WLP350 Being a Freelancer in Film and Theatre Production Design
In this episode, Production Designer Kate Rance shares her diverse career spanning theatre and film. She compares design approaches across industries, her affinity for hands-on craft versus managing teams, and learning new skills through her eclectic projects.
Kate and Pilar used to work together on theatre productions (many years ago!) and Kate has designed this website you’re on now , as well as www.adventuresinpodcasting.com
Kate Rance is a production designer, working in both theatre and film in New York. (She also does other things, as you will find out during her conversation with Pilar, with whom she used to work and have coffee and croissants!)
“My background is in theatre, where I would call myself a Set Designer, because that's predominantly what I do. But since I transitioned into working in film, that job is usually Production Designer, which means that you're head of the art department, you're in charge of the sets, the props. Basically everything that you see on screen that isn't a costume would be the purview of the production designer. But there's some variation in industries. If you work in commercials or if you work on editorial shoots, for example, that job tends to be called Art Director, but Production Designer is predominantly what I'm called if I work in film.”
It’s become more acceptable to have portfolio careers, and for Kate, it seems like it’s more accepted in New York than London. Kate herself, used to separate her careers and present a different part of her as a professional depending on whom she was talking to, but now she’s more comfortable presenting herself as someone who has different roles, without feeling apologetic for it - quite the opposite, her work in different areas means her work is stronger for it. Her website presents her whole portfolio of work. (Check it out, www.katerance.com )
10.30 MINS
Kate contrasts her experience working on theatre versus film design. She is currently designing the set for a summer stage production of Steel Magnolias at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in St. Louis, Missouri. In theatre, the design process is lengthy and collaborative, involving months of meetings, research, sketches, model building, and back-and-forth with the director to develop ideas and themes from the source material. This luxury of time is baked into theatre but not other industries.
In contrast, film design happens on extremely compressed timelines of just a few weeks from hiring to start of shooting. There is uncertainty in pre-production since key details like locations are often still unknown, preventing major decisions too early. On fast-paced film sets where hundreds of people are involved, time equates money so design choices aim for efficiency over pondering options.
Kate loves theatre precisely for the ponderous, creative design development process unique to that industry. Film does not allow the time to fully explore concepts before having to lock in technical drawings. The luxury to work closely with the director over months to draw out themes from the material does not exist in film in the same way. This is what she misses when working on projects outside of theatre.
Kate still uses a shoe box for her set designs, although she also produces the AutoCad version. She still prefers to build physical scale models of sets as part of her design process, moving pieces around by hand to evaluate sight lines, even when not required by directors. This tactile approach is how she learned and helps concepts feel real. She delivers the final 3D model digitally, but it evolves out of an initial physical model she built herself.
Some directors still want physical models to interact with. So for those relationships she maintains model building as part of her process. But for younger designers who came up in a digital landscape, physical models may not feel as necessary if 3D digital ones are technically sufficient.
Maybe there are generational tendencies around tactile design methods versus digital ones. For example, PIlar’s husband teaches university students hands-on model making and kitbashing to bring physical craft into their digital animation work, feeling both remain complementary.
Kate Rance
23.30 MINS
When working in film, Kate sometimes is in charge of a team. She finds balancing being hands-on with managing larger teams difficult but vital. Her tactile nature means completely stepping back from physically making things causes her to lose something fundamental. Yet working solely on tiny projects also limits the ability to stretch creatively.
Her compromise is doing both larger collaborations and smaller hands-on projects. Each satisfies in different ways – big budgets enable things lacking with small gigs and vice versa. The variety sustains her engagement across radically different projects. The broader one casts their professional net, the better. Specialisation has its merits but for her, this fluidity has always made the most sense.
The film industry landscape has faced various challenges recently. The pandemic led many to leave as work dried up. The subsequent strikes have put some of her projects on hold indefinitely. Kate finds the mid-budget productions she often works on get squeezed out in times of economic hardship as money gravitates to the very low budget indie films which are sustainable through flexibility or the big studio blockbusters which drive profits.
The same is happening in theatre - with audiences down, risky and inventive work struggles while crowd pleasers thrive. Across fields, arts funding shrinks when times get tough.
Kate discusses the choice faced on a new early film project she's involved with - whether to seek higher funding to reach a higher production tier with less flexibility, or keep it very small scale and nimble. Attaching a star name has advantages for distribution and festivals but means paying them a chunk of the budget and having higher production values overall. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. Each direction has trade-offs.
34.00 MINS
Kate’s involvement on film shoots varies. On bigger films with larger art departments, she'll often stay for the wide establishing shots to ensure everything is correctly placed before other coverage shots happen independently. The quick shooting pace means constantly planning ahead.
On smaller shoots, she sometimes remains on set to personally handle continuity resets of props and set dressing between shots alongside other departments like costumes. This ensures consistency as scenes are edited together later.
Pilar wants to know about what happens with props that need to be broken. Kate confirms they have multiples ready for such situations or to reset anything fundamentally changed within a scene. They analyse scripts to prepare sufficient quantities of anything that might get used up. Continuity challenges happen around things in flux across a scene like cigarette or drink levels.
With regards to Kate’s own development and wellbeing, she admits learning to switch off and set work boundaries has always been hard as a freelancer who feels available 24/7. The pandemic forced improvements and she now better regulates email and work hours for personal time. Her husband's more regular work schedule helps.
On her own learning, Kate learns by necessity through the diverse range of projects she works on. Each requires gaining new temporary expertise, whether around unfamiliar historical periods, technical stagecraft elements, or other novel domains. This begins every project with humility around her knowledge, knowing she'll have to pick up new things from collaborators.
“In every project that I've ever done, there's been something that I haven't known. For example, if I'm working on a film and it's a period film, I have to temporarily become an expert in 17th century furniture, which I probably previously didn't know anything about.. The last theatre show I did was a very technical piece that had a lot of lighting built into the set. And I had to gain a lot of knowledge about how that worked so that I could work out how best to design for it. So I think every project brings something, and it enables me to come to every project with a lot of humility, because I know that I don't know anything. I know some things because I've been doing this a long time, but just because I did one thing, it doesn't mean I'm going to come to the next with any degree of expertise. It's always something new.”
Check out Kate’s work on her website: https://katerance.com
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