mmm, green

G

goldenboy

Scooby
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
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I'm an art director, so these things occur to me...

Who was the main set designer on Buffy/Angel? I think I share their color sense and preferred palette. The walls in certain key locales are this very nice sort of cool green color: Giles apartment, The Magic Box, Angel's office in the Hyperion, Wesley's apartment...

Also, as one moves through the seasons, I notice that the lighting design becomes much improved. I'm sure much of this had to to with budgets as much as anything. It's all very ambient in seasons one and two of Buffy"”either very harsh and bright or dark and murky. There's no particular care paid to lighting people's faces just so. Then by season 3 things get interesting. The light becomes very warm and inviting, shaded table lamps start to illuminate everyone, great care is paid to lighting faces. And the color seems richer and more saturated in Buffy. Angel never seemed to be quite as colorful and saturated. It was quite nice though too.
 
The DVD box sets have a featurette on the set design, I think it was Seaosn 3. It was a really interesting featurette. Dunno who it was sorry. nerd4hire's "Ask me anything about the Whedonverse" thread may help.
 
There was an interesting feature on the Firefly DVD about the colours used in the set design. Brown and warm colours for the mess room, blue for the cockpit - that sort of thing. I'd never noticed how they use colour before I watched that...wotta Philistine, eh? I look out for it now though...
 
Oh my god, one of my absolute favorite things about Buffy and least favorite things about Angel. Especially the later seasons of Buffy (season 4 on). I'm not sure whether the DP changed or what, but the look of the show became somewhow richer, more colorful than in seasons previous. The day scenes were less..washed out and the night scenes had more clarity. That may have a great deal to do with more money, but I think it might also have to do with getting away from the old library set, which, while beloved, wasn't particularly colorful, and to UC Sunnydale. There were a lot more exteriors at UC Sunnydale, a lot more natural light, and like you said, Giles' apartment, where most of the exposition scenes took place was a set that was particularly yummy..color-wise. I mean, the previously mentioned green walls, the awesome tile accents, the rich woods...I could go on...(that's the interior design freak in me coming out...)

Angel on the other hand (although I still haven't seen Season 5) always seemed much darker to me, with deeper colors and more..isolated (?) lighting...like...you could almost always tell where the light was coming from, but there never seemed to be enough of it. Just one of my pet peeves.
 
I'll have to go back and look at all the design featurettes again. Buffy was definitely one of the best looking shows on TV as it matured.
 
I don't own the DVDs. I have all the episodes on tape. Are there design featurettes in all the Season Boxsets?

I know there's a 13 minute featurette on set design for the Season 2 DVD. There's also stills of set design and set design blueprints. I remember reading about them.

On the lack of budget affecting the appearance of Season 1 and 2 thing; I've heard others agree with you.

There's a guy here -

http://www.carbonatedink.com/me/dvd.php

who says about S 1 and 2 -

Grainy picture at times due to lack of budget when filming.
Click to expand...
 
We can't forget the technology advancing, so it becomes easier and cheaper to have a sharp colourful image on screen.
 
What he means by "lack of budget" is the film used. For the first two seasons, BTVS was filmed with cheaper 16mm. When S2 proved a ratings winner, WB graced the show with grown up film, 36mm, which is why image from Anne onwards is far sharper and more contrasted. I'm a freak, because I actually prefer the old 16mm. Sure it's grainy, but it softens the ultra-professional lighting, spreading shadows and making darker scenes that little bit more menacing. It also blunts the artificality of the visuals- it's easier to accept that they're seventeen year old high school students when it's not so easy to see how much make up they're wearing. 😀
 
I have mixed feelings about the cheaper film stock early on. I was kinda shocked when I got the DVDs of 1,2, Very grainy indeed. I couldn't tell originally 'cause I don't have cable and my reception was crappy. The coarseness can be good at times, kind of cheap horror film looking I guess. Some scenes were just so cruddy, looked odd, distracting. To each his own.

Above and beyond the filmstock, the lighting changed a lot too. Don't know if that was related to budgets for sure or just tweaking and refining.
 
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