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Sueann Ramella

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Thom Kokenge

All Things Considered Host & Producer

Robin Rilette

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Kerry Swanson

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John Paxson

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Steve Reeder

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Tagged: Culture

Music + Culture

9:05 pm

Wed February 20, 2013

For Film Set Decorators, Tiny Details Count

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR

The third floor of the Warner Brothers Prop House holds a host of antiques available for rent by set decorators working on television and films. Each of the building's four floors is as big as a football field.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

The first floor displays a range of high-end modern furniture and designer collections, plus kitchen and bath accessories (including rolling bathtubs).

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Freelance set dresser Joe Viau is returning a rented lamp to the Prop House. The fixtures department is always making adjustments to be sure everything is safe to use.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

The Prop House has a section called "White House Art." No, they're not real. But a film must secure permission from the White House to use any of this art, even if it's a copy.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Set decorator Lauri Gaffin tests out a couch for an upcoming Johnny Depp film. Assistant set decorator Florence Fellman takes a photo so the two can confer with the production designer.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Inside one of the 35 or 40 trucks that arrives daily to collect set dressings.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Warner Brothers worker Stephen Lampke moves furniture on the Prop House's second floor, which holds the "contemporary" items: sofas, coffee tables, end tables, bookcases, mostly middle-class workaday furniture.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

The football-field-sized third floor of Warner Brothers' Prop House, where they keep a host of antiques available for rent.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

The set decorating crew of an upcoming film starring Johnny Depp includes lead man Anthony Carlino (from left), assistant set decorator Florence Fellman and set decorator Lauri Gaffin.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Randall Thropp, a Paramount archivist, recoils in mock fear from the power of the AllSpark as set decorator Rosemary Brandenburg takes it from the glass case. The AllSpark was used as a prop in Transformers; it may have another life in an upcoming sequel.

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

Twin brothers Ildemaro (left) and Rafael Molina work as set decorators on a movie set in North Hollywood.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR

Karen O'Hara, along with one of her set dressers, wires white and yellow silk flowers to the canes of a dormant rosebush in a Los Angeles backyard.

By Susan Stamberg

Originally published on Thu February 21, 2013 12:07 pm

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Picture Rick's smoky cafe in Casablanca, Lincoln's office at the White House of the 1860s, or the Mos Eisley cantina on the desert planet of Tatooine: A production designer came up with the overall look of those movie sets. But the booze on Rick's bar or the pens on Lincoln's desk — it took a set decorator and a crew to make them look authentic and believable.

9:21 am

Wed May 23, 2012

For Location Scouts, It's All About Making The Scene

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Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR/Courtesy Doug Dresser (except as noted)

Location scout Doug Dresser needs creepy places for a teen fantasy-adventure film. One possibility: the old Linda Vista Community Hospital, built in 1904. Supposedly it's haunted.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR/Courtesy Doug Dresser (except as noted)

Outside L.A.'s Chinatown, Dresser scouts a recently closed dairy.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR/Courtesy Doug Dresser (except as noted)

"What we're looking for is the things you might pass up walking by every day," says Dresser, who scouted six sites on this day – including an abandoned library and an outdoor location under the Sixth Street Bridge.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR

For the upcoming Justin Timberlake film Now, it was location manager John Panzarella who made the arrangements to close the Sixth Street Bridge in Los Angeles. (The Fourth Street bridge, too, for another scene). Don't be too hard on him, though: It's just part of the job.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR

Movie folk — including actor Matt Damon and director Cameron Crowe, who were filming inside — swarmed a corner restaurant in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz in late January. They were working on the movie We Bought a Zoo, based on a true story by Benjamin Mee.

By Susan Stamberg

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In the old days, movies — even the big epics — were shot on studio back lots. Tara, that iconic Gone With the Wind plantation, was made of plywood and papier maché.

These days, movie locations are mostly real, though. And they're found by location scouts, who are often the first people hired for a film.

Should be easy work, right? You drive around town, spot a house you think could work for a film, drive back home? Not quite.

6:22 am

Fri February 24, 2012

"Talking Dictionaries" Help Preserve Endangered Tribal Languages

Credit Photo Credit: K. David Harrison / Northwest News Network

iPhone apps for learning the Canadian Inuit language Inuktitut (left) and Tuvan (right), a tongue spoken by a nomadic people of Mongolia.

By Tom Banse

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VANCOUVER, Canada - Usually it is good news when the Northwest appears on a top five list. But this one is not. Our region ranks near the top of a list of global hotspots for disappearing languages. The reason is that speakers of Native American languages are dwindling. Correspondent Tom Banse reports on how digital technology is coming to the rescue of some ancient tongues.

9:01 pm

Wed February 22, 2012

Private Screening: How Hollywood Watches Its Work

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Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR

At the Charles Aidikoff Screening Room on Rodeo Drive, filmmakers can screen their works in progress for an invite-only audience in the small, 57-seat theater. The screening room is also rented to show films to members of the Academy and the press.

Credit Courtesy Charles Aidikoff Screening Room

Filmmaker Judd Apatow (left) screened his film Bridesmaids at the Charles Aidikoff Screening Room to a group of family and friends, including actor Seth Rogen (right). Click here to see the Charles Aidikoff Screening Room Wall of Fame.

Credit Thaddeus Bridwell / Charles Aidikoff Screening Room

Charles Aidikoff, 97, learned the art of projection from his father, who ran silent movies in a Coney Island theater in the early 1900s. Aidikoff's grandson Josh carries on the family tradition — he became manager of the screening room at age 19.

Credit Cindy Carpien / NPR

Josh Aidikoff mastered the complicated business of running film projectors when he was still in his teens. Now, the Aidikoff Screening Room has a digital projector, too, and Josh predicts that in a few years he won't be handling film at all.

By Susan Stamberg

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Before they made it to the Oscars, the nominated films — not to mention all the films that didn't make the cut — were viewed by some 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Many of those movies were shown in small, private, rented screening rooms all over Hollywood.

The studios have their own screening rooms, of course, but often directors want a more private place to screen works in progress — with no studio suits in sight.

12:16 am

Wed February 22, 2012

Local Films to be Premiered Oscar Night

By Stephen Leonard

This Sunday, February 26, many will sit down to their televisions to enjoy the 84th Academy Awards. Since the release of the nominees the internet has been filled with predictions and debates mainly centering around the "Best Actor in a Leading Role," Best Actress in a Leading Role," and "Best Picture. While these awards are being revealed down in Hollywood, the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA) will be presenting an award show of its own.

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