Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You calm down and try to find a compromise.
This is the real-life decision made by set designer Scott Reid. He says
set designers try to stay true to their vision without isolating others by
getting angry or demanding.
"It's very dangerous if you just kind of ignore everybody and go ahead
and do your own thing," Reid says. "It's going to be a train wreck very
early on."
It's important for set designers to work with others to arrive at
solutions. Everybody from the director to the playwright to the carpenter
has different ideas about what works best. The key is compromising.
"You might have to change your artistic vision to suit the material," Reid
says.
Donna Wymore says she has to be prepared to allow everyone
active participation when designing a set. A set designer's most valuable
skill, she says, is flexibility.
"A lot of times we'll get a set that has very, very ugly wallpaper,
for example. You want to say, 'This is the ugliest thing I've seen
in my life!' But the client is falling all over it and you have to bite
your tongue and go, 'Oh, that is lovely!' We have this old saying:
'I don't pick it. I just paint it,'" says Wymore.