Monday, November 1, 2010

Holiday Portraits

The Holiday Portrait assignment has been a great learning experience, and the thing I learned about set design (I think) is fairly simple: pick a background, pick a focal point, and hang everything else on it.  We hoisted the background mural over a week ago.  Lately we have been working on the sleigh.  It is huge: 4’ wide, 6’ long, and over 4’ high.  The big bug-a-boo has been the color of red. 

We painted a large sample of Candy Cane Red (sounded good) and it tested out as a nice Fire Engine Red under some Photogenics.  That was OK and we painted two coats of it on this big prop.  That was OK too, except that under the studio Fluorescents it appeared to be a strong magenta.  The overwhelming reaction (100% I think) was UGHHHHH! 

On my way back to the paint store I noticed the sample appeared Fire Engine Red in direct sunlight, and while that made sense it pleased no one.  My instructor reasoned that it was nice to demonstrate an understanding of physics but that did not justify making our customers vomit as they entered Studio B. 
 

Gels and Photoshop was not the way to go, so I auditioned a new can of paint.  Long story short, the new color (Saw III-Curdled Corpuscles) looks super.



1 comment:

ErikHelms said...

I love this! nice comparison. It definitely throws any concerns I had out the window.