What does a production designer do?

Through our video example, we'll demonstrate the brilliant solutions an art director can offer

October 11, 2023

The production designer is a specialist who arranges the filming space: creates and decorates it, supervises the construction of scenery, purchase of props. In this post I will talk about the project, where there were ingenious decisions of the production designer.

Client - Rimmel

We filmed 3 television commercials. For the shooting, as part of a creative concept, we found a huge production facility. Cold and soulless. The production designer needed to revive and transform it. The following examples will show how we did it without much complicated decorations.

0:21 The desktop of the heroine-artist. Pay attention to the background - there was a deep hall of the plant, only concrete and columns. We covered the background with huge plastic bag, which is usually found in artists' studios. In addition, such material gives an underground association to what is happening in the frame, which was important in brand positioning.

Frame from the commercial: the artist holds and looks at her painting. цитата на картинку: We covered the background with huge plastic bag

0:34 Graffiti in the form of a hashtag of the brand's advertising campaign. In addition to being an excellent native placement of the brand, it is also a bright visual accent in the video.

Frame from the commercial: a guy draws graphics in the form of hashtags on the wall

045 The pattern on the glass. Again, we work with the background. From ordinary glass, we make a pattern that opens at 0:15 - a visual reference to the British flag, the birthplace of the brand.

Frame from the commercial: a girl stands in a decorated room

At 0:45 you can see how our hashtag played differently on the concrete floor. Imagine how boring this shot would look without this floor design?

Frame from the commercial: a girl dances on a floor with graffiti in the shape of a hashtag

0:11 - light tunnel. Many people to whom we show this video think that we initially rented a location with such lighting installations. Alas, no one gave us such happiness. It was a joint decision of the DOP and production designer. Such a technique was not the easiest to implement - firstly, it was difficult and long time to lay electrical wiring; secondly, this wiring had to be hidden so that there was no visual noise.

Frame from the commercial: a girl walks along a long corridor in a production workshop decorated with numerous glowing lamps

By the way, for filming we specially painted blue the barrels at 0:11 near the pillars. But a close up with them were not included in the final editing