Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Building the Cheers office: Part one!


It was a show about a "nice little neighborhood bar" that SET the bar for ensemble character comedy and has has every show that came after it trying to beat it at it's own game.
For me it was a point of pride that I was from the town where Cheers took place and when I first moved out here to LA it was my go-to show for an instant remedy for homesickness.
So last year when I found myself, for the first time in ten years, at a new job, in a new place, where I didn't know a lot of people, I was feeling a little,...well, a little unsure.
Like doing a tightrope walk without a net. But fortunately, the people I work for are all about embracing creativity and love to nurture the crazy creative streak.so when we were told, (inspired by some of the elaborate environments the creatives at Pixar transformed for their workspaces), that we were free to transform our offices in a similar fashion I thought,...."AH! Now THERE'S something that'll make me feel at home! I'll create a nest!"
I immediately thought a mini-pub would be a hoot of an idea To transform the office into a convivial outpost of warm conversation and laughs simply for the sake of creating an extraordinary environment. A second later I thought,..."NO! Wait!......Cheers."
Now for those that know, I love replicas and movie props of every kind and I've always pipe-dreamed about having a big ol' cellar someday that I could transform into a brick-by-brick perfect replica of the Cheers set because,....well, because why wouldn't I? :-)
So I thought,....that's it,....it'll be a little proof of concept! So I asked "Can I turn my office into Cheers?" Which turned several heads and raised several eyebrows and smirks. But good on em' for entertaining my crazy. So I went away and started researching. I dug out my old research photos and started researching things like flooring and light fixtures and bar stools and photographs.
In fact I spent SO much time on research I think people forgot I ever said i was gonna do this but as the pieces came together, the test builds began!

Here we see a rough test fit of the initial bar. The office was roughly 10x14 feet with a 9ft.ceiling so I designed the bar to sit in the rear left corner of the room.


My desk would sit on a raised platform, (so those on the stools and I would all roughly be at eye level), behind the bar and the posts would support a small lightweight glass rail above.


Here we see the gorgeous brass I ordered. Here in So-Cal we're lucky enough to have enough of the movie industry that you can get just about anything, especially for set design so when I found out that one of the metal places I go to out here has "bar parts" I made a beeline for it.


And finally, after a year of planning, I was able to test-fit the bar on one very hot summer night!


More to come in part two!

2 comments:

  1. You are a damn creative man, my good sir. I love what you do. Keep doing it!
    I'm also glad to see this blog getting updated! I know you don't have much time to put stuff up, but I guess that makes the posts that DO make it up extra special!

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  2. Why thank you, Tony. It's been a long time i did something like this for the sake of doing it. "Art for art's sake", as they say. I think the last thing I did like this was the Ecto.

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