My name is Marion Pon and I'm an Art Director in film. Being an Art Director means that we take care of anything you see on the screen except for actors and animals. So, that includes: paint, construction, set dec, props, picture, vehicles, wardrobe, makeup and hair.


[Decision To Enter This Particular Occupation:]

I've been doing this for about five years now. When I finished my last job I decided to try film because I was really interested in what I had done before but I needed more challenges. An opportunity came so I started. My background is a design background. As I mentioned before, I had to take care of construction so I wasn't trained as an Industrial Designer and that means designing three dimensional objects, so that certainly has helped me in my work.

[Teamwork Skills:]

I really enjoy the work and I love designing. I think I work well with people. I haven't had many complaints and I just love challenges. To be able to work with other people is so critical because once you are working on a film or commercial or any project with a group of people we have so much to do in a short term. So, it's quite stressful. You need to be able to deal with any conflicts right away and explain what the project is to the people you're working with. It's really important. Everybody has their own job and we all need to do it together.

[Positive Attitude:]

I don't think you could survive without a positive attitude working in film because there's so many things that could go wrong. And if you just don't try to deal with it, then you're not enjoying your work.

[Change & Adaptability:]

To adapt to change is so critical because we do start out with a script, but then as the work goes along, once you choose your locations, talk with the Director, the Director of Photography, there might be so many things that have to change from the script. Just tiny little things that you have to have plans and be able to move with it.

As an Art Director, I am responsible for co-ordinating the look with consultation with the Director, I mean and the Director of Photography. But it's my job to decide on a look for the whole project. And because we do a lot of location stuff, we go to a home and it may look totally different than another home that we've shot in, but we still have to make it seem like the same story. So, to begin with the design is my job. But then I oversee a crew and I then I manage a budget.

[Ongoing Training:]

Partly for my own professional development I certainly watch a lot of films, just to see what's happening and the type of shooting that they're doing. You know, sometimes the shooting is very static and sometimes it's really fast. And that makes a difference for our art department, depending on what they see. So I have to keep up on that.

And then, just on terms of technical things, whatever materials are available to us, and again going back to locations (if we do need to paint, how we can paint without interfering with the actual home). So all that sort of material, technical stuff, I have to keep up on.

[Typical Work Day:]

Usually, Film is sort of divided into two parts. There's a prep part where we all get together and we have our meetings and we decide what we're going to do. And then, there's the production part where we're actually shooting - and the days in each are quite different.

In prep it's mostly meetings and then meetings with the Director, the Producers; and then talking to the crew, the set dec, the props people; and then they'll go out and source the materials that we need; and then, when we're actually shooting the day may involve:

going to a location before the crew gets there
dressing it (because we always have to change the location from how a typical person would live in there because of all the equipment we're bringing in); so that's when we dress the set.
then they shoot
and then, we would come back after and we would wrap the set.

In the meanwhile, we would just keep buying more stuff that we would need with the other locations.

[Hours Of Work:]

There's never a 9:00 am to 5:00 pm day. A regular day may be ten hours but I think more typically it would be at least a twelve hour day.

[Most Challenging Aspects:]

The challenges that I really enjoy are that each project is different. Because we're on the prairies, we do a lot prairie, so I've learned to do farms and that sort of thing. But even then, each story may require a different look for that farm; one may be modern, one may be very old, and then it depends on the economic bracket they want that farmer to be in. So, the challenges are that everything is different all the time.

[Most Satisfying Aspect:]

The most satisfying part for me is that I actually get to design something and work with a whole bunch of people to bring this all together. And then, when you see it on TV or on screen, it's great.

[Education & Training:]

In order to be good in what I do in film, certainly you should have some knowledge of design. I don't know if you have to have an official design education, but I think to be good you have to be curious and you have to really look forward to the challenges that were mentioned. If you don't want to go in and do your twelve or fourteen-hour day it's not going to work.

[Advice For Someone Entering This Field Of Work:]

If you're really interested in working in film, working in the art department as I do, you should certainly research it, call up production, or call up an Art Director and see if you can meet with them and maybe go to a shoot. See what actually happens on a set.