SET DESIGN and CONSTRUCTION
A character should be reflected in their environment, the mood of a scene evident in the surroundings and the lighting, visually interesting yet realistic at the same time. Sets should be individual characters within your project.
Designs can be as simple as stark sketches or colorful paintings, as long as the mood and style are captured. The designs are then translated into workable blueprints that a crew can build from. Materials are a consideration - does the set have to take a pounding? Will a massive fight be staged, with gunfire and explosions? Can more expensive materials be simulated from something cheaper?
Locations can also be dressed to become what you envision. An art director and a set dresser can add a few stylish hi-lights to an industrial loft and it will be transformed into a sleek conference room or a bad guy's lair. An old home can be re-decorated and returned to 18th century opulence. Likewise, a few new tables, chairs, and new window treatments will turn a modest interior into a showplace. Sometimes just a few dollars will translate into thousands on screen.
Be sure to include the cost of a set strike. The designer and construction crew may have come up with a brilliant, cheap, and realistic way to create a cave interior in an industrial warehouse, but it will still take a Bobcat tractor and a 40-foot dumpster to make it go away so that you can get your deposit back.
One of Pirate pictures true claims to fame is the ability to take $10 and make it look like $1,000,000. Our crew built elaborate, highly detailed spacecraft sets for the LX Limited television pilot STAR RUNNERS clear back in 1992. The sets cost less than $50,000, are still standing today, and have been used in dozens of television shows and features since, including POWER RANGERS and Joss Whedon's cult hit FIREFLY. In 2005 we designed and built the sets for St. Louis Rams cheerleader Linday Brin's COMPLETE PREGNANCY FITNESS PROGRAM. Also on the St. Louis front we created sets for David Martyn Conley's feature TAPESTRY OF SHADOWS.