Years ago I worked as an art director for a low budget feature called "Drawing Down the Moon". As with most low budget features you get a mix of people who know and don't know how to do their assigned job(s). Although I had never worked as an art director in a film before I have been around many films and I think on my feet. By the end of the film I was making less and less errors and things began working out for me.
On low budget movies an art director can actually carry the load of several titles. I was to work with the hair and makeup people, special effects (we had to kill a few people and needed to figure out how to make exit bullet wounds and bleeding), costumes, set design and props. As you may have guess the budget was minimal and I spent many of my days beg, borrowing and stealing things that were needed for the set.
Working on this film gave me a greater appreciation for the amount of work and the number of people that go into making a film. Even though on camera there may be only one or two people. Surrounding them are many: on the streets taking care of business, at the office making arrangements and "fixing" things that go awry, as well as the camera person, camera assistant, director, assistant director, make up artist, art director, continuity person, sound engineer, boom holder,grip, gaffer, script person, etc is an entire community
