The whole Art
Departments of both Warner, Paramount, and Sony quite impressed me. It may be
because they are the most visible faces of the studios. There are big buildings
where they keep the stuff for the scenery they used on the last decades. The
Art department of the Studios and any other art designers can go there and
choose the things they wanna rent for their productions. They go and choose
from a sketch they already have, tell the people working there the
numbers of the catalog of the chosen objects and, in the cases of the big-budget
movies (or TV shows), they transport those objects on big trucks. This shows how the Major Studios work together. It is often common to see Warner
trucks in the Paramount studios or the other way around. A lot of these
things were for sure in a lot of famous movies. Somehow, they were in the shots
of the movies you’ve seen. If you take a look closely, you’re gonna recognize
them.
The Art
Department often has one of the biggest crews of the production staff. From all
the coordinators to the designers, the people who build every single detail of
the set, the props, the utilery, the costumes, and many others. They all depend
on the Production Designer (the structure of the staff changes from Hollywood
movies to the Latinamerican or European structures). It is so important that it
even has its own Oscar every year and that's because it is very difficult to
put all the stuff together in a single major plan and execute it throughout
months or even years. They also work very close with the Director, the
producers, the Production Manager, and the most important one: the
Cinematographer (Director of Photography). The cinematographer is going to give
the final image to all those big built-up sets. The way the cinematographer put
his lights can give a lot different feelings and perceptions, even if he uses
the whole same set.
In my
opinion, the Art Department, though it may not seem that important at first
sight, is the main key of the magic of the movies.
Check out this video for some really cool clips on the Art Department and Set Design:
Check out this video for some really cool clips on the Art Department and Set Design:
