Paola Cortés

I’ve enjoyed working for University Health System on their commercials since 2015. This campaign was specially fun because director Alice Gu really wanted to play with color and give it a Wes Anderson feel. It was a lot of fun and the result is a very playful and artistic campaign.

Set Design/Construction/Set Dressing-

I love working on musicals, there is so much action, so many details to think of when designing for musicals, people dancing, singing, flying. 

Thinking of how the set will dance along with actors and dancers without disrupting their flow is always such an entertaining challenge!!

This musical was presented in Tijuana, Mexico. Produced by locally based, independent musical theater company named CAMAFEO who I'm very proud of having worked with for over 10 consecutive years.

The biggest challenge in these productions is making things happen with a very limited budget. Being a Mexican production, not supported by the government, there is not  a dollar to spare, but they dream big, and want to impress the audience more and more each year, such dedication and the fact that they are a non-profit that benefits many different local institutions, makes me want to make it happen for them, year after year. 

Images provided by Paola Cortés. All rights reserved.

Set decoration/ Shark's tooth scrim artist.

I have a history of working in Opera Set Design and Make Up in Tijuana.

On this occasion a Set Designer from Argentina, Claudio Hanczyc sent his design and I was in charge of overlooking it's execution and painting the Japanese design on the scrim.

The process was a challenge because of the size of the scrim and the fact that Tijuana does not have a place with the infrastructure to execute this size of a paint job.

I was able to get access to Baja Studios in Rosarito (where Titanic was shot).

Now, I had the space and a way to hang the scrim, as well as a genie lift to help make it a quicker process.

I started by masking the elements that needed to remain in the natural scrim color. Then I hung the scrim and started painting with a paint gun filled with diluted acrylic paint. 

The whole process took 10 days. I did it with the help of one fellow artist.

Lead Painter - credited

(uncredited: Assistant Art Director, Sculptor, Lead Scenic Artist)

Little Boy was an Art Department heavy project.

I was involved from the first stages of construction, up until a week after wrap, about 5 months.

The oficial job title I was hired for on this film was Lead Painter, but the several projects that ended up under my responsibility involved much more than that. 

The first project I took on during the pre-production was sculpting, texturizing and painting rocks, then art directing their placement to simulate a rock base for the pier structure. 

When that rock project was finished, I was put in charge of a team of local artists. 

I coordinated between the different Art Directors and the Graphics Dept. and I generated the plans for the Construction Dept. and the images for my team of local artists for the construction and painting of all the lettering and signage for the town's businesses and cars.

My team and I also took responsibility for painting the interior artwork, hand painted period posters and advertisements to be used by the Set Dressing Dept. for offices, grocery stores and bedrooms. 

The team was then commissioned to work on the samurai story within the movie. This involved creating a dream-like setting for a samurai fight.

For a detailed description on the process to achieve this set, click here.

I divided up my team to work simultaneously on different planes of the background.

Two others worked on a sky backdrop for a sequence of a girl dangling from a cliff for a Cowboy TV show within the film.

Our final project was creating the lettering for the make-believe Wild West Town, in Little boy's and his dad's imagination. 

 Images provided by Paola Cortés. All rights reserved.

Art Director - Mexico.

This is an ópera prima film by Mathieu Demy,  son of Jack Demy and Agnes Vardà, two of the most representative film directors in the history of French Cinema.

The Production Designer, Arnaud Roth, was working on sets in France, L.A. and Tijuana. I was Art Director for the Tijuana part. 

On this experience in an independent French film, the work approach was different. My role as an Art Director required me to do more like what in the U.S. a Set Decorator/Buyer would do because the Prod. Designer was very hands on. 

We built an alley that dead ended with a facade for a strip club called "Americano" hence the title of the film. 

We also built a faux border line and crossing for other scenes.

There was some location work as well. 

Images provided by Paola Cortés. All rights reserved.

I really enjoyed working with Director Valeria Golino in the Tijuana portion of this Italian-produced film. In this particular film, there was no Production Designer attached to the film, and I enjoyed working directly with the Golino to achieve her vision.

Working with Production Designer David Skinner was a great experience. It was an awesome project to be a part of. I have enjoyed helping out of town Production Designers find what they are looking for, when they come to Texas.

Production Design

Working on commercials is a new area I've been recently enjoying. The fast pace immediate results of this type of project pose a really interesting challenge. 

On this specific job I had to work in two locations, making it look like we were in four different homes, bedrooms, living rooms and patios.

There was some serious set dressing needed because I had to completely transform two of the bedrooms, bring in furniture and rugs and all of the decorative items, and I had little crew and little time to work with. There was only one day per location, and I only had access to the location on the day they were shooting since these were real people's homes.  

I love to work with this production company and the director was really inspiring. 

Click here  to see the story behind the finished product.

This was such a fun job, Production Designer Ron Hellman is very hands on and I really enjoyed art directing for him…. we had so much chicken shhhhtuff!