[00:00] My name is Bonnie, and I'm the production designer on Rocket Jump the Show.
[00:14] Anything that you see in front of the camera is something that, in some way, I should be responsible for. Anything from the props that the actors are holding to the backgrounds that they're in front of, if it's a location, if it's a built set,
[00:26] really no matter what we're going to see, I have to know and facilitate to make sure that it works for the show. So, Geordi was an interesting balance back and forth because you essentially had
[00:38] both a story that dictated the set design and a set design that dictated the story. The great thing is the way it was written, that cliche hallway that you're going to make a joke about, I think it's very clear in my mind. I pictured exactly what that was immediately.
[00:55] Normally, from the director, I'll do everything from starting with the initial script, pulling reference images, trying to lock down the way that we're going to go. Yeah, and more than anything, it's really just, it's the vibe to me.
[01:09] You know, the discussion is, so you need that ridiculous go-to hallway that you've seen in a million movies. So we need things that are concrete and shiny and an amazing door that you walk through, you know, that plays as funny and absurd over and over again.
[01:22] I design and sketch up It a great program because I can actually work so quickly in it and it a really simple technology and I can drop in camera lenses and actually you know talk to the DC and the director with true training
[01:37] And then as we move forward, getting into, you know, the details of everything, like the props, like in Georgie in particular, like the gag of the door and what they had to do every time changes a lot.
[01:49] Basically every time the characters go through and have to go into a new door, they've got to set up an entirely new way to get through it. So we have these interchangeable panels, like, you know, on and off, depending on what gags up at the time,
[02:02] whether it's a penis hole or a telephone or all those various things. I would say the physical construction seemed like it lasted about a week, and then we loaded into the stage and were painting additionally for, like, a couple extra days.
[02:18] So I would say from the time I handed plans to our team, it was probably about a week and a half. So for the Georgie hallway, there were a couple big challenges with just what we wanted to do with the design.
[02:31] Because the characters are doing the exact same thing, walking up this hallway, getting through a door over and over again, it's even timing out how quickly the actors can walk and what distance that hallway has to be,
[02:43] and making sure that they turn off set and then it feels like they're just walking into another hallway even though we have only one. since everything was so ironed out and repetitive, it also became like a little bit of an opportunity to try to find a way to make repetitive interesting.
[02:58] So by trying to build in like light wells on the side that just like would pass it would be like a repetitive beat and play the jokes but then also just add visual interest that most hallways don have They hallways
[03:10] These guys are vertical light wells. So these actually will go in between all of the flats in the hallway. So every 10 feet you're going to walk past one of these huge vertical light wells. And then you'll have these headers that are displaced between each of those.
[03:24] You kind of have this like changing light in and out as they always are walking through. what could be very boring but hopefully will not always. Because at Rocket Jump we didn't have the funds to custom make everything,
[03:37] I had to make things work that didn't quite work. So basically I'd go to Fry's and I'd buy weird antennas and things that just look high-techy, and that becomes a hand scanner. Because each of those guys was kind of clutch in how they were going to get through this door,
[03:51] it was a process of kind of going back and forth about what can we actually find to build these things out and marrying them with what the script was trying to do and then making sure that they actually could work on the day.
[04:03] There's, like, a couple different ways to build sliding elevator doors. There's, like, the really fancy way, and then there's the way we could afford to do it. The door itself is actually an elevator door in a pulley system, and it moves into the wall.
[04:16] And I just remember as the day went on shooting, the door just started to, like, stick and was getting caught, And I just was like, oh, God, if the door just stops working.
[04:33] Because we just are doing the same thing over and over and over again every time I just like was counting down the hours until we were done that the door didn have to be used anymore For directors, it's really just, you know, use people in your art department
[04:46] because they have, like, an incredible ability. And it's tricky when you've come up and, you know, had very little help.
[04:59] You haven't had people in art departments. you haven't had, you know, a full crew. And then all of a sudden you can get it. And, you know, just kind of embrace, like, how far they can help you take your ideas.
[05:11] And then for young production designers, I would say just keep designing movies. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. You will learn an insane amount just from working it out.
[05:27] You know, everything from understanding your crew better because I've done all of it. I've done prop master, I've driven trucks, I've physically built my own sets. And because I've done all those things, when I talk to everybody else in my crew,
[05:42] I know exactly what the challenges are to do up against and I know how hard their job is. So I just keep designing.
[05:57] Thank you.