xt1me

For ‘Fallen Angel’ we originally got someone to be art director but they unfortunately had to back when college work started piling up on them.

The art director position was something we tried to fill quite early on as we knew it would be one of the most difficult rolls. The wings, the costume and the creator when the angel lands were all things that will make of break the film.

The director found someone who said they’d do it. Someone who was doing the same course I did in college so I thought they’d at least know the basics.

Now I never met the guy, and now I never will but all I heard from the director was complaints. The guy could obviously draw so he had that going for him but that seems to be it.

The first sign of trouble appeared when he said he was more of a conceptual artist and wouldn’t be able to turn any of his designs into practical work, which is not what you need when working on a film as that’s the entire point of the art department. Still, if you have good designs and instructions other people can turn it into reality. After all, we were all going to help where we could.

But then it seemed he didn’t listing to the director when he wanted to change bits in the design. (Which is what he supposed to do as it’s the director’s vision.) Just small bits but again, kind of his job.

Then I found out he had somehow managed to get this down as his work experience.

Not only does that mean he has no excuse not to get everything done as he has literally nothing else to do but he should be actually with the director as much as possible to work and get EXPERIENCE! I can tell you right now, I don’t care what fast-talking he did to get away with this beforehand but he is not passing his work experience class with this. He didn’t even finish the painting he said he’d do (which we didn’t ask for or even want.)

Now he could be a perfectly nice guy, like I said I never meet him so I don’t know, but this is ridiculous. What tops it off is the fact that because his work experience is over he’s now dropped off the project. It’s actually a relief he’s gone or we’d be more annoyed by it.

We did get someone else to be art director when we realised how little he’d be doing, someone I know from the play, so we weren’t left in the lurch, and the assistant the director and I will be part of the art department until the shot actually starts so we’ll get this done. (I suspect the director will be doing the wings.) We’ll also be getting a dedicated make-up person and possibly a props master so the art department is beginning to look the one department that we might actually have organised.

It’s just weird coming at this from an acting angle rather then a crew angle. And by that I mean, since the director is more familiar with stage work the acting part seems to be more organised the crew. I’m just not used to being on a production where we didn’t have all the main parts of the crew filled by now. That is to say, filled by people that know a bit about what their rolls on a film actually involve. (Though to be fair we don’t have all the actors yet either.)

Still, I can’t dwell on that right now, I have to get through the play first.