Kitty_K
5 Years Experience
Los Angeles, CA
Female, 30
I am a Los Angeles based decorator and have worked on a range of projects from an Academy Award winning feature to commercials for brands like Bank of America and Kay's Jewellers. An average day on the job involves me visiting high-end stores and prop houses in Los Angeles to photograph and price furniture, lighting fixtures, drapery, and art. I am responsible for running a crew and collaborating creatively with the director, production designer and cinematographer. Ask me anything!
In my personal opinion, Blade Runner hands-down is the best film I have ever seen in terms of the visuals and the overall marriage between cinematography, costumes and design. I also enjoy the films of Jean Pierre Jeunet because they are expertly designed but still maintain an "organic" feel. Perhaps this is because Jeunet's films rely on real set construction and prop making rather than using CGI for everything. Bladerunner is also unique in that the designs within the film predict technological advances that would emerge later in the future, such as the giant flatscreen monitors used for advertising.
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Wow, interesting question. There are two directors who made my life a living hell. One director was one of the best I have worked with because she challenged me. It really was a living hell with long hours, high expectations, a lot of responsibilities, steep learning curve and at the end of the shoot I got in a car accident. However her project was one of the few out of the many I've done that I'm wholly pleased with aesthetically. It was a short film adaptation of the Cortazar story "Letter to a Young Lady in Paris" and the director who was very specific about the look she wanted. She asked me to create an art noveau inspired apartment space. Every detail mattered to her, from the wallpaper we settled on, to the font on a prop liquor bottle (we did not have a prop master btw as it was a low budget non-union project) Overall, the experience made me better as a set decorator and trained me to be thoughtful about every single visual element- significant or seemingly insignificant - that is selected to tell the story.
The other director who made my life unbearable was a pain in the ass for the opposite reasons - this was a director on a high end product commercial and the guy COULD NOT figure out what he wanted. Other directors I have worked with have often presented me with a list of ideas and reference images for what they envision, but this guy expected me to be a mind reader and decode what was going on in his brain without verbalizing it. Requests would come in at the drop of a hat and change frequently. As one example: a set we were going to dress as a graphic designer's office changed suddenly to a green house and then to a bike repair shop all over the course of one day. It was nerve-wracking. The worst part was that the director requested big changes but had no understanding that such changes take time and money to make happen last minute. You'd be surprised how typical this kind of wishy washy behavior is in production so I feel lucky that I have gone five years in my career and not had to deal with it too often.
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I learn by doing. The practical information I picked up to help me do my job came after school, not during it. When you start out you'll have to do a lot of unpaid work but it's the best way to learn. Try looking for postings on Craigslist or Mandy for student/low budget films that need set dressers, decorators, etc. There is a lot of crap on these sites so try to pick and choose carefully if you can. Volunteering on short films as an Art PA was how I got my start four years ago - it also provided me with the contacts I needed to eventually get on board more serious projects. If your living in the Los Angeles area, I can also recommend visiting the SDSA and attending one of their mixers. You'll get to talk with other established set decorators and hear how they got their start in the business.
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I don't have a 'favorite set flub' per say - I did enjoy the comically bad set dressing of Tommy Wiseau's cult B movie "The Room". The film was made over a period of several years during the 90s - the writing, acting, cinematography and art direction is mindblowingly awful. The film's "so bad it's good" quality caught on with a select group of movie goers and now it's become a fixture of midnight movie screenings in Hollywood. The entire movie is sort of a flub. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean. The art direction of B horror/scifi movies (Troll 2, anything by Ed Wood) also fall into this category for me.
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A production designer (the head of the art department) is more likely to require formal training. The production designer is the architect to the set, many production designers go to school for architecture and generally have a lot experience in drafting. The set decorator does not necessarily need formal training, but it is helpful. The set decorator should have knowledge about different periods in design, furniture and art and some knowledge of construction. I personally learned the process as I went. Most of the important things I have learned came after school, not during it.
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I decorated an Academy Award winning feature film. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars and has been the highlight of my career so far. A fellow decorator told me, "Decorators look for mistakes when we watch a film, and I didn't see one mistake in that movie." - that was a big compliment because it was coming from a decorator more esteemed and experienced than I was. The one thing that irritates me is that apparently our crew did *such* a good job that many viewers and critics who watched the film seem to think very little was done in the way of art department. I saw one reviewer referred to the sets as "locations" as if they were not dressed at all, when in reality most of the sets began as completely empty rooms or not rooms at all and construction was required to modify the spaces to look the way we wanted.
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If you're lucky enough to get onto any set, just being there and interacting with others is going to open doors. You're working long hours and bonding with the members of your crew. I guess it's best to build a rapport with the people at the top - the art director, production designer and set decorator. However, it's good to keep in touch with everyone you work with no matter who they are, because this industry is small and you never know when that one person is going to make a difference for you. A piece of advice I got from the former decorator of "True Blood" - which should really apply to all areas of life not just filmmaking - is to "be nice to everyone no matter what". It's important to treat the people you work alongside with respect, whether it's a vendor helping you secure your order or the Art PA who you've asked to pick up lunch. You never know when that PA could one day become a producer who wants to hire you or the next time you need the vendor to cut you a deal on the invoice... people in this industry remember your behavior, good and bad. Even if you're having a crappy day, have a good attitude when you deal with others because people will remember you for that. You also have to remember that nothing is handed to you and you have to think out of the box to get what you want. When I graduated from UCLA's Film & TV program, I quickly found out that my shiny diploma was in no way going to secure me contacts or an entry to a good job working in art department. I had to start at the bottom like everyone else. My first job was working at a film development company where I made $450 per week without overtime. I put in about a year at that company stupidly hoping that my employers would introduce me to the art dept crew on one of their features, an awful Matthew McConaughey vanity project. Of course, they did not end up making good on that promise. At the prodding of one of my more assertive friends, I decided to go through the production contact list for that film and email every art department member on the crew from the Production Designer to the Art PA. Luckily for me, the set decorator of the film - a veteran of the industry- was nice enough to respond to my email and even connected me with two of her art dept co-workers on "Dexter". Just from that one email I was able to get a visit to the set of "Dexter" and spend a day hanging out with the art dept crew and checking out all the stages. I even got to walk around inside Dexter's 'Miami' apartment which is actually in a soundstage on Gower in Hollywood. From then on, my networking tactic was to send out emails to set decorators, buyers and art directors - explaining my interest in their field and crossing my fingers that they would write back. Many of them did and I can trace where I am now all the way back to a few random emails I sent out. Aside from sending stalker-ish emails to people i don't know, I also attend meetings held by the Set Decorators Society of America. The SDSA is home to set decorators, buyers and vendors that work in Hollywood and their mixers and parties are a great opportunity to talk to established people in the industry. I try to go regularly - just doing face time and familiarizing yourself with the group is helpful and lets potential people who might hire you know that you're serious about your interests in the field. Lastly, my final networking tactic is to "never say no"... even if it seems balls out crazy. As long as you can spare the time, do it and do it well. I have worked for free on many projects and all except one lead to lasting relationships with people in the art department. After a while, you will be able to pick and choose - avoid the stuff that's unpaid or uninteresting, avoid the people you know are shady - and stick with the people you know are legit and will hire you again down the line.
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