Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524788
1 4 P E R S P E C T I V E | J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 2 4 S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y Warehousing Scenery, a Cautionary Tale B Y K A R E N S T E WA R D , A D G G R E E N C O M M I T T E E S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y C O N S U L TA N T ADG GREEN COMMITTEE MISSION STATEMENT: THE ADG IS COMMITTED TO MAKING POSITIVE AND LASTING CHANGES IN THE FILM, TELEVISION AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY, AND PROMOTING A MORE SUSTAINABLE ART DEPARTMENT BY PROVIDING RESOURCES, EDUCATION, ECO- FRIENDLY SOLUTIONS, AND PARTNERSHIPS AMONG AND WITH THE MULTITUDE OF INDUSTRY CRAFTS, VENDORS AND PRODUCERS. In June, an ADG member, who is a Production Designer, attended one of our meetings in order to shine a light on an ongoing and concerning dilemma that has been facing Art Departments for a very long time. I've seen it play out dozens of times over the course of my career; and it is an unrecognized condition of the ambiguous nature of our industry. Many times, a show will rent warehouse space for scenery storage (often combined with additional mill space) during the ongoing run of a project, especially television shows with pilots or first- run seasons that need to move off a sound stage while they wait to see if they will be picked up by the network. Sometimes this warehouse will be used for storing scenery (flats, doors, windows, fireplaces, elevators, balconies, fake greens, carpet and flooring, etc.) for multiple shows produced by that network in various states of inactivity. Typically, regarding flats, the method is to tape some information onto the back of a flat and then "bookshelf" them face-to-face in a row and screw them together in blocks, leaving only the edges of the flat visible. Because most of these warehouses start out as temporary storage and end up being longer term, they inevitably fill up with more and more scenery until suddenly, it is impossible to tell what the set looked like because walking by them gives you only the bare edges, and there are no organized photos or floor plans available on any kind of digital platform as an additional way of viewing what the set once was as a whole. Scenery re-use has been a difficult conundrum for a long time. The Art Department generally hits the ground running on a new show, generating drawings and floor plans based on the script and the team might not have knowledge of any re-use opportunities from a storage facility until it is too late, or not at all. One of our goals at the ADG Green Committee is to figure out better communication between projects that are closing down and projects that are starting up, as well as encouraging Production Designers, Set Designers and Art Directors to ask the questions immediately after being hired on the shows as to what existing scenery opportunities might be available (either in a warehouse or on the lot or existing rentable options) before they start drawing sets. However, the warehoused scenery often cannot be used because there is no existing access to photos or floor plans of these sets, and the only way to see them is to hire a grip crew to unzip the blocks of scenery for viewing, and that is an expense that studios are reluctant to approve, and Art Directors A A. KAREN STEWARD B. SCENERY STORAGE UNIT. B