact within these physical assets.
Whether it's green or volume, it's kind of the same effect. It really hasn't changed that much for us.
One thing I would say, though, that even though the cost of the virtual stage is coming down, you really don't see a lot of. I mean, maybe in Hollywood you see more of it. I mean, you do see a little bit of it in Toronto, but there's a few hindrances. Number one, you need to have those assets upfront in pre production in order to play that back. I mean, you can still generate green on a volume wall, but it's not quite the same. And, you know, so that's been a hindrance. The, you know, lighting is being a bit of a hindrance. I mean, even though the volume works as a light source, it's right there hovering over the actors. So it hasn't proven to be such a, you know, to be as a solution as it once was thought of, you know, so there's a couple of drawbacks. It's, you know, again, also just scheduling. Scheduling is a big challenge with it because, you know, in film and tv, you might have seven days to shoot an episode, which is not a lot. And, you know, you need to do a lot of other work within those seven days on your standing sets and otherwise. So scheduling of scheduling the volume wall is, can be challenging, and I hear that complaint a lot from producers and ads, assistant directors that that is one of the really big challenges also, you know, ultimately, for a lot of the work that happens in film and television, you know, you're in somebody's living room, you're in a garage, you're in a basement. They don't really lend themselves to the volume so much. You know, those are more about location work or small set builds. The volume really is about, like, a world like the Mandalorian, like the desert, like these just amazing locations that you would never have the ability to travel to budget wise or time wise. That's where it really shines, I think, incredibly so. And, you know, I can say some of my past colleagues, Denis Villeneuve, who I'm sure you've heard of Dune one and two, and his production designer, Patrice Vermette, who I worked with earlier on in my career, right before they became superstars, worked on a film called enemy with them, thrilling experience. Probably one of my best. They. Villeneuve is very much an actual effect and a physical set kind of director, and he will, and he has the power now to convince studios to go in that direction, to physically build sets, because it's his contention that it's just a better storytelling environment for everyone, actors, creative department heads, everybody, to be sort of physically within the space. Everybody's sort of living the script. Everybody has suspended their disbelief.
It's you're embodying the words on the page, you know, whether you're a grip or a DP or you're an actor, you know, what have you. So, I mean, you know, there is a little bit of. There can be a little bit of pushback, too.
So I guess just to kind of summarize that, really, for set decoration, production design right now, there's not a tremendous change between green screen, blue screen and the virtual world. But, you know, the water cooler talk around many production offices is, will virtual production just end up being like digital audio tape, basically, is it going to be this amazing technology, but soon to be replaced by complete virtual productions, like built within a machine, as opposed to on a physical stage with an electronic backdrop? So the direction that. I know that in previous podcasts, this has been discussed and reviewed, and I think some of us have really good ideas, but nobody knows concretely, will the virtual stage survive? Will it dominate? Will we go back to green? Nobody seems to know.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: Well, I'd like to think there's still going to be a place for art direction and everything within that department, in that virtual, that digital world. There still needs to be some sort of human touch in some way, shape or form to create these things, because computers can only do so much, right? And we've been telling stories with people creating them for so long that it still needs to be there, I think.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Well, no, I agree with you, and I want to believe that. But again, we don't really know.
I think there's going to be a lot of, in the future, there's going to be still a lot of independent production. They're not going to have the resources to access the volume. You know, they may need to. And when I say the volume, I just mean virtual production, like the stage.
They, you know, they may have some money to do some element of it, but they're still going to need physical sets and real locations and all those different things and all the things inherent within that.
On bigger tent pole productions, will the Marvel universe, you know, whatever it will evolve to, will it. Will it have physical sets? I don't know. You know, nobody really seems to know. I mean, you know, this could be 20 years down the road. It's certainly not happening tomorrow. But, you know, it's happening. So, you know, you know, so, you know, the virtual, virtual production for now is great and for so many different applications. But I, again, will that. Will it be the. Will it be the technology that survives? I don't know.
Yeah.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: Only time can tell, right?
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Truly, truly. Like, it's, you know, you just have to, you just have to, you know, keep fresh with everything that you're, you know, it's, you know, keep up with all the advances in technology. It's like there's no benefit to staying true to one thing over another. It's, you know, always be, always be progressing right. Knowing what the latest technology is. How does your role fit within that technology? What can you do to utilize that? How can you pivot, if need be, within the sets of skills that you've developed? Really important things for students, really important things for professionals. So both, yeah, we talked about previously.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: In the podcast that you're an instructor for Centennials broadcasting program. Can you share some details on the courses that you teach and how real world elements are incorporated in those courses that help prepare students for careers after graduating?
[00:51:11] Speaker B: I'd be happy to.
So I teach both intermediate and advanced filmmaking. So that would be fourth and fifth semester filmmaking prior to the students going out on their internships.
I've been teaching these at Centennial since I've been there, twelve years teaching these courses fourth and fifth.
How I've developed and evolved this course is to really emulate a production environment.
I know Steve Lucas has the script to screen program, but even before script to screen, that was always kind of, you know how we described intermediate and advanced filmmaking with script to screen. It starts with a pitch pitched by students, written by students, voted on by students.
We go into production. Everyone chooses production roles. So you create a production team. You know, we go into pre production and all the challenges inherent within it. We go to physical production where they're filming.
You know, some of the productions are longer than others, depending on the length of the, of the scripts. And then they go into post and they, they post their productions and then, you know, get them to the point where they can be screened at our, at the Donnie Awards, at the broadcasting and film awards that we hold every year in the spring. You remember the Donnie Awards, I'm assuming?
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, they're great.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: And they're, you know, and hopefully to see you back there, they. We've evolved it. And it's a, it's, you know, we're trying to make them a little bit better every year, but it's. So that's the. So that is kind of, you know, so when everybody's, you know, within their departments, you know, the ads, for example, are doing a full package of one line schedules, shooting schedules, call sheets as per industry standards. You know, the camera department are doing breakdowns per industry standards and camera testing, et cetera, et cetera, the same as the sound departments. The art department is doing a floor plans and free visualizations to communicate spaces and to sell ideas to the crew.
The costume department is working with tear sheets and building costume designs.
It's a microcosm of a complete experience within film and television. It's really amazing. And I get feedback all the time from grads and I get feedback from the industry colleague, from my industry colleagues saying, you know, it's amazing. They, you know, we walk into this production and we know exactly what these things are. We know exactly where it all begins. And, you know, when they say, you know, we're going to, you know, we're going to be. I need you to distribute this chronology. You know what a chronology is. You know, when you're looking at a call sheet, you know how to read it, you know, all of those things that are just kind of mystifying if you walk on for the first time. It's like, what are these strange codes? I don't understand because, you know, as you know, film and television kind of has, you know, they've created their own language for so many things.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Oh, for sure.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: And their, and their own workflows, for sure. So, I mean, so that's, that's filmmaking. And then I had a great opportunity, and I've been nurturing this opportunity a few years ago to start a production design elective. And it's starting as elective and hopefully growing into a. Growing into something larger. And we've been, we've been through the college. I've been developing this over a number of years, but this elective is completely focused on the art department, production design, and site decoration. And we do seven weeks of script breakdowns and pre visualization creation, the tools used for that.
We look at examples of work and critique that and sort of understand processes. We break down the department into, you know, all the players to understand how that works. You know, how a construction coordinator would work with a scenic painter would work with an art director, for example.
We physically measure spaces and create plans, like working drawings that we can use to communicate, you know, like blocking plans for directors, for example, or lighting plans for dops or just furniture plans, so everybody can understand what the physical set will look like. So it's a really exciting course, and it's proven to be really popular, and I love that.
And it's all intensive. It's super fun. It's only seven weeks, but as I mentioned, it's growing. So that's always encouraging and very exciting.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: I would love centennial to become the leader in that, in the art department of production design, set decoration, as far as working in film and television, because I think the opportunity is there.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Well, for sure. And, I mean, the more that the individual things get broken out into their own courses. Right. Give students a better insight into what they want to do when they leave school and what they want to do for an internship.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Oh, my. Absolutely. You know, it's funny. I will have many students. I'll see, I don't see them in first year. I always get them in, in fourth semester. I never, I sort of see them in third, but I normally get them in fourth. And even a fourth semester, they're kind of like, well, you know, I want to be a cinematographer, or I'm wanting to be a gaffer or a costume designer, whatever. And, you know, after going through my production courses and obviously other instructors courses as well. But, you know, many of them who've taken the production design electives suddenly go, you know, I want to be a production designer. I want to be a side decorator. It's like, excellent, you know, because it was, it's just opening an avenue that they never thought of, and they see the creative rewards inherent in that department, in those production roles, and they just go, wow, I didn't even know this existed.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: No, it's definitely, definitely an added bonus when going to the school. Right. Like, it's so cool. And I just can't wait to see where it goes in the future.
[00:57:18] Speaker B: Well, thanks. Me too.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So just before we wrap things up, I'd be remiss to not talk about something really, really cool.
We'd love to know the details around how you began running a telephone prop company called Ringy Dinghy.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: How do you find out about that? I'm kidding. I can't tell you.
How did I start ringing? Well, I guess I'd be remiss to say in its 27th year.
[00:57:47] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: I know.
And, you know, like so many things, it was kind of born out of necessity. I was working on a television series that did a lot of repeating kind of generic offices and other things. You know, that seems to be a trope. And so we would need different telephones, and we just, we need to make these spaces look different and unique. And, you know, in prop houses at the time, it was difficult to put together 20 matching of anything. So you had to do a big office. Think about those scenes where you open on a big, wide office and everybody's at their desks or in their cubicles, and everything in those cubicles is ostensibly the same.
Envision that in order to create that, that was challenging. So I began to like, it's like, well, I'm going to just start buying all these things and having them in my stock or our stock, and then we don't, I won't have this, you know, constant game of, you know, finding, finding these things. So telephones were one of the things. And I purchased, you know, some beige ones, some gray ones, some black ones, you know, office phones, fairly generic. And I found suddenly, other set decade, other set decorators were calling me and saying, yeah, I've heard you've got some phones there. You've got 20 black meridian phones. And I'd be, yeah, I do. And they'd say, well, can we borrow those and, you know, and use them in our production? And, you know, and, and, you know, always with the permission of the production because it was their assets at the time, we'd say, sure, you know, and production had no problem with it. And sometimes they'd make a donation to the production. Sometimes they'd make a donation to a charity that we ran. Sometimes they would just buy us beer, you know, whatever, whatever it was. But then we kind of realized, wow, this is like, this is a viable business. This is my partner and I. And basically you know, ringy dinghy, you know, Geraldine, the old character, Lily Tomlin, one ringy dinghy, two ringy dingy. She was like the operator. Ringy Dingy was born. And, you know, nobody was on websites. Nobody was. No prop house was using websites. We were barely, barely using the web for sourcing. Like it was kind of it. You know, I really sound like, you know, like I'm an old, as old as the sea. But it really wasn't its infancy. It doesn't seem like that long ago. And so went online because, you know, we were working in the film industry. We couldn't sit in a shop all day renting telephones and, and the collection grew and grew and, you know, now I would say my partner moved to New York and he's working down there now. But now I would say that I have probably over 5000 phones, probably. And I have every time period, payphones, payphone, booze, you name it, I've rented to, you know, I'm actually just. I was on the phone right before this podcast with the set decorator on this JJ Abrams series that they're shooting in New Mexico called Duster. It's a seventies period piece. I can't say much more because of the NDA, but, you know, I'm providing them a whole pile of phones that light up and work. And I provided some phones to Mission impossible in the UK, Sheppardon Studios. My phones have been shape of water. An Academy Award winning film, Guillermo Dotoro's film here in Toronto.
They're the Academy Award winner for best picture shot in Toronto. Spotlight. My phone is on the front, is on the theatrical poster for that. It really kind of just this little sort of thing where we would get a donation or some beer became this kind of global, became this global business. Who would have thought?
[01:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that's incredible. That's truly incredible.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: Well, thank you. And it's, you know, the website is still like I taught myself HTML and the website is still like this nineties, very rudimentary. You know, I update it from time to time, but still look at it and think, oh, I better fix that. And I better. That doesn't coming through so clearly. But you know, a lot of the workflow now for buyers in the set decoration department is to work almost exclusively online. And so many places are putting their stock together online. You know, we've been doing that since 98. Right. So it's, you know, the. Been doing it for a long time and yeah, just, you know, because of that. Because of the ease of it, it just kind of. It just sort of took off. And everybody loves a little cute yellow phone. You know, it's like a cute graphic. Never hurts. And, you know, there you go.
Perfect.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much, Jim, for chatting. And, you know, this was an amazing conversation. I'm glad I learned so much more about you and, you know, the set, the art department, and I think we need to have you back for another episode at some point.
[01:02:41] Speaker B: Oh, it was my pleasure. My pleasure, Pat. And, you know, if I may just sort of end with one little analogy. Do we have 1 second?
[01:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, of course.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: It'll be. You'll find it funny. There is Dennis Lee, who was a filmmaker who won the student Academy Award a few years ago for his film called Jesus Henry Christ. It was a short film, and he made it into a feature, and it starred Tony Collette and Michael Sheen. And Michael Sheen's character was very sort of obsessive. He was a professor, and he made. He wrote on post it notes, and he was sort of that kind of person, and he was very peculiar, and he had a lot of rituals. And I came up with this idea that within his bedroom, there's a scene where he wakes up and puts his legs over the bed and opens his curtains, greets a new day. And I said, why don't we put him in the same pajamas as his curtains are made out of?
And I was in a room when I pitched this, and everybody looked at me, including. Including Michael, and they just went, oh, my God, that's fantastic. You know, and it was just one of those moments where, you know, the set decorator, you know, has the freedom to kind of rip on these ideas that, you know, add this sort of dimension and comedy. You know, it's just. It's all part of that sort of collaborative process.
Well, that's, you know, this is so much funnier when you see it, the actual image of it, and, you know, maybe. Maybe we'll somehow figure out a way to share that vision. But anyway, yeah, it's been a real pleasure, Pat. Thank you so much for having me.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Yes, thank you so much, Jim. And like I said, I hope we catch up soon for sure.
[01:04:15] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Jim, for being on the podcast. What an insightful episode. Set decorating is so important to help tell a story, and it's amazing to hear all that goes into it. Now, if you liked this episode, be sure to share it with a friend and let us know on our Instagram Story artcenter. Until next time, I'm your host, Pat Quigley, and this is storyteller in depth.
