Design for TV: LOVE OF A LIFETIME
Featured here in this blogpost and in this Facebook album are my drawings for "Love Story - Love Letters" program AKA "Love of a Lifetime". This is not the entire package, as anither package exists, for which the scans are showcased here.
This was a project for the "Current Affairs" division of the Television Corporation of Singapore, circa 1996 (*Check out my Pager number OMG lol) for which I had designed the sets for. Seen here are documentarion in the form of Layhout PLans, Location Plan, and perspectives of the set required for the particular episode, along with props (Setting) requirements. "Action Props" are requested direct from production assistants to rhe Props Store, as per usual practice.
There were multiple copies made of each drawing, which would have been submitted to Staging (Setting and Striking), and Props (Setting Props, furniture and furnishings), and as importantly, Set Dressing/Dresser, who would be pulling further detailed and era-accurate items described in my drawings, most times beyond my basic requests.
Remember, I was in the Variety Design unit of Production Services in TCS, and primarily engaged in designing for stage(d) sets, for variety, performance etc.
The gist of the drawings included WHAT the set was to look like (where the Set Dresser and props+furniture department could provide the closest proximity of designs to), a layout plan of the setting (for the setting crew to approximate where to put everything), and a "WHERE" for the location of where the setting was to be.
You can see from the drawings, that I had been more comfortable with this scenario, as it utilized my wheelhouse training in "Interior Design", while giving me the opportunity to "sign for narrative drama", even if the script is short.
All locations were set and filmed in TUAS TV WORLD; a studio backlot that belonged to TCS, and a spot I adored, and quite frankly miss TONS.
"Art Direction" was not a term used during my tenure at TCS, but that was apart of my jobscope too. Which enabled me to experience a semblance of "designing for drama", before my first feature film in 1998, and subsequent lines after.
Cheers
Andy
P/S: I can't officially say "I got into trouble", but let's just say all this effort and time taken for this were "frowned upon", which to me felt were a simple "necessity" to complete a basic setting required for the scene(s) to be filmed, IMHO.