Deja vu

So I’ve been proved right about the work flooding in as soon as I buy a plane ticket. Having arrived in LA one week ago I now have to turn tail and hoof it back to London for a two week commercial and conveniently help with the packing up of the house. What usually happens now…….let’s hope I’m on a run here……….is that jobs start queueing up and overlapping and sometimes you make it fit and otherwise feel great that people are at least thinking about you.

Suddenly, things are getting very busy what with housing, schools, packing up and moving and all the related costs and stress. Consequently, I have very lttle to report in the production design department. Of course the film series at Cine expo last week was good fun and a great excuse to watch some very cool films; 13 shorts and three features from all over the world. Australia won the student short and deservedly in my opinion; both innovative and highly original….Tatterson. Broke Sky, an American effort which proved to be both entertaining and intelligent story - telling won the feature category. Parachute won out of the Independent shorts, but I preferred Bloom because I’m a sucker for a weird love story.

(www.cinegearexpo.com/filmseries/finalists08.html) Met with the lovely Michelle and the shiny but gracious Tye, both from Dattner Dispoto, my lovely, lovely (I love you), agents……and the whole film series thing put together by the indefatigable Kimberly. The actual Expo was chokka with D.P’s, grips and gaffers and not a poncey art dept. bod to be seen anywhere…except in the guise of myself….. Which is of course understandable as most of what you see is aimed at those departments. However, wonderful lighting pads from Rosco, a great demonstration of the new motion control outfit from the UK  www.mrmoco.com ….nice and small compared to the vast dinosaurs that used to whirr away for what seemed like days at a time….. and a few amazing new car rigs and architectural lighting possibilities, made this part of my two day roasting in the 90’s on the backlot of Universal, well worthwhile.

Another short (and late!) one this week…….sorry……..but hopefully, networking tales to tell over the coming weeks.I have managed to collar an extremely nice Exec. Producer from a large studio who may be able to point me in the right direction, but all that has to wait until I get back from London, mid-July. All this to-ing and fro-ing isn’t actually helping my career at all, it’s just keeping us fed. Pretty soon I guess the UK will dry up completely or work here will be soooo plentiful that I’ll be turning them all down in droves… Meanwhile, here are some pretty pictures that have no relevance at all to the above except that they have been a part of my portfolio over the years….not showing off, just giving you an idea of what it is we art dept. types do! 

we’re off……

well we’ve been on the starting blocks for over a year now for our final push to Los Angeles. The house in London is finally rented out at last and the managing director of some big finance bank and his wife move in July 18th. I fly out for the LA expo on Tuesday not knowing for sure what the future holds at all. We are all extremely anxious and excited about our new adventure and the two boys (six and nine) can’t wait to hit the beach having tried it out last Summer and loved every minute of it.

In some ways it seems like a crazy time to move what with the recession and everything hitting hard and still the possibility of the actors strike, but work here in UK is still practically non-existant in the commercial and feature market and all that there is is quickly moved out to Eastern Europe for half the price. More and more they are using the excellent - and much cheaper - local crews who are all well up to speed now, especially in Prague where I used to work at least two or three times a year for the past ten, but alas no more. South Africa, especially Cape Town, is another favourite due to the exchange rate and again a place I would do work on many occassions but even though I’ve heard some pretty awful stories of art department folly over there, the UK productions still insist on leaving us at home.

So, everybody thinks we’re quite mad for doing the LA move…especially with no direct offers of work so far!! But hey, that’s the nature of this mad business….everything can change on a sixpence….one minute you’re cooking up last weeks leftovers, and the next you’ve got steak and wine and you’re toasting your good fortune and finding it hard to remember why it isn’t always like this. I’m really hoping that next weeks blog will be closer to that champagne moment than this weeks. We are in a bit of turmoil here in Blighty so I can’t pretend to be on best form. My missus has just finished a nice little run of work (also film designer) whilst I’ve been playing (huh!) at Dad at home, which every Dad knows is precisely the reason we go out to work in the first place…..childcare has got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Rewarding, of course and ten times over, but Jesus……

Anyway, as I say, next weeks blog ought to be full of all sorts and I apologise for the plodding nature of this one, but I’m sure you’ll understand……..I’ll keep you posted.

Counting the days….

Though the lack of money coming in can be a problem when times are lean, it’s one of the perks of the job being able to spend so much time with my children. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always coincide with their school breaks and many a holiday has been cancelled at the last minute due to work coming in. In fact, go ahead and book that trip if you need the work…….almost guaranteed to come flooding through the door, especially if you’ve spent a few bob.

I’m currently designing futuristic sets for a Russian producer/director team, totally electronically as they can’t afford to ship me over to Moscow to supervise the job. Never done it quite like this before, that is; entirely by e-mail. It started off with getting commissioned to write a treatment for a music video and then it was “can you design it too?”

I quite like that I don’t have to go out to Moscow because of all the horror stories you hear about trying to get sets built out there, but the more adventurous (stupid) side of me kind of regrets not seeing it through. Anyway, the weird thing is I got paid and it’s looking good for the next instalment as well…..I really did expect a disappearing act but it seems that their wonga’s as good as the next man’s.

I’m due in LA very soon for the Cine expo and the film festival that runs along side, where I am doing some judging. I once judged the BAFTA’s (TV production design) and I can assure you it feels similar to doing Jury duty. That is, I feel a huge amount of responsibility in getting it right as people have invested a lot of their time, energy and passion into something that you are going to consequently love or trash.

I’m really looking forward to three days at Universal studios (where it’s all happening) just to get to canoodle with some like-minded folk and take a look at all the new gear on offer, as well, of course, as watching some interesting (I hope) film work. I missed out on a pilot for a new HBO series last week because I was here (London) and not there (LA) which made me realise that I need to sort out the travel arrangements pronto.

We are still trying to rent our house in London which will then find us winging it to LA, hopefully before the UK government decide to add a bunch of ‘green’ taxes to our airfares. The only thing green about these is that they are making me feel quite sick. None of the extra tax will go to offsetting anything other than Gordon Brown’s (who’s he??) messy calculations. The sooner I can get myself and my family off this rapidly sinking ship the better….I’ll keep you posted.

Introducing The Production Desginer…

Hi…….

I’m going to start this by explaining a few home truths about myself and this wonderful industry which has both kept me alive for the past 30 years and done its level best to try and kill me at the same time……I look upon it as a living, breathing entity which probably isn’t healthy at all. I both love it, and I hate it, but when all is said and done, it sure as hell beats working for a living.

I was drawn to the industry through unemployment and a very nice man called Kevin Connor who dragged me off the streets and over to Pinewood studios where he was directing one of the “Time forgot….” films. For the first three months I did my best to find other work in other industries until one day I woke up to the fact that what I was doing was just brilliant. Suddenly,  (I was quite stupid), I realised that I had what most people would give their right arm for (very, very stupid….NOTE: you probably will need your right arm, especially if, like me, you draw with it), so I soon settled down and after another few months got fired anyway.

The work had suddenly dried up and that was my first introduction to what the industry is really all about: Survival.

The rest is quite boring really. What really matters is that, surprisingly, I’m still here and still loving/hating every minute of it.

Not long ago I woke up one morning and realised (I can still be pretty stupid at times) that I was getting on in years and that I still hadn’t really got close to making my ‘big movie’ and that the UK probably wasn’t going to do it for me. We make about 20 films in a good year here in the UK and about 5 otherwise. Of those, very few actually make it to the theatres and what with there being about 5000 production designers slutting around Soho most days, my chances have always been a bit slim. Up until now I was happy to just be making a living but good sense was never my strong point so, I applied for and got a US work visa and have been ‘commuting’ to LA with a view to a more permanent move very soon, for over a year and loving every goddam minute of it. Yes, I intend to ‘make it big’ in LA and also intend to document it here for you all to see/gloat/chuckle/ridicule. Life’s too short not to give it a go and my kids,  two boys of 9 and 6 , have given me the thumbs up (loads of bribery) as has my long suffering and gorgeous wife (loads and loads of nice things).

We will be moving to Manhattan Beach (I know, I know $$$$) or Mar Vista or Topanga (well I’m still very confused!) when we eventually…hopefully….rent out our house here in Highgate, which is what we’re trying to do whilst juggling work from Russia, London and possibly Prague via Hollywood as well as all the other circus tricks associated with modern family life.

As well as my design work, I am doing more and more writing and have presently found myself being paid for the privilege! This is thrilling as I am also teaching design at the LFS which, because it has to be so abbreviated to fit the course work, I find, tends to lean more and more toward the servicing of a GOOD script, and indeed, how we as designers can help in our titivations given the opportunity by the directors/writers/producers in the first place! This is something I am presently driven by in truckloads and have successfully articulated more and more with every new project. But, one has to tread carefully…..more of that another time.

Anyway, the world just seems to be getting smaller and smaller and I find myself gathering work from all corners of the globe these days. I expect that the present crisis in the oil prices may slow that down a bit before long…..we’ll see. Meanwhile I look forward to including you fellow industry bloggers (or not) in my future mission, should you choose to…..tara for now.

THE PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Mark Tanner came to the industry by way of optical and visual effects at England’s Pinewood Studios. He graduated to Production Designer after working as an Art Director on lauded movies such as
Saving Private Ryan, Waking Ned Devine and The Clandestine Marriage.

 

As Production Designer Mark has worked throughout television, music videos, commercials and features.

 

www.snipreels.com/mt