- [Narrator] The little worlds created
for our favorite Christmas movies
almost become characters unto themselves,
characters we tend to remember long after.
But if you're a director with an idea
for a fantastical Victorian toy shop
that induces spontaneous song and dance numbers,
what do you do?
- Kind of stuff you see
like in big movies I watched growing up,
like "Star Wars" kind of movie.
Now, it's like I'm shooting one.
- [Narrator] Turns out film directors
are kinda like Santa.
They recruit a bunch of very skilled elves
who handle all of the details.
Here's how a Christmas set gets made.
Let us know your favorite in the comments.
(cheerful music)
(cards whooshing)
One reason I wanted to talk
about world building for this video
is because "Jingle Jangle" looks like an amusement park
where everyone really really cares about their job.
I've seen it three times now,
and I keep finding new details in the background.
(electronic whirring)
(cheerful music)
Like this floor.
Now, okay, how special can a floor be?
Well, look how weathered and stained it is in the shot
like a pacing inventor has worn it down over decades,
and that didn't happen.
It was crafted most likely just days before filming.
Even the tiniest details of what we see on screen,
like floors for instance, are crucial,
because they allow filmmakers to give us so much story
in both so quickly, almost invisibly.
(cheerful music)
According to scientists at MIT,
the human brain can process a visual scene
in around 13 milliseconds.
Now, real time, sound can't come close,
meaning that a film's visual world establishes things
like time and place almost instantaneously.
A spacious and decorated house
lets us know that this is Christmas present
in an affluent neighborhood, a juicy target for bandits.
And on the other side, seemingly simple contrast,
like African patterns in Victorian cuts
or buckled leather in a mid-century suburb
can signal that a film isn't a realistic period piece.
It's another genre, fantasy,
which has impact on tone and expectations,
but maybe most importantly,
there's the information that sets
and costumes convey about character.
The two broken clocks around a worn and faded Jeronicus
tell you a lot about what's going on with him.
So I know this sounds weird
when you see something so detailed,
but every movie, realistic and fantastical alike,
starts like this.
(cheerful music)
You can think of a film as being made in three segments.
And the first, pre-production,
is about ideas and getting organized
so that the actual filming can go off quickly, smoothly,
and importantly, for people funding it, cheaply.
Pre-production though is also
when the producers and directors assemble a team.
A team that includes a production designer.
They have the incredibly important job
of creating everything that we see
that isn't an actor or attached to one.
The backdrops, textures, furnishings, props,
in camera lights, graphics.
And their first task?
They usually analyze the script
and use it to craft a winning pitch
that jives with the director's vision.
- I grew up watching "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,"
my favorite, and "Willy Wonka,"
and they all had, you know, these factories.
- Yeah.
- So I said I wanted to create a character that had,
you know, his own, so.
- [Narrator] Nailed it.
Although sometimes
there's just a long-standing relationship,
some directors hold on to their production designers.
If they get the gig,
the production designer will set up an art department.
The biggest group on set, sometimes 200 plus people strong,
containing such varied jobs as legal clearance coordinator
and weapons master.
These are the elves in the director's workshop.
And together with the director
and the director of photography,
they'll tackle some big picture questions about the film
like what's the mood?
What's the tone?
What colors are we gonna use?
Should this be real or a visual effect?
How much is this gonna cost?
What does it all look like?
But there's also a lot of ground level work
starting with intensive research.
Even contemporary and preps basic houses in films
often have real counterparts
that were found during pre-production.
But when you're depicting different eras and cultures
there are more trips to libraries,
more digging through archives, more fact-finding missions.
To that base of knowledge,
the production designer and art department
then adds imagination.
♪ It's all possible ♪
Creating sketches and even miniatures
that show what each backdrop in the film should look like.
(pictures whooshing)
So that's the what,
but the production designer also helps determine the where.
Their location scouts scour the globe
for places that meet the director's vision.
Filming on location
can give you something authentic and magical,
like this scene shot in the real village of Norwich.
Plus you don't have to build anything.
(snowballs thudding)
- Yes, yes!
- [Narrator] But you never have total control of the site.
There are lighting problems, mountains of permits,
testy neighbors to buy off,
and you can forget about blowing anything up.
Deal breaker? (children shouting)
So particularly elaborate sets
might need to be built from scratch on a soundstage.
It can be slower and more expensive,
but you'll never find anything
like Jeronicus' workshop in the wild.
And finally, there's how.
The production designer hands over all their sketches
to the architecturally inclined
draftsman of the art department
who turn them into bonafide construction diagrams,
because the elves don't just plan,
there's a whole construction department
waiting for the moment when plans are approved
and soundstages rented.
The crew is divided into a number of specialties
based on the type of material that they work with,
plus riggers who handle scaffolding and hanging stuff.
But it's a bit misleading to think of them
as straight up construction.
There are sometimes multi-generational artisans
who are more focused on building characters,
like Journey's precocious little girl's room
rather than just building.
Sure, what they make
needs to safely support actors and crew,
but it's meant to convince the viewer, not last forever.
So in fact, the staple of set construction is the flat.
It's a standardized piece of reinforced plywood
that's propped up, painted, and plastered together,
so besides being relatively inexpensive,
sets are often modular.
Here's some film terminology.
You can wild away many set walls to allow access
for a big camera and lighting rigs.
But you also get the sense
when you talk to directors and crew
that building a set is just kind of making it work.
There's no manual for a temporary stained glass window.
These were made with colored sheets of plastic
with a light positioned behind them.
And while construction teams are busy making things,
set directors and prop masters are also busy getting things.
Anyone who likes shopping should look into these careers
because these people literally shop for months,
sometimes at bizarre fun sounding prop houses
like Harps Unlimited and Supply Sergeant.
Of course, they're craftsmen too,
fabricating pieces they can't find,
then dressing the set is the process
of taking those furnishings, drapes, and artwork,
and arranging them in the built space.
Of course, it takes precision,
because not only have to think about
what's appropriate for the story,
you also have to think about
where the camera and lights will be
in relation to the character,
because otherwise it can get weird.
(cheerful music)
The set dressers work their way down
to the smallest additions.
It's called layering or detailing.
The things you don't notice
that nevertheless fuel the picture.
A category that often includes graphics.
A graphic designer in the art department
creates all the custom signage, newspapers,
and even computer or phone screens in a film.
They probably made the battle map in "Home Alone,"
and certainly made the signs all over "Jingle Jangle."
(cheerful music)
By the way, these have meaning.
All the shops reference prominent African-Americans.
- David hand-picked these names
to make sure they represented something
bigger than just the movie, but history,
and people who were innovators.
- [Narrator] Finally, the director is ready to review
what the elves have built, called opening set.
If everything is okay, filming can begin,
with the crew from the art department on alert
for anything that needs replacing
or any foreign objects that make their way onto the set.
The big one you might have heard of is the water bottle.
(cards whooshing)
It used to be that the work on a movie's world
was largely done by the time you got to post-production,
but visual effects changed that.
- Ah, I encourage you to not be an imbecile!
- [Narrator] Now the art department
coordinates with visual effects teams
during and after filming
to make sure the digital world is just as cohesive.
Using crazy technology like LIDAR,
physical sets can be turned into exact 3D digital replicas
for visual effects teams to work off of.
They build by first placing simplistic digital blocks,
getting position and orientation correct
before layering with sophisticated structure,
texture, color, and lighting.
Sometimes there are entire townscapes
that are totally done with visual effects.
Or sometimes it's just extending a physical set
by filming portions on a green screen
and replacing those with suitable images later.
But whether it's realistic or fantastical,
at the end, you strike the set.
(cheerful music)
It's a little like your Christmas decorations.
These worlds get put away right after they're used.
And if they're good,
no one thinks about them while experiencing them.
But somehow everyone still remembers them afterwards.
It's a bit of Christmas magic,
thanks to Santa and his elves.
- That, ladies and gentleman, is.
- That's a wrap!
- That's a wrap.
- And that's a wrap. - And that's a wrap.
(cards whooshing)
- [Narrator] While there were art directors,
the title of production designer
was first given to William Cameron Menzies
for his work on the flawed epic "Gone with the Wind,"
despite a long and influential career
that brought him into weird sci-fi,
I couldn't find a record
of him working on a Christmas movie until ta-da,
I found this on an auction site.
Turns out he had an uncredited role
on another classic Christmas fantasy movie,
"It's a Wonderful Life."
Merry Christmas, Moviehouse.
(cheerful music)