Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1072449
6 P E R S P E C T I V E | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 9 E D I T O R ' S N O T E Common Threads B Y D A V I D M O R O N G , E D I T O R As I work through the process of putting together each issue, common threads of the articles naturally come to my attention. The previous issue of the magazine featured a study by my collegue at SDSU, Dr. Martha Lauzen, on the participation of women in lead roles in the Art Department. This month of the seven projects featured in the issue, four of them are by female Production Designers, and a fifth was authored by a woman Supervising Art Director. This is the second time features by female Production Designers have been in the majority in the nine issues I have done since taking over as editior, March/April 2018 being the other instance. The other trend noticable in the featured projects is Los Angeles-based production. Five of the seven projects shot in the LA Production Zone. (Although HULU one, The Romanoffs, also shot virtually everywhere else in the world .) Kay Lee was happy to be able to set an LA story where it actually happened, but Anastasia White had to find South Florida in LA for Homecoming, Val Wilt needed to find New Orleans for AHS Apocalypse, and for Vice, Patrice Vermette created Jordan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Houston, Oklahoma City, D.C., London, Saudi Arabia, Casper, Wyoming, Vietnam, Cambodia and Milan, Italy, all in the Greater Los Angeles area. The latest figures from FilmLA show only a modest increase (three percent overall in Q3 2018) in LA-based production, just as the latest figures from Dr. Lauzen's study shows only modest gains in female particpation in lead production roles. It would be nice to see these trends continue to reflect the emphirical evidence in this issue.