This article is the text adaptation of a short presentation I gave at Glassbox Gallery in Seattle, Washington on December 15th, 2018.

My name is Taylor Sizemore. I am a designer that works in multiple mediums and these are some of the most important things I learned in the 6 months I was a set designer and construction manager for Prospect.

Here is the set I designed, first day of filming I believe.

I met Zeek when Teague elected to have Shep Films come in to write and direct a short commercial for a bicycle I designed. While we were grabbing snacks at a corner store, Zeek was describing the short film that they had recently completed and casually asked, “would you be interested in building spaceships?”. I immediately told him that building spaceships sounded a lot more fun and profitable than running a custom bicycle company, I’d love to.

Not sure if there is a lesson here. But you are reading this for free, so keep scrolling.

Shout out to Fusion 360!

I am a big fan of “fake it till you make it” and I will tell people I can do anything. I once said that I knew how to drywall, never having put up sheetrock in my life. After my boss left I quickly pulled up a YouTube video and had the job done when he returned.

However, there are several things I would say I am good at, CAD and industrial design being two of them. However, I got myself into both of those things by self professing my skill in them, not actually a comprehensive education.

This was very clear to me on multiple occasions while building this film. While I have the talent, my tools and ability to use them proficiently on this project were lacking.

I am still working on these skills. It’s not even that practice makes perfect, there are whole subsets I know almost nothing about.

I took this picture when I should have been working.

We were really excited to see our first costume fitting. We all gathered around and ogled the actor in his suit. Afterward, Brice, our producer gathered everyone (maybe it was an email), and explained how we all need to focus on our work. The actor and wardrobe team were trying to focus on their work, and we were getting in the way.

Our excitement could potentially hurt the project by hindering the work of others.

Know when it’s time to work, when you need to be focusing, when to pay attention to other activities, and when to play.

Our bathroom door at the studio.

As each of us was making this warehouse our own for the 6 months that we would be there, Zeek put this poster up on the bathroom door. I asked what it was and he may have replied with something like “oh, you need to watch 2001”.

I had yet to watch *2001: a Space Odyssey, *and I knew that I probably should have seen it if I was working on a film that drew heavily on it’s influence. I have a lot of respect for Zeek, and I know that he has a lot of respect for me; so when he says that I *need *to do something, I listen.

Later, Zeek told me that because I had not seen many of these influential films, I was better able to envision my own reality. And therefore something I was lacking, was actually to my benefit in other areas.

A view of the backside of the drop pod set, and a mess of electronics.

Luke, our electronic genius (I believe that’s what he likes to be called), has a very different way of working than I do.

In the picture above, you can see the mess of wires crowding the back of the drop pod set. The set that I designed and was responsible for.

Many times leading up to our shoot day I asked Luke, “What’s your plan for dealing with those wires?”. He would usually respond with a light chuckle that said, this IS the plan, I’m not doing anything, and a verbal response of “what do you mean?” with a smirk on his face. I love Luke.

This frustrated me. I am not that type to really let someone or something get under my skin. It’s usually the other way around, and for my own enjoyment.

Which is possibly what led to the respect that I have for Luke, and the fact that I don’t care how many LaCroix cans are on the floor next to his workspace, and on his workspace. Maybe I care a little, still.

But at the end of the day, everything worked, everything was great, and I didn’t have to touch it.

So some people are different, that’s OK with me now, mostly.

I’m partially colorblind.

During pre-production, I identified pretty quickly that choosing colors myself was not an option. I am partially colorblind and almost always design in black and white. But for this project, color was essential to my work.

When I saw that I could not handle picking color on my own, I had no choice but to add a step to my workflow.

Every time I needed a color, I would show our Production Designer, Matt Acosta, and have a color picked for me.

I can deal with color choices, but it’s not my strong suite. Matt is great at them and it was a huge relief to not second guess myself.

My handwriting doesn’t have a spell check.

This is a photo of the half finished interior of the drop pod.

Everything with a yellow (I think) dot on it is something that in one way or another I had to delegate to get done.

All the blue dots are things that came back to me and required further input because I didn’t specify well enough what I had wanted or intended.

In the moment it’s easy to blame your help for the misunderstanding, but that is all on you. If you requested it, or delegated, it’s your job to detail exactly how you want something done, the urgency, the carelessness, or whatever else you need to impress upon whoever you are speaking with.

This is a skill that I am really excited to keep refining, it helps others feel good about the work they are doing, and it helps me get exactly what I wanted.

Here I am, standing on top of the drop pod set.

The ceiling/roof of the pod was a sort of contact lens shape, which I designed and we built with this interlocking torsion structure.

I always knew that there was going to be windows in the roof. but for some reason I thought I would build the roof sans windows, and cut them in later.

Bad idea. While it did work, it caused me so much stress to cut those holes afterward, and they didn’t turn out very well. There was a spot that looked very handmade (IMO) in between the two window panes. And it kept me up for nights thinking about how it might show up on camera. But it was past the point of no return (my fault, also, timelines), and I could not ask the director to pick shots that didn’t show it… luckily you can’t see it in the film.

If I would have spent the time earlier to plan for exactly how I wanted to place and construct the windows I could have saved myself from a lot of stress and potential disaster. I got lucky.

Our tool organization (hi Tom!).

I spent a lot of time building this tool organization system for our shop. And it kind-of worked… but really, it didn’t.

Maybe we needed our own 10 bullets. Maybe Mr. Sachs should sell a universal version of his?

Sometimes you don’t realize that other people are not like you, or that things are just different in reality than in your head.

This makes some of the things we do fail. But it’s OK, we can learn from it and plan for next time like I do. But I can also tell you I have implemented a few more of these and a few more have failed too.

BUT THEY ARE GETTING BETTER. At least that is the only way to look at it if you want to keep moving forward.

Demolition day. Ext Cee Pod. — Console lays on ground silently.

After production, I stayed on to help dismantle the shop and demolish the sets.

I entered the pod, my headphones were on (wish I would remember what I was listening to. Maybe it was Godspeed!…), and I had a massive 20lb. sledge hammer. It was a very peaceful setting.

When I started swinging, two things occurred to me.1. This set was much stronger than I anticipated.2. Smashing something you spent 6 months building, and a few more months watching actors perform in, felt satisfying.

I don’t know why this felt good.

Other times at the end of a sprint of work I have felt lost, but this time felt really really good, and I am here for that.

A more recent lesson, thanks to Seth Godin.

When I was first considering what it looked like to spend my time building a movie, I didn’t know how it would play out. Who was I serving? Who would touch and feel what I made?

What I have since learned, is that I am making the art I want to make, for the people like me that enjoy it. There are certain things that are important to me when I am designing, and those things are important to other people too.

And when a major publication basically says that they wish Star Wars felt like the thing you created, you know you did your job. You created something that didn’t please everyone, but you made the person smile that you wanted to smile.

Star Wars: I am busy, but maybe I can help you.

This article is the text adaptation of a short presentation I gave at Glassbox Gallery in Seattle, Washington on December 15th, 2018.

My name is Taylor Sizemore. I am a designer that works in multiple mediums and these are some of the most important things I learned in the 6 months I was a set designer and construction manager for Prospect.

Here is the set I designed, first day of filming I believe.

I met Zeek when Teague elected to have Shep Films come in to write and direct a short commercial for a bicycle I designed. While we were grabbing snacks at a corner store, Zeek was describing the short film that they had recently completed and casually asked, “would you be interested in building spaceships?”. I immediately told him that building spaceships sounded a lot more fun and profitable than running a custom bicycle company, I’d love to.

Not sure if there is a lesson here. But you are reading this for free, so keep scrolling.

Shout out to Fusion 360!

I am a big fan of “fake it till you make it” and I will tell people I can do anything. I once said that I knew how to drywall, never having put up sheetrock in my life. After my boss left I quickly pulled up a YouTube video and had the job done when he returned.

However, there are several things I would say I am good at, CAD and industrial design being two of them. However, I got myself into both of those things by self professing my skill in them, not actually a comprehensive education.

This was very clear to me on multiple occasions while building this film. While I have the talent, my tools and ability to use them proficiently on this project were lacking.

I am still working on these skills. It’s not even that practice makes perfect, there are whole subsets I know almost nothing about.

I took this picture when I should have been working.

We were really excited to see our first costume fitting. We all gathered around and ogled the actor in his suit. Afterward, Brice, our producer gathered everyone (maybe it was an email), and explained how we all need to focus on our work. The actor and wardrobe team were trying to focus on their work, and we were getting in the way.

Our excitement could potentially hurt the project by hindering the work of others.

Know when it’s time to work, when you need to be focusing, when to pay attention to other activities, and when to play.

Our bathroom door at the studio.

As each of us was making this warehouse our own for the 6 months that we would be there, Zeek put this poster up on the bathroom door. I asked what it was and he may have replied with something like “oh, you need to watch 2001”.

I had yet to watch *2001: a Space Odyssey, *and I knew that I probably should have seen it if I was working on a film that drew heavily on it’s influence. I have a lot of respect for Zeek, and I know that he has a lot of respect for me; so when he says that I *need *to do something, I listen.

Later, Zeek told me that because I had not seen many of these influential films, I was better able to envision my own reality. And therefore something I was lacking, was actually to my benefit in other areas.

A view of the backside of the drop pod set, and a mess of electronics.

Luke, our electronic genius (I believe that’s what he likes to be called), has a very different way of working than I do.

In the picture above, you can see the mess of wires crowding the back of the drop pod set. The set that I designed and was responsible for.

Many times leading up to our shoot day I asked Luke, “What’s your plan for dealing with those wires?”. He would usually respond with a light chuckle that said, this IS the plan, I’m not doing anything, and a verbal response of “what do you mean?” with a smirk on his face. I love Luke.

This frustrated me. I am not that type to really let someone or something get under my skin. It’s usually the other way around, and for my own enjoyment.

Which is possibly what led to the respect that I have for Luke, and the fact that I don’t care how many LaCroix cans are on the floor next to his workspace, and on his workspace. Maybe I care a little, still.

But at the end of the day, everything worked, everything was great, and I didn’t have to touch it.

So some people are different, that’s OK with me now, mostly.

I’m partially colorblind.

During pre-production, I identified pretty quickly that choosing colors myself was not an option. I am partially colorblind and almost always design in black and white. But for this project, color was essential to my work.

When I saw that I could not handle picking color on my own, I had no choice but to add a step to my workflow.

Every time I needed a color, I would show our Production Designer, Matt Acosta, and have a color picked for me.

I can deal with color choices, but it’s not my strong suite. Matt is great at them and it was a huge relief to not second guess myself.

My handwriting doesn’t have a spell check.

This is a photo of the half finished interior of the drop pod.

Everything with a yellow (I think) dot on it is something that in one way or another I had to delegate to get done.

All the blue dots are things that came back to me and required further input because I didn’t specify well enough what I had wanted or intended.

In the moment it’s easy to blame your help for the misunderstanding, but that is all on you. If you requested it, or delegated, it’s your job to detail exactly how you want something done, the urgency, the carelessness, or whatever else you need to impress upon whoever you are speaking with.

This is a skill that I am really excited to keep refining, it helps others feel good about the work they are doing, and it helps me get exactly what I wanted.

Here I am, standing on top of the drop pod set.

The ceiling/roof of the pod was a sort of contact lens shape, which I designed and we built with this interlocking torsion structure.

I always knew that there was going to be windows in the roof. but for some reason I thought I would build the roof sans windows, and cut them in later.

Bad idea. While it did work, it caused me so much stress to cut those holes afterward, and they didn’t turn out very well. There was a spot that looked very handmade (IMO) in between the two window panes. And it kept me up for nights thinking about how it might show up on camera. But it was past the point of no return (my fault, also, timelines), and I could not ask the director to pick shots that didn’t show it… luckily you can’t see it in the film.

If I would have spent the time earlier to plan for exactly how I wanted to place and construct the windows I could have saved myself from a lot of stress and potential disaster. I got lucky.

Our tool organization (hi Tom!).

I spent a lot of time building this tool organization system for our shop. And it kind-of worked… but really, it didn’t.

Maybe we needed our own 10 bullets. Maybe Mr. Sachs should sell a universal version of his?

Sometimes you don’t realize that other people are not like you, or that things are just different in reality than in your head.

This makes some of the things we do fail. But it’s OK, we can learn from it and plan for next time like I do. But I can also tell you I have implemented a few more of these and a few more have failed too.

BUT THEY ARE GETTING BETTER. At least that is the only way to look at it if you want to keep moving forward.

Demolition day. Ext Cee Pod. — Console lays on ground silently.

After production, I stayed on to help dismantle the shop and demolish the sets.

I entered the pod, my headphones were on (wish I would remember what I was listening to. Maybe it was Godspeed!…), and I had a massive 20lb. sledge hammer. It was a very peaceful setting.

When I started swinging, two things occurred to me.1. This set was much stronger than I anticipated.2. Smashing something you spent 6 months building, and a few more months watching actors perform in, felt satisfying.

I don’t know why this felt good.

Other times at the end of a sprint of work I have felt lost, but this time felt really really good, and I am here for that.

A more recent lesson, thanks to Seth Godin.

When I was first considering what it looked like to spend my time building a movie, I didn’t know how it would play out. Who was I serving? Who would touch and feel what I made?

What I have since learned, is that I am making the art I want to make, for the people like me that enjoy it. There are certain things that are important to me when I am designing, and those things are important to other people too.

And when a major publication basically says that they wish Star Wars felt like the thing you created, you know you did your job. You created something that didn’t please everyone, but you made the person smile that you wanted to smile.

Star Wars: I am busy, but maybe I can help you.