Broadcast News
The guest couch and chairs on “The Tonight Show” probably get more exposure than any other furniture in America. They’re beamed nightly into 5 million households. They’ve been occupied by every celebrity worthy of a tabloid expose. So, quick: What do they look like? Can’t quite picture them, can you?
It’s not because they’re nondescript. On the contrary, they’re sleek and stylish, at once classic and contemporary. But just as Mercedes-Benzes in Beverly Hills and nose rings on Melrose Avenue go unnoticed, the sofa and chairs have become so familiar that they no longer attract attention. And therein lies a modern parable about the power of Hollywood-and the global reach of the Southern California design community.
The “Tonight Show” pieces are customized versions of the Case Study series created and sold by Modernica. Situated on Beverly Boulevard, in the heart of Los Angeles’ high-style, high-dollar design district, Modernica focuses on the mid-century modern look-arguably Southern California’s greatest gift to the world of design. These days, mid-century modern is so hot that bottom-feeders are even knocking off knockoffs. Yet until about a decade ago, there wasn’t much more than academic interest in seminal Case Study home design, and only connoisseurs prized the furniture of Charles and Ray Eames.
“When we started this business in the late ‘80s,” says Frank Novak, co-owner of Modernica, “people looked at our furniture like, ‘That’s really weird.’ ” Adds his brother and partner, Jay Novak: “The set decorators and production designers who embraced this look are the ones who popularized it. They have a very powerful influence over the general public.”
Of course, set decorators and production designers don’t live in a vacuum. For the most part, they live in Los Angeles. So when it comes time to dress sets for movies and television, they naturally shop in L.A., often at stores featuring the work of L.A. designers. And when those pieces are seen across the country, on big screens and small, in music videos and print ads, they’re transformed-subliminally-into national objects of desire.
Does this make the local design community the best in the world? The biggest? The brightest? The boldest? Not necessarily. But thanks to their Hollywood proximity, Southern California designers carry a bigger stick than their rivals. As Carlos Barbosa, production designer for “C.S.I.: Miami” and “24,” puts it: “Because of the entertainment industry, L.A. is the major trendsetter in the United States.”
The New York design community isn’t exactly chopped liver. But the Big Apple’s place in the larger picture comes into focus when you examine how the city is depicted on television, which is, after all, the express line to the hearts and minds of middle America. What do “Friends,” “Will & Grace,” “The King of Queens” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” have in common besides being set in New York? They’re all shot in L.A. Which means they’re largely propped in L.A.
Yep, a lot of the cool pottery featured on “Friends” comes from Freehand on 3rd Street. Herman Miller’s Aeron chair, co-designed by Santa Monica’s Don Chadwick, nearly qualified for a SAG card after “starring” in a “Will & Grace” episode about chair envy.
From morning until night, from coast to coast, America has been fed a steady diet of L.A. design, from the postmodern wood-and-steel table lamp in “Solaris” (courtesy of Homework on Highland Avenue) to the homage-to-the-’40s sofa featured in a recent Hewlett-Packard print campaign (sourced from Rm. 107 in Pasadena).
This is also true for the print media. “When one of our pieces is featured in a shelter magazine like Metropolitan Home, our phones start ringing right away,” says Shelter and TV. But over time, products are assimilated into the general consciousness. We get a lot of people who come into the store and say, ‘I just saw that bed on a TV show!’ ”
From a creative/business standpoint, what’s not to like? Set decorators get cutting-edge furnishings. Designers get worldwide exposure. And store owners score retail sales and even more lucrative furniture rentals. Under the circumstances, the synergy between media and the local design community seems like a no-brainer. But, in fact, it’s something that has developed only in recent years.
The American filmmaking industry used to be a remarkably insular business. Until well into the postwar era, virtually all movies were made on studio lots. Studios had their own prop departments, and when an item wasn’t available, it could be created by craftsmen on site. Even when the real thing was available, the studios didn’t always use it. In the early ‘50s, when Warner Bros. wanted to create a chic beach house for Judy Garland in “A Star Is Born,” the studio built a set in the style of a Case Study house rather than use an existing version.
The demise of the studio system and the advent of location movie-making had the unintended effect of shining the spotlight on Southern California’s paragons of mid-century modern architecture. In recent examples, “The Anniversary Party” falls to pieces amid the geometric precision of a Richard Neutra house; and “Nurse Betty” showcases Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, which was immortalized in Julius Shulman’s evocative black-and-white photo of the lights of Los Angeles.
Another reason local houses are so popular is their image as quintessential Southern California objects. This is true of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mayan-style Ennis-Brown house, built in 1924 and featured in dozens of movies and photo shoots since. And a replica of Santa Monica architect Hagy Belzberg’s edgy open-plan aerie overlooking Malibu was the focal point of the aptly named thriller “The Glass House.” Says Belzberg: “Southern Califor freedom and the infinite optimism of the Pacific Rim. Not only is it unique to Southern California, but it only could have happened here.”
A generation ago, set decorators filled such houses either by having pieces built to order or by dealing almost exclusively with so-called prop houses. Need a Polynesian headboard? No problem. Edwardian ashtrays? Check. A medieval church pew? Somebody’s got three dozen.
Despite their prodigious inventories, prop houses have been stretched thin by the needs of a growing media. There are more independent films, more television stations, more TV shows, more music videos, more commercials, more magazines, more ads, and this new reality has created a voracious need for more . . . stuff. Good stuff. Fresh stuff.
“Especially in the music industry, there’s a constant need for new, new, new,” says Laser Rosenberg, a former set designer who now owns Homework, a Hollywood furniture store. “Everybody wants to be cool-Betty in Iowa just as much as Cher in Los Angeles. But cool is easier to access today because you just turn on the TV and there it is.”
The race to stay ahead of the curve has forced set designers to cast their nets beyond the prop houses. Now they frequent small retail shops like Homework, which carries a fresh palette of contemporary furnishings, and local landmarks such as Jules Seltzer Associates on Beverly Boulevard, which is an authorized Herman Miller dealer and which provided the furniture for a recent series of print ads for Guess jeans.
“During the whipped-up ‘80s, the interior design community wanted nothing to do with film and television,” says Melinda Ritz, set decorator for “Will & Grace.” “The attitude was ‘We don’t need the business.’ Now I don’t think there’s one single vendor in Los Angeles that I couldn’t talk into a studio rental because we’re all so oriented to the industry, and it’s a great source of exposure. It’s also a great source of income.”
No wonder store owners are singing “Hooray for Hollywood” with all the gusto of a Busby Berkele sale is a onetime windfall. A prop rental, on the other hand, is a gift that keeps on giving-typically 15% to 30% of the retail purchase price for the first week or full market value if the item is trashed. “The money is wonderful,” says Adam Blackman of Blackman Cruz, an L.A. furniture and antiques store. “Production designers and set decorators are always saying things like, ‘Oh, I promise we won’t break it.’ And I always say, ‘Oh, go right ahead!’ ”
Rentals are so lucrative that some dealers seek them out. Modernica, which derives 10% of its revenue from this source, has 5,000 rental items in a downtown warehouse and thousands of film, TV and print credits under its belt. Shelter also does a lively rental business. Many of the pieces featured in the Bruce Willis movie “The Kid” were designed by co-owner Kamal Sandhu.
But now another new medium-the Internet-has emerged, and it threatens to change the rules of the game. Actor Corbin Bernsen plans to shoot a film later this year with the wardrobe and props, among other things, selected by voters casting ballots via the Internet. “I want to let the audience in on the visual design of the film,” says Bernsen, founder of Publicfilmworks. “There’s been a huge response [from potential product-placement candidates]. People are willing to pay more than I ever imagined. We might even have ‘Big Joe’s apartment sponsored by IKEA’ or ‘Sarah’s bedroom sponsored by Pottery Barn.’ ”
They don’t call it the dream factory for nothing.