Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film, video, major and alumni profiles.

Hello and welcome back to Alumni Live: The Podcast back by popular

demand, we're talking about art departments today in Grand Rapids.

We got Erika Rene Pineiro.

Erika, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Randy.

So good to see you again.

Man, Good to see you too.

It's been probably since we were at Grand Valley that we've talked.

And getting ready for this, I jumped on your website, saw your work.

You are doing just awesome work.

Not surprising at all since, the stuff that we made together at Grand Valley.

Give us a little introduction.

Who are you?

What are You working on?

Well, I'm Erika, as Randy said.

I'm a Production Designer in the Grand Rapids area.

I also own my own company called Mad Props.

It's a prop house essentially formed out necessity because the closest

prop house is a couple hundred miles away in Chicago, or there

might be some small ones in Detroit.

You really can't do art department unless you have some resources

that t you can find easily.

All right.

So prop house.

What is a prop house?

So a prop house, essentially just a building full of stuff.

Every production needs stuff.

A lot of times we're shooting in an empty house or somebody's house

that they're living in but we need to turn it into the character's

house, not the homeowner's house.

So you really have to rethink everything about the characters and like what would

the character have not what is available?

so it's nice to be able to have things ranging from like medical items to normal

house items, but different colors of it.

Now, Where's all this stuff coming from?

Are you shopping?

Are you like, walking around, like, Oh, that's cool.

Are you making it?

A lot of all of these things.

So it kind of just started as I had some fun things and I'm like, I

have medieval looking handcuffs or a wolf head, weird things like that.

And I'm just like, people might want to use this for shoot, I

catalog it, have it on my website or just have photos of it in action.

Or a lot of times I'm just working on shoots in the area and things that

I buy for shoots that the production does not want to keep afterwards,

I'll keep in my inventory if it's something that I think we'll use again.

So I feel like I'm just an organized hoarder.

I have a studio downtown Grand Rapids.

It's about 2,000 square feet and I have things in boxes and shelves.

To me it's organized, to other people it might not be.

So, that is my definition of a prop house as of right now.

And I also build custom things.

I have a bunch of tools to build sets, and custom props.

So a lot of that is just stuff that I've learned on the job, like learning how

to make a safe weapon or safe anything.

And not just safe things.

Like sometimes you just need to invent things for the production.

Kind of have to be a Jack of all trades at Mad Props.

A lot of different tools in there.

That is so cool.

So it sounds like you're making weapons.

I'm hearing moose heads.

I'm hearing ordinary, like office supplies on your website.

You've got everything.

When you're doing a job, who's calling you?

What kinds of things are you making?

What mediums are you working in?

I work with a lot of the production companies in the area

mostly focusing on commercials.

It's different from narrative.

A feature film or a narrative production, so sometimes music videos are in that

category too, takes different skill sets.

So somebody calls you up, are they describing a product, a story?

What point of the creative process are you brought in?

A lot of times a production company sends me a one sentence email.

They're like, are you available on these dates?

And the answer is,

yes or no.

They don't tell me what it is yet.

Sometimes I want context, but most of the time I'm like, yes, I'm

available or no, I'm not sadly.

And then communication ends or I recommend somebody else to do the job.

But then from there, they usually send me the script and the script or

the idea or storyboards, depending on what part they're at in the process.

And a lot of times, especially lately, they'll ask me for a budget and how much

do I think I need to make this happen.

which It's great and terrifying whenever they ask me how much

money it takes, because then I can say how many people I want.

I can say how much money I want for expenditures, and it's awesome.

But then sometimes they look at the price tag and they're like,

Oh, and they get scared away.

And so I do appreciate it when they're like, this is our budget.

And then I let them know how I can make it work.

And I'm like, we can have this many people, we can have this quality of

items, we can rent these things instead of buying these things, stuff like that.

So most of the times, we meet in the middle.

I suggest a range.

And then from there, once they approve of everything, I hire local

people to help me with the project, assuming the budget allows it.

And then I start the shopping process.

So whether it's me shopping for everything or if I am able to have an assistant

buy stuff, I usually just delegate where to pick things up, where to shop.

And then the day before the production, we usually pack up the truck.

I'm saying we hoping that I have an assistant on every project.

Most of the time it is just me.

But I am trying to push forward to having more people, more hands, even if it's a

PA just someone to help me lift things.

And so I, or we pack the truck um, with all the props, make sure

they're not going to get damaged in transportation, pack my kit.

So that's essentially a toolbox full of all the tools I think I'll need

on the shoot, but it's not limited to hammer, screwdriver, stuff like that.

I'll bring like gaff tape, command strips, fishing wire.

You never know what you'll need in the kit.

You have to plan ahead for anything that might happen.

So the kit's very important.

And

Then production happens.

So essentially you do everything on the shoot, but that's

for someone else to decide.

And then you start the process over in reverse.

You repack the truck, you unload it, then you have to return things.

Then you have to look at the budget and make sure you're still in the guidelines.

And if you're not, you have to go back to the Producer and be like, hey, this

is how much money it ended up costing.

And then you send your invoice and then you are done.

So that is the life cycle in the art department.

How do you get to the point where people are sending you that one sentence email?

What took you from being a super helpful, fun person on sets making art

departments at Grand Valley to owning your own business, making great shows?

I mean, I could apply and apply to a thousand jobs, but I'll

never hear back from people.

But it's usually somebody works with me recommended me to

someone, and then they contact me.

I'm not in control.

I mean, I am.

I had to go out and make those connections and work hard on set.

So people know that I'm a hard worker, they know I'm good at my job.

But it is kind of a funny situation.

I don't know if a single person has ever looked at my resume.

I'll send my website to people just so they can see examples of things I've done.

But it's really just like you meet people in the industry, you say yes to

things, especially for college students.

I said yes to every project that was presented to me, and

that's how I met so many people.

That's how I met you, Randy.

That's how I met, your friend, John Sessions.

We worked together on all these free projects, got to

know how each other works.

That led to other connections you literally never know who

you'll be working under next.

And that happens all the time in the industry.

I was hired by a production from a Producer and I didn't recognize her name.

And then after working with her for a couple of weeks, she called me and

I saw on my phone, she was listed as her name and then PA, and I'm just

like, Oh my gosh, a year before she hired me and she was the Producer.

She was the Production Assistant assisting me.

She was great, she was a hard worker and obviously she moved

up quick in the industry.

So it's like, you can't be a jerk to anybody.

You have to like know everybody has value and everybody could be your boss one day.

Yeah, and it sounds like that has paid off because like you said, you're not putting

out your resume, it's a network, right?

How did that network start?

Did that start as you were a student at Grand Valley?

Did it start before then?

When did you start building those contacts?

So essentially right out of high school, the summer before I

started at Grand Valley, I started volunteering on student projects.

And I had no idea how important that would be for my career, but I took it seriously

then, I treated it like it was a real job, even though it was just like showing up

to student projects, not getting paid.

I didn't even go to the same school as everybody.

Looking back, I've been doing this for over 15 years and there's

so many people that I met on my first day, that I still work with.

The G & E crew, they haven't changed over that much.

A lot of the Producers and like connections led to other connections.

like, Obviously not everybody can, afford to take unlimited internships,

while I was going to school, I think I did a summer internship every year.

I was also working a part time job.

And then just everything I could afford to do without depleting

my own life, I said yes to.

If I remember correctly, when you were starting out, you

weren't just doing art direction.

You were doing some acting, you were behind the camera,

right in front of the camera.

Tell us about how all of that kind of works together.

Even when you're in an art department situation now, how are

you thinking about characters and drawing upon those past experiences?

I feel like I took a weird route to get into the art department area.

I started as a makeup artist, but I really feel like there's so

many experiences that you need to have in the art department.

I honestly wish I had a bigger skillset.

Like every shoot I'm learning something new.

This past week I had to essentially re landscape a house.

That was crazy.

. Just learn things, learn everything you can or meet people who are better

at things than you and know how to like, pick their brain and or hire

them to do what they're good at.

Curiosity, I think, is something that has really helped me in my career too.

And I think that's something Grand Valley really taught me at least was to

really be curious about a lot of things.

I am really curious about.

shaping a character, right?

We know, there's a script, or a sentence, or a description, or storyboards, like

you said, how do you take that and turn that into what is seen on, screen?

You have to read the script, obviously, and really get to know the characters.

After my first read through of the script, I love to talk to the director and try

to pick their brain, like figure out anything they know about these characters.

Especially if it's based off of real life, but if it's not

there's more room for liberty.

Sometimes they'll just say one word and I'm just like,

I will go with this one word.

Like this character's whimsy.

So what does this mean?

What kind of things would they have in their drawers?

What kind of things would they have in their pockets?

You really want everything to be filled out.

Even if the character doesn't go in the closet, there

should be stuff in the closet.

There should be stuff in every drawer.

Can we do this for real for a second?

So a whimsical character, right?

You said fill in their pockets, fill in the closet.

What are you going back to your prop house and, building out with this.

Let's say it's a whimsy little old lady and we're decorating her kitchen.

So she's probably going to have an apron with acorns in the pocket, and some

rocks on the counter, some things that maybe she half washed and has drying

on the sink, something that was found, probably a lot of like wooden handmade

things for this whimsy character.

Not everything would have to be modern, but everything would have to like

flow together nicely in the house.

I would say whimsy could be on the borderline of cluttered even.

It wouldn't be like sterile.

A doctor's house would look sterile.

Like everything would be clean, everything would be orderly, I'd

have a lot of square shapes in there.

But like this whimsy character, everything would be more organic

and round and free flowing.

So there would be lace curtains on the window.

Like everything in the house needs to project the personality of the character.

I could see everything that you were just describing that is awesome.

I want to, I want to see that image now.

Along those lines, talking about characters and their style, does your

style make its way onto those images?

If we were to look at your body of work, do you feel like there's an Erika Rene

Pineiro touch that we would recognize?

I feel like I've never looked back at my own work.

I can recognize my stuff, a lot of times I do rent out my stuff, but

I can tell if I did it versus other people, even if it's the same stuff,

and like a boring subject matter.

I like, to focus on we call it proof of life.

You see an empty room, but we're advertising for an

air purifier or something.

And so we want to show who lives in that house, even without

showing characters or anything.

Maybe we'll show a busy mom.

So we'll have a purse and maybe some files, or like notebooks or a

tablet coming out of her purse a dish cloth on the counter just showing

like, Oh, it was just thrown down.

Or shoes by the door and just not perfectly arranged, they

have to be scattered beautifully.

It sounds a little odd, but you have to show that somebody lives there.

Yeah, and you have to be inside these characters heads too.

That's so cool that you can like imagine all that and think

about their physical life, the things around them that they touch.

As you're setting the scenes what are some lessons that

you learned at Grand Valley?

Some things that professors that said something profound to you.

Are there things that you draw on from your, education?

I keep going back to one of the classes that Kim Roberts had.

She did a whole class on , rigid shapes can be for like rigid characters.

And I kind of drew from that whenever I was talking about

like our whimsy character that we're just making up on the fly.

And it was just a really fun class.

She was showing us random objects and saying how those made her feel.

And we usually all feel the same things from different visualization.

So, you have to focus on that.

Does this make me feel confined?

Does this give me anxiety?

And sometimes you can use that in the production.

So that was just a really good lesson that I learned from Kim.

And then another thing that I definitely learned at Grand Valley

was working with people that you don't think you'll work well with.

You get assigned a group and it's just like on a professional project,

you don't get to choose who's on crew with you unless as a department head,

you get to hire the people under you.

You really have to learn how to work with difficult personalities, and how to make

compromises with your vision and stuff.

Like if the director and I are not getting along, I have to remember he or she's

the Director, I'm making their vision.

And they also have to realize that they did hire me for a

job and I'm good at this job.

I have to know how to stand my ground and also get the job done for everybody.

And that was just something that really goes back to like

working on student projects.

Some people don't always pull the weight of everybody else

and that's still true on sets.

You have to learn how to deal with that and how to get the job done anyway.

I feel like I also had learned that at Grand Valley and, especially, not just

doing the classwork, but also things at Grand Valley Television, right?

You had helped us a lot with Jeff and Mike Write a Comic Book, our little GVTV show.

Doing extracurricular stuff at Grand Valley.

Do you have any stories about that or how has that helped you or time management?

Time management is always the hardest part.

On productions, I really have to work backwards.

It's really just like an assignment based work schedule still.

I know when the due date is, the production date, it's

kind of the same as in school.

And then if I'm bouncing between a couple different projects, I

know how to stagger it, so I still have time to do all the projects.

So I have to do my homework.

I have to make sure all the shopping's done by a certain time, all the

online orders are done by a certain time to be able to get to the day

before the shoot and pack the truck.

A lot of this time management like class assignments.

So it sounds like you're doing stuff at all hours, right?

Going shopping, doing productions.

How do you feel about your work life balance?

Are you able to balance all that?

Do you feel like it could be better?

What advice do you have around work life balance and managing that?

Work life balance could always be better.

I love it whenever I can treat it like a nine to five, or an eight to six.

I am trying to respect office hours, even if I'm not on set.

I'll go to my studio, I'll work on my computer during office

hours, respond to emails.

Even if I'm not specifically just at my studio, I might be working on other

hobbies or something if I'm not on set.

But 6 PM I clock out, assuming I don't have a crazy project coming up.

I do break my own rules all the time.

And I try not to work on weekends.

And I feel like it's okay to skip reading emails on weekends unless it's something

that I really think I need to get back to.

Cause I just feel like people in the industry need to respect

work life balance, even if I don't do it myself all the time.

But then whenever it comes to like a big project, I'm probably getting

up at six, going to bed at midnight.

Working ever y single second I have on this project and then falling asleep

exhausted just to wake up and do it again.

So I'm trying not to do those projects or let the production know,

I'm like, Hey, I'm working 18 hours a day to get this done in time.

We need more people.

If I can't get it done in time, it's because either the production

couldn't afford more people.

And so I'm like, I should be charging more for my time too, or

they just need to budget their time and money better on the production.

Yeah.

and I think it takes work and it's something that I really

had to learn in my career too.

I've really learned in the last couple of years to, like you said,

make those boundaries, try to make sure that we're protecting

our home time, things like that.

That's a great lesson.

Now you haven't just worked in Grand Rapids.

You've been out in the wider world, right?

Tell us about some of these other cities you've worked in.

So after college I actually did an internship out in

Manhattan, and that was awesome.

It's kind of funny whenever I tell people where I intern though,

because I interned in a camera house.

I didn't take out the straight path cause I started as a Makeup Artist

and then I did every single department through school and a little bit after

school, just to find myself back to pretty much the art department.

I was interning at this camera house.

I learned a lot.

I learned I don't care about cameras.

But it was really fun working out there.

It was a rental house and production company.

And so I learned I really liked production coordinating, which led to Assistant

Directing, which led to just me being better at time management probably and

pushing me back to the art department, knowing that it's not what I need to do.

And so it was just fun, seeing the productions out in that

area, seeing how they're handled.

I remember setting up the catering for some shoots out there and seeing

what's expected out there versus at that time it was mostly just like

student and small commercials in Michigan before heading out to New York.

It was just fun to see that side of the world.

And then, actually from some of those connections for my internship, I ended

up going back out a couple of years later and I worked on a super bowl commercial.

At the time, it was the biggest production I'd ever worked on.

I think I might've broke even on this production.

I wasn't making a ton, but it was worth it just to get the experience of

working on a super bowl ad in Manhattan.

I spent a whole day driving a box truck around.

I went to every single borough to go to all the prop houses to pick up

like one thing from each prop house.

And it was just interesting seeing that side of the industry I think

I had five or six things to pick up and it took me all 10 hours for that

day, just to drive the truck around.

And it was not my favorite day, but it was still like an eye opening day.

and like In Grand Rapids, a lot of times it's just me on the production.

Me, and then I'm pushing for an Assistant.

Sometimes I get a crew of up to five, which is great.

But on this shoot, it's funny cause they kept saying how small of an art

department they had and how small of a budget this was for a Super Bowl ad.

Oh, and I think we had seven people on our crew.

The funniest part was we had two Production Designers on that, which

I don't know why they did that.

So two Production Designers, I think I was technically a scenic on that

one, and then we had a Carpenter who built the sets and I painted the sets.

We had a buyer, but the reason why I had to drive the truck around is because our

buyer didn't have a driver's license.

It's New York, nobody has their license out there.

So that's why the scenic was driving the truck.

It was just really cool to see that side of the industry.

And then another project out of state.

This one was another one of the bigger projects I've worked on.

It was called Angry Neighbors.

What is it on Amazon?

So I was pulled out to that movie as the Prop Master, which was awesome.

And I think Prop Master is my favorite job.

The Prop Master is in charge of anything the actors touch.

If they're drinking a water bottle, if they're on a cell phone, if

they're wearing a wedding ring, if they're wearing glasses.

It's kind of funny cause it's like glasses, rings, hats and everything,

it's the gray area between wardrobe and props, but it is technically props.

And so that's something I always have to plan for, even though

wardrobe usually takes care of it.

And I never argue when they take care of it cause they usually have

it figured out with the outfit.

But the fun thing about being a Prop Master is like, If I were setting up our

interview right now, I wouldn't have to set up anything in the back of the room.

Everything would already be there by the art department.

And the Prop Masters actually on bigger sets, they're treated

as their own department.

So separate from the art department, which is kind of crazy.

It's not something I expected coming from Michigan where I'm the Production Designer

and the Prop Master and the Scenic and the Set Builder all at the same time.

And so on that shoot, it was great.

I was always at the monitor with the Production Designer, but she treated

me like I was not working under her.

I was working with her.

And then I would look through the script and be like, the location is outside.

They're just having a conversation.

What are they doing?

Then I bring a newspaper or a book or a tablet or iced tea.

Like there always has to be something for the actors to have

in their hands to play with.

Cause it's like me, I'm always fidgeting.

Like I'm playing with a safety pin.

I don't know why.

But it helps the actors get into character, if they have something

that their character would be doing.

And also people don't just sit.

People don't sit and stare at each other and have a conversation.

People are always doing things.

How closely are you working with the other collaborators there?

We're talking Actors.

we're talking Art Department, Directors.

Like in that scenario, if you bring a newspaper, does anybody say,

I don't think it's a newspaper.

Do you have options?

So in that situation, I'd probably first go to the Production Designer

and be like, this is what I'm bringing.

And if he or she says yes or no, or this doesn't fit the aesthetic, then

I swap it out for something else.

And then from there, I usually bring the ideas to the Director and ask him

what he wants the character to be doing.

And then from there, sometimes the Director's asks the Actor what they

think their character would be doing.

Sometimes they don't even care.

And so sometimes I just hand off the things and they're good to go.

Other times there's a whole conversation with it.

And sometimes the Director's like, I don't think they'd be doing this,

but I think they'd be doing this.

And that's where we have to just run through the truck, find something

that's not breaking continuity.

And that's where you've got like extra things, right?

Like you're ready.

Like you said, predicting the future.

Yes, exactly.

And that's also where if you do want to be on good terms with the Production

Designer and the Art Department, you're not supposed to just take things from

the background and turn it into a prop.

You have a whole different budget for props than you do for set dressing, but

it's something that happens I'm sure all the time, especially on indie projects.

But you can't assume it's allowed.

Cause you don't want to break their continuity and then they have to

know that it was moved between scenes and if you're jumping around in the

scripts that makes everything harder.

So is there a trick to imagining the future like that?

Are you bringing a wildcard option or what's kind of the secret sauce of that?

Yes.

I like to bring in three options.

I usually bring what I think is best, then I'll bring a boring option,

yeah, and then a lot of times, if I'm able to find a wild card, yeah,

I love to throw in a wild card.

And this also goes for set decorating and stuff too.

I always try to bring things in threes because if you just bring

one thing, the Director will always want to see something else.

But if you bring three, knowing which one thing that you want, they usually

can see that it is the best option, or sometimes we'll go with the wild card.

So never bring things that you hate, because sometimes the

Director just goes with the things that you don't want on the shoot.

So zooming way out, looking at your body of work.

If you go to your website, which is madpropsgr.

com, you've got a variety of things you do, right?

So you've got props, but you've also got stylings, you've got set

design, you've got set construction.

How do your skills weave throughout all those really different things?

What is the thread that holds all that together?

It's really all just production design.

In a perfect world, I wouldn't have to wear all the hats that I do here.

But, as the Production Designer, it's crazy how productions just

assume I can do everything.

Where it's like in LA or New York, they would hire someone

specific for each part of it.

So it's like, I'm even designing graphics and stuff for shoots.

Graphic Designer is a whole position.

I have to learn how to do it all just because we're so limited in this area.

We don't have as many resources, so I have to figure out

how to make those resources.

Or again, like I said before, find people who are better at the things

than I am and hire them or buy things from them for the shoot.

Or if I really have to ask to borrow things, but we don't like to do that.

So as we're talking, I'm sensing just a lot of joy.

I mean, you've got a big smile on your face right now.

What are the things that you love about your work?

What keeps you going every day?

The pre production part is really exciting.

So it's like, I'm given this vague concept, and I love

imagining how it could be.

Production is really fun too, seeing things coming to life, but it's really

exciting in pre production just like imagining what we can do and then

collaborating with the director.

I'm like, okay, that's not exactly what I expected, but let's do this direction.

It's cool to see things coming to life.

Especially whenever you're building a set . It's fun to draw a picture and

know that eventually it will be built.

Eight year old Erika, was she thinking about art direction?

Was eight year old Erika's room all decked out in art and things?

That's really funny.

So eight year old Erika painted her room chroma key green,

of course,

without even knowing that's what I was going to do.

So I literally picked out the paint from the store.

Then in high school, I got into production realized I could

green screen in my own room.

Have you brought that to a character yet?

Have you had them have a chroma key green room?

No, I haven't.

It's just too offensive of a color.

Eight year old Erika didn't have the best eye, but she had a lot of imagination.

I was always making things.

It's like I was a kid.

I didn't have a job.

I couldn't buy things for people.

So I would make Christmas presents every year.

I'd take toothpaste boxes or graham cracker boxes and turn it inside

out and paint it to be a Clefairy or weird little animals that I just gift

to people and assume they want it.

And so I'm still making things.

think I'm a little bit better at it now.

It's probably not as cute though.

You said developing your eye, that's really interesting to me.

What do you mean developing your eye?

and what was that process like?

It's honestly just confidence.

Especially whenever I'm on set, I'll be looking at the monitor and I'll

know something's not right sometimes.

And so it's just figuring out and also listening to the critiques the clients

have and just taking that to heart.

Learning that you don't want two things on the same level, cause it just looks weird.

You want things to be like staggered, or like the rule of

thirds and like rule of threes, like a lot of things go into threes.

And then just being confident enough to be like, this isn't working.

And to know if something looks wrong in the scene or you see

a tag or you see an outlet.

To know that you're right by saying, we have to stop the shot, or fix it

hopefully before the shot even starts.

This episode is brought to you by the Chuck Peterson Memorial fellowship.

The fellowship was established by Chuck Peterson's family and friends to assist

the upper-level students in the film and video program at GVSU who were working

on creative projects that support the nonprofit sector in their community.

Kyle Macciome, the 2020 recipient, of that fellowship describes the

benefits of the support he received

When going through this fellowship, there are three separate parts

of yourself that I think get to experience a lot of development.

The first is as a student, because this is a learning process.

You get to learn how to work with a client on your own independently,

out in the world, away from the classroom, like you would in

something like producing for clients.

And the second one would be as a video maker, as a video producer, as someone

who has respect for the work that they're doing and wants to improve on

themselves and produce a final product that can be used out in the real world.

And then the third one would be as a citizen.

You know, you're not making video for an entertainment value or for some

kind of commercial purpose, it's for a non-profit it's for a direct benefit in

your community and being a citizen of that community, understanding how you

can directly impact and improve it, um, is a really valuable experience that

I think the fellowship teaches you to be as, as a student, as a filmmaker

and as a citizen, all three of those things are directly a part of this

process that you get to learn and ask yourself, how do I want to be seen?

And how do I want to act as these three roles?

For more information and to donate to the scholarship, visit the link in

the description now back to the show.

What advice do you have for Grand Valley students?

I would say while you're a student, take advantage of as

many opportunities as you can.

Even if you're not interested in different seminars, take the seminar on

sound, take the seminar on directing.

You need to learn everything essentially, so you know what

goes into every single job.

I had no idea I wanted to do the art department, but while I was at Grand

Valley, I took a seminar on makeup.

And that started me on this little path on this crazy little journey that

somehow went fully around the world, I think, and back to the Art Department.

But especially if you want to do the art department, focus on

the things that you love to do.

Take the art classes, take the music classes, become an expert in something

you're interested in, because you don't know when you'll need that.

And then also, keep tabs on your friends on what they're good at.

How could you hire them onto projects?

Don't always assume everybody just wants to stop and do freelance work.

But a lot of people, especially college students, do.

Especially the first couple of years after school.

So always look to people who are better at things than you and learn

from them, or know that they're there.

Have you had some mentors who were, either ahead of you in your career

or people that had really helped you with your eye or with your career?

A lot of people who've helped me with my eye I would say are

clients that I've worked with.

There was one person that worked at one of my reoccurring jobs.

She was the Art Director of their company.

And just very difficult personality.

Nothing would please her.

And I actually loved working with her.

I was terrified at first, the first couple of days I worked with

her, I literally went home crying.

It was just horrible.

And realizing she couldn't be pleased.

But then I understood what it was that she didn't like, and

I learned how to work with her.

Her pickiness made me pickier at my job.

She was very good at her job, and it made me really good at my job.

She couldn't always verbalize what it was that wasn't right about the shot, but

it's right now I know what to look for.

I just feel like there's so many people.

I've been doing this for 15 years.

I'm usually the Department Head, but every opportunity I get to

work under somebody, I take it.

Like somebody who works in a different city, I'd love to just assist them

for the day, see what tricks they do, see how they do things differently.

It's been incredible.

Whenever I went out to Minnesota for Angry Neighbors, it was so cool to

work with the bigger art department and see the Production Designer and

follow her on social media and see the things she's doing with her career.

And then ask people for advice especially as a student, whatever you're learning.

Nobody will see you as competition.

Which is a big thing in the art department, I think.

I think a lot of people are afraid to meet other Production Designers.

But I know I'm not good at everything, and, I know some people are better

at some things than I am, and I'm better at some things than they are.

So there's actually another Designer that reached out to me,

I want to say five years ago.

She travels all over the world actually, and for a short time

She was in Grand Rapids and she reached out to me for coffee and I

was like, oh my gosh competition.

We actually pass each other work.

Because it's like she's a fine painter, she was trained in oil

painting, she has beautiful artwork, and that's not something I'm good at.

And now every time I know somebody is coming into town or is in town, I love

to reach out, see what they're good at, see how we can work together, work

under them, or they can work under me.

It's been really good.

And it's a small enough town where it's like, everybody knows each other.

we don't always get the opportunity to work together, but we need

to know how to use each other.

I did expect there to be competitors or some kind of rivalries and edges, but it

does feel like people are shooting each other jobs and we're really on the same

team and in this industry a lot of times.

And there's so much work in the area.

A lot of times I have to say no to jobs.

Every time I say no, I love to give them names of people who I

know, would be good at the job.

Yeah, it helps grow that network and strengthen that network.

To compete with bigger cities.

Absolutely.

So my favorite question that I'm going to ask, and I love this all the time

is, I just want you to brag about yourself, but I want you to do it in

particular in a special way, because I want a little brag and a big brag.

Specifically, a little prop or a piece of art direction that you're really

proud of, and then of course, a big brag too, of best part of your career

so far, what you're really proud of.

I was building a movie theater set.

So we had the movie theater on the LED wall, and then we built the little

kiosk and filled it with popcorn.

We had to fill it with candy.

We can't use real candy, cause it's branded and we couldn't use brands

unless we had their permission.

And so I made some simple graphics and I was working with John.

Whenever we're working on Atrophy, me and Hannah made Randy's

Fandies because we're fans of you.

Atrophy was a feature film that you had worked on independent

feature film in Michigan.

Independent feature film.

Don't look it up.

It's weird.

But anyway, I just remembered Randy's Fandies and I was trying to think

of something that rhymes with candy.

So, Randy's candy has popped up

For the audio listeners at home, this is a very visual thing here, but if we're

looking at Randy's Candies, can you just point out the graphic design of it?

And, when you're creating something like that, are you thinking

about the cameras, the shot?

What do you see when you see that, image?

So I made a simple design.

This was one of the projects where I'm just was overwhelmed with a bunch

of stuff to make for the project.

And so I'm like, how can I make this as easy as possible?

Cause like I had to mass produce candy boxes.

We didn't have the budget for me to send it to a printer.

We didn't have budget or time.

And so I was literally designing this on my laptop, printing it.

I think I sent it to Staples to get the highest quality.

I have the same font and the same border around the candy box.

And then I changed the graphics, I have a melting ice cream cone,

I have macarons, I have Skittles, and then one's like a fireball.

So those were different flavors of the candy, and then each

one I changed the color scheme.

Oh, and then I had a film strip around the edge, just to make it simple.

So essentially it was copy and paste, change the colors and the graphic.

So I could mass produce these, print them, fold them,

put them in the display case.

But to come up with the graphic, I actually spent six hours, just

trying to see if there's a way I could use AI to help my job.

And so I was using Chat GPT and I was like, show me candy boxes.

I actually didn't use anything that it sent me, I wasn't that good

at using it, but it was funny to see the starting points from it.

I'm interested to see where we go with AI tools.

I don't think it'll replace any of us.

I think it should make our lives easier in theory.

Unless we don't know how to use it well, but it was cool

just to get a starting point.

I'm like, okay, this is what all the boxes have.

Obviously I could have just grabbed a real box.

I did that too.

And just format it similar to other boxes.

Cause I wanted the graphics to look normal.

Which sounds like such a basic thing to want with graphic design, but

it's not the star of the production.

I'm not advertising Randy's Candies on this.

I am showing a movie theater and I want something that looks real.

And so we don't want it to just be like taped off or

painted over real candy boxes.

We want it to look seamless and normal without drawing the eye too much.

And I think those did a good job with that.

they were the right color scheme.

They weren't too vibrant.

And they looked real enough.

That's really cool.

and I do want you to brag about yourself for a second.

What, do you think you're most proud of in your career?

Honestly, I'm really proud of how different my body of work is.

Because if I chose what I did I don't know if I'd be able

to come up with as many ideas.

A project comes to me and I already said yes to it because I said I'm

available whether I want to do it or not.

And it's cool learning to love the project.

And then doing the best I can with it.

There was a really big shoot a couple of years ago.

It was severely under budget.

They gave me such a low budget for such big asks.

Projects like that, I'm proud of surviving.

It was something for Target.

So it was a really big client and I really wanted to do a good job with it.

But also the asks were huge.

They wanted me to build four different sets to be shot in, I think three days.

Essentially all the sets had to be standing at the

same time at Lowing studios.

So it's only, a 50 foot psych wall.

So 50 foot by 50 foot.

Designing on paper and then building the sets were completely different.

Cause I'm like, Oh, we have all this space whenever I had it drawn out on

paper, but I'm like, things take up space.

And, yes, we had room for the walls and room for the stands, but we

didn't have much room outside of that

. I essentially built like a little maze in there.

We had to walk around, take off a wall to, be able to get the angle that

we needed to shoot of the other set.

And honestly it was so much work getting there.

This was one of those shoots that I was up at 6:00 AM in bed at

midnight, working constantly to make sure everything was ready.

I had a small team, could have been double the size, we also could have had

double the budget, but, at the end of the day we got it, we did it all safely.

We didn't all get enough sleep, but nothing bad happened from that.

I'm proud of being able to pull together a team, I guess.

Erika Rene Paneiro, congratulations on your success.

Thanks for joining us here on alumni live, the podcast.

Mad Props GR is the website and, I've been your host, Randy Strobl.

Thank you so much for listening to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Alumni Live: The Podcast.

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