The Game Changer - Bridge Props

Needless to say, it was a slow month, work wise - I did get to do two commercials. One for a trendy fruit drink which involved building sets upside down to accomodate puppeteers who used their arms as their legs - need I say more? Should be a very interesting spot.

Then another spot for a pharmaceutical to boost men's virility - And I'm not talking Viagra. So two very different jobs.

The fruit drink job involved small 3/4 size sets to accomodate puppets to be dressed as fruit. As mentioned, they stand upright, but their hands are their legs.

If I didn't feel pressure to earn a living, I might have been glad to have spent most of the month at home and not out fighting the elements - snow, ice storms and all around nasty weather.

Most of the work for the Pharm job involved looking online for appropriate couches and chairs - It was a quickie. I was hired on a friday for a shoot the following monday - It's amazing how quickly one can gather props these days without even getting up from one's chair and computer -

Lots of quick searches on West Elm, Pottery Barn and Bridge Props

Bridge Props, a teriffic new york prop house ( located in Williamsburg Brooklyn ) that has all of it's inventory well photographed and on line - I have never had the need to enter the actual prop house - Virtual visits are all it takes. -

One finds a magnificant selections of sofas, chairs, tables, case pieces etc along with an impressive selection of cleared artwork - Cleared being the operative word since artwork is a very sensitive issue when being placed in a commercial, film or television sets.

Matt Hennessy's Bridge Props has certainly proven to be a game changer in the world of set decorating. He was the first to comprehensively set up a virtual furnture prop house, in New York at least.

The selection of furnishings at Bridge is impressive and stylish. From the modern furniture selections - the Eames, the Corbus the Barcelonas - to more traditional fare - Crate & Barrel sofas, George Smith knock offs and the like- He's got it all covered -

Bridge keeps everything in pristine condition so you never have to worry about something arriving dirty or in poor condition.

All in all a fantastic selection, and a pleasure to deal with.

The other amazing thing is that he has quantities of pieces - So if you need to decorate a hotel lobby, for example, there are a dozen matching leather sofas. And I happened to notice he has 306 matching french style dining chairs - Perfectly suited for an elegant restaurant set or maybe a wedding.

I definitely give Bridge Props two thumbs up.

Those beginning of the year freelance blues...

It's the beginning of the year and I'm having the freelance blues.

I'm wondering from where the next job will come from? Who should I call? and who will call me? What should I do? I'm trying to remember who I worked with last year, and sending people emails and texts, and gasp, calling them on the phone...

It's a hard time of year - the first week of january - the long vacation proceeded by... no work.

It's times like these I wish I had a full-time job to go to - to put my feet up on my desk - to go out to lunch - to email friends and look at websites - and of course, to do some work.

It's just hard to be freelance the first week of January -

because I have them old first week of the new year freelance person's blues...

Vendor of the Year: Dominique Montelbano

Dominique Montelbano at Props for Today is my vote for the vendor of the year.

I think it's because of her cool and calm disposition. She always makes you feel cared for and that she can help you solve your decorating problems.

But it is more than that.

It's the graceful way she'll escort you around PFT , tagging every couch you think you may want to rent... And then the speed in which she'll pull together your order when you call an hour or so before it needs to be picked up ( oh how crazy our business often is).

And let me give a shout out to the new furniture that PFT has purchased this year.

It's always exciting to see new, rentable stuff that is trendy and appropriate for all kinds of sets.

Dyann Klein, the owner of PFT deserves credit for her perseverence and desire to continue making PFT a fresh and exciting place.

Happy Holidays

I worked on a television spot for K's - a leading box store around the country. The director was quite adamant that the spot not look too christmasy. The client's had sent us boxes and boxes of xmas decorations - xmas balls, garlands, wreaths, reindeer - the most over the top selection of holiday decorations that one could imagine...And the director wanted none of it - "No wreaths, no garlands..."oh I hate all that stuff" he told us.

So we were in a quandary. How to decorate this commercial in a holiday fashion without over-doing all the christmas decorations - And of course this was, essentially the "Product".

So me, the designer, one of the best around - and a crew of prop man began decorating the tree, the mantle and the location - the living room in a house in Montclair in which all of the homeowners furniture had been removed and replaced by couch, chairs ,lamps and accent tables from Crate & Barrel -

So we delicately placed live garland around the mantle - We hung a very small wreath above the fireplace - we decorated the tree with a minimun of balls and lights. We wrapped gifts in a very austere and simple fashion... We placed a beautiful orchid on one of the tables...

We were worried, we were nervous. This particular director was of the old school - always quick to insult or criticize. We waited until he arrived.

When he walked into the room which really looked very pretty and not to over the top at all he stared intently and then whispered to the designer..." This looks like xmas at Sing Sing..."

So out came the reindeer, the decorative garlands, the wreaths, the candlesticks the tstokies galore. Oh and the matching red stockings, perfectly spaced and in a perfect row.

And so it goes.

Happy Holidays to all.

It's complicated

Okay. So I didn't end up blogging everyday. There were people who wanted to read my blog and were disappointed that I wasn't keeping the blog up to date -

What happened. Well life happened. Working, trying to work, raising a daughter, being a mommy, wife, set decorator, freelancer - all of those things got in the way of blogging.

But you might ask why didn't you write about all of that.

That is a good question. I think, in many ways, it was a disappointing year.

Maybe the disapointment in the industry started last christmas eve ( a year ago almost to the day) when I found out I hadn't received a credit on the film "It's Complicated". Some how I was left out of the credits and it was very frustrating, disappointing and unnerving - all of those things - especially since I had felt so connected to that film, and that experience.

Sure. there were very difficult moments during the shooting. But I was very much a part of the set decorating team. It pushed that painful button of feeling invisible and unrecognized.

So that was a lousy christmas present. My sister said that if anyone asks why I wasn't in the credits I should just say... "Well, it's complicated..."

The Boy's room set

Last week, Amelia Battaglio, one of the best production designers I know hired me to decorate a commercial for an air freshener . It was a quickie - She had scouted locations for 2-3 days and I was hired on friday to start decorating.

We were on a tight budget so she and I headed out to Ikea to purchase most of the furniture. It was a exhausting trip late in the afternoon that lasted almost 3 hours. We ploughed through, and with the help of Jose, my driver we filled his minivan with all of our purchases - bed, mattress, dressers, shelving, rugs - The works.

So I continued shopping on monday and tuesday - sporting goods, curtain fabrics, rugs etc. Everything was coming together.

At around 3pm, the director contacted Amelia and said that he thought the kid should have a collection of his converse sneakers..."like 30 pairs", he said on the phone. The idea was he had collected all the converse he had ever worn - "Hmmm, 30 pairs," we thought. Where to find 30 pairs of used converse in varying sizes... at 4pm in the afternoon. Amelia suggested a place on St. Mark's Place. A guy who sells used sneakers in an old shoe repair store.

I drove over there, and he had 8 pairs that would be appropriate. He charged me $70. Then I went down to a store on prince Street called Vintage. They had Vintage Converse - White, yellow, blue, even converse with an american flag pattern. Each pair priced at $80-90. So I bought two pairs and headed back to Brooklyn.

He also wanted gnarley looking stuffed animals so I stopped at the Atlantic Avenue Salvation Army

When I got back, Amelia said that the director called to tell her that the clients had nixed the sneaker idea.

All in a day's work. All in a day's work