Waiting

In 2000, I had been doing mostly props and set design/building on commercial work when I was asked to work on a small comedy as the Art Director. A few weeks before shooting, the Production Designer backed out and I was promoted up with a $600 budget for the whole movie, and no art department crew.

Visual Concept: The idea was to create larger than life environments for the movie that would complement the wacky comedic style of the characters and situations.   With the Art Department budget being tiny, I had to come up with some innovative ways to get maximum production value – and quickly, too – there were only 3 weeks of preproduction.

The Mcnutt house: We actually used an entire house for the different rooms in the main character’s (Sean Mcnutt) family’s house. Since we were shooting with a small Cannon XL1 DV camera, I could use small rooms, like the existing bedrooms, as the character’s bedrooms. This eliminated a lot of continuity tricks that would otherwise have to be used to create the illusion that the rooms were in the correct relationship to each other, increasing the sense of reality.  The house was completely empty and painted white, ready to be sold, when I started. Luckily, I knew of a thrift store that was going out of business at the time, and I was able to get entire living room, dining room, and bedroom sets for free.  I wanted to create a sense that this house was lived in by an older Irish American father and mother with bad taste, who hadn’t redecorated since the 60’s or 70’s, and had an excess of kitcheytchatchkies, doilies, tea sets, etc.

Dining rm 2, livingtodiningrm: The dining room. Wallpaper was out of the question, so I opted to paint a base coat of pea soup green, and use cornucopia stencils and three kinds of spray paint to mimic a repeating wallpaper pattern. The woodwork is a harvest gold type color with a darker thin brown glaze scenic painted for aged effect.

Waiting living rm, diningtolivingrm: The Living room.A nice burnt pink color. Notice the green slipcovered “Dad’s chair” on the right.

Will in chair: Will Keenan having a moment

Sean’s bedroom 1,2: (same page)  Sean’s bedroom.  The idea behind this room is that Sean is out of college, lives at home with his parents, and feels frustrated and stifled. I thought it would add to that feeling, and be funny, if the room looked as if it hadn’t been redecorated since he was about 8 years old, and into cowboys. So the cowboy motif is everywhere (more stencils and spraypaint), with furniture that is too small for him, and dark beat up wood. Notice the Pong game on top of the TV.

Sis’ bedroom: The little sister’s bedroom.  Typical teenager magazine ripped pages on the walls, with a rebellious partier undercurrent.

Kitchen: There is a scene where Mrs. Mcnutt is stoned in the kitchen, so I wanted plenty of color and kooky imagery.

Fetish Queen living room: This is the apartment of Sean’s ex girlfriend, a Fetish club dominatrix, played by Kerry Kenney (of  MTV’s The State, and Viva Variety). Dark yet sophisticated was what I was going for here.  We shot this in the old Dead Milkmen house. The painting over the couch is mine, from figure studies in art school.

Restaurant 1,2:

Broccoletti’s Restaurant: This is the restaurant where Sean waits tables, and many hijinks ensue. We shot in an actual restaurant that was out of business for the moment, so I got all the existing production value of the “old plaster” faux finish on the walls, the existing bar and tables, and prep room. I added the cheesy vegetable tablecloths, rope lighting as neon, big flaming red curtains between rooms, and lots of garish artificial flowers.  The only thing we shot out of place was the kitchen, which was done at the Philadelphia Restaurant School’s kitchen.

Credits:
Writer/Director: Patrick Hasson
Cinematographer: Michael Pearlman
Production Designer: Christopher Jones
Assistant Director: Claudio Kuhn
Stars: Will Keenan, Kerry Kenney, Ron Jeremy

• Patric