takes place. Here, one of
the nuns rings the morn-
ing bell. Everything except
the floor of the set on
which the actress stands
and the bell tower is a
matte painting created by
Walter Percy Day. Frame
enlargement.
111
Production Design
moonlight in the matte, however, was better looking than what the cinematographer could achieve with the live-action elements. The digital artists had to redo their lighting, making the light harder and more directional so that it would match the cinematography.
Similar to a matte painting, a translite is another common way of creating a distant background for a scene or set. A translite is a photograph, blown up to huge proportions, mounted on a translucent screen, and then lit from behind. A translite provides the dramatic skyline in the background of the set at the climax of Fight Club (1999). The translite was composed of several 8 × 10 inch photographs, combined and blown up to a size measuring 130 feet wide by 36 feet tall. This is a very common method for creating landscapes or city views glimpsed outside the windows of indoor sets. The views of the city outside the windows of the Nakatomi Plaza building in Die Hard (1988) are translites, as are the views of rural countryside surrounding the home in the first section of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001).
Throughout most of cinema history, matte paintings—whether painted traditionally or digitally—have been flat, unmoving components of a scene, typically placed in the background, behind actors, props, and sets. Actors and the camera could not interact with them. Today, by contrast, 3D digital mattes can be manipulated to simulate the perspective of a moving camera, as in the David Fincher film, Zodiac (2007).
NORTH BY
NORTHWEST
(MGM, 1959)
Roger Thornhill
(Cary Grant) care-
fully approaches
the luxurious man-
sion of arch-villain
Philip Vandamm in
Alfred Hitchcock’s
popular thriller.
Hitchcock never
hesitated to wink at
the audience. The
house is a matte
painting. Frame en-
largement.
FIGHT CLUB (20TH
CENTURY FOX, 1999)
The dramatic skyline in
this scene at the climax is
a translite, an enormous
photographic image
mounted on a translu-
cent screen. A thin net-
ting hung in front of the
translite, and as it moved
in the air currents on the
set, the distant lights of
the city seemed to twin-
kle. Frame enlargement.
112
Production Design
Case Study ZODIAC
Digital tools enable filmmakers to place actors inside vir-
so as to represent this earlier period, the filmmakers
tual sets that look photographically real. Zodiac featured
used digital methods of creating their locations. A
extensive digital effects work, but most of this was quite
prominent establishing shot of the harbor, showing the
subliminal and subtle. Most viewers do not experience
ferry terminal, which has the camera flying in over the
this movie as a showcase for effects. The film is a histori-
water as if on a helicopter, was entirely computer gen-
cal portrait of the Zodiac killer’s rampage in the San
erated. Photographs of the area taken from a U-2 spy
Francisco area beginning in 1969 and of police efforts to
plane in the early 1970s provided information about
apprehend him. Because the film chronicles true events,
buildings in the area that no longer existed, and using
Fincher wanted to be as faithful as possible in visually
methods of photogrammetry the filmmakers were
portraying the San Francisco Bay area as it existed in that
able to construct a three-dimensional environment
period.
from these photographs. Photogrammetry is a process
But the city has changed a great deal, and many of
of tracing lines of sight from the cameras in several
the crime scenes no longer look as they did in the late
photographs and then mathematically plotting their
sixties. So when a location could not be photographed
intersections to yield the 3D landscape.
ZODIAC (WARNER
BROS., 2007)
A spectacular establish-
ing shot of the San
Francisco harbor was
entirely computer
generated, with the
3D models built from
archival photographs
to achieve histori-
cal accuracy. Frame
enlargement.
ZODIAC (WARNER
BROS, 2007)
The crime scene at
Washington and Cherry
Streets was recreated on
a studio set, with actors
and a few props against
a bluescreen. The dis-
tant buildings are a 3D
digital matte, capable of
being rotated to simu-
late the view of a mov-
ing camera. The near
police car is a real prop,
while the distant one is
a CGI element. Frame
enlargement.
113
Production Design
Such information can assist in camera mapping a
been projected onto this geometry, the digital matte can
virtual 3D environment. A good example of this occurs
then be moved and rotated to simulate such things as
later in the film when the police investigate one of
camera movement. When the camera follows Inspector
Zodiac’s killings at the intersection of Washington and
David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) as he walks down the street
Cherry Streets. The area looks wealthier today than it
at the intersection (Ruffalo is actually on the bluescreen
did in 1969, and so parts of the scene were shot in a
set), the digital matte background moves according to
studio with actors and a few props against a bluescreen.
the camera’s changing line of sight. This creates a con-
The surrounding buildings were added through camera
vincing 3D illusion and enables the actors to credibly
mapping as a 3D digital matte . Camera mapping in-
interact with a virtual set that is dynamic.
volves projecting a matte painting or photograph onto
3D digital mattes are used extensively in films today.
a 3D wireframe geometry built in the computer that
In earlier periods of filmmaking matte paintings were
corresponds with the objects in the matte. Period pho-
static and flat. They were two-dimensional areas added
tographs of buildings in the area were projected onto a
to the background of a set. By contrast, the dynamic
geometrical rendition of the area. Because the wireframe
properties of 3D mattes enable the camera and the ac-
geometry of the virtual set can be rotated and moved in
tors to credibly interact with them and can make virtual
the computer, once the photographic information has
sets seem photographically real and authentic. ■
THE DESIGN CONCEPT
Production designers typically work from a detailed visual concept that organiz
es the way that sets and costumes are built, dressed, and photographed. Let’s examine two examples of this.
Case Study THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
Director Peter Jackson and his team of filmmakers used
time was 4 years!) was unusually large. Three hundred
set and costume design with great care and intelligence
and fifty sets were constructed, plus 68 miniatures, and
to convey the illusion that the fanciful locations in the
each of the Middle Earth civilizations visited by the char-
story were real and authentic. To accomplish this, al-
acters required an average of 150 costumes. Forty-two
though the film involved a considerable amount of dig-
tailors, cobblers, jewelers, and embroiderers worked on
ital effects, the filmmakers relied on traditional tools of
these.
production design—hand-built sets, miniatures, props,
The most complicated sets and miniatures were
and costumes. They believed that these hand-built sets
those for the seven-tiered city of Minas Tirith. A lot of
and costumes would establish the reality of the film’s
the film’s action takes place in that city, including a
fictional worlds and help to anchor the digital effects.
long siege and battle. The art department’s conceptual
As a result, the film achieves a careful and successful
designer, Alan Lee, first visualized the city’s design in a
balance of digital and traditional design methods. This
series of pencil sketches, in which he pictured the city’s
helps to avoid the cartoonish quality that sometimes
culture and its architecture. These were meant to be
results when a film goes overboard on digital effects.
reminiscent of medieval Europe. The pencil sketches
As visual-effects cinematographer Alex Funke noted,
furnished the basis for set and model construction.
“At some subconscious level, viewers can tell when
The entire city could be constructed only as a min-
they’re seeing real photography.”
iature model, which would be used in long shots such
The size of the film (actually, it was three films be-
as the one where Gandalf approaches it on horseback.
cause the entire trilogy was shot at once— principal pho-
Before building it, the miniatures unit consulted with
tography lasted over 15 months, and total production
cinematographer Andrew Lesnie to work out lighting
( continued)
114
Production Design
THE LORD OF
THE RINGS:
THE RETURN
OF THE KING
(NEW LINE,
2004)
The city of
Minas Tirith
is a principal
setting of the
third film in the
trilogy. It ap-
pears as a min-
iature model,
as in the scene
where Gandalf
approaches it
on horseback.
It also appears
as a series of
full-scale sets
inhabited by
live actors,
accentuating
the authen-
ticity of the
setting. Frame
enlargements.
design, color, and texture so that shots of the minia-
many of the shots, the lens passed so close to the min-
ture (not photographed by Lesnie) would match with
iature that it almost scraped the paint on its surfaces.
his footage of other scenes.
Other sequences in the film—Faramir and his men
Miniatures of the city and its selected parts were
riding out of the city to their deaths, Gandalf and Pippin
then built at 1/72 scale, with exacting detail. More
galloping through the streets—required that live actors
than 1000 houses populated the city, with fine detail-
interact with their surroundings. Therefore, portions of
ing in the architecture, yards, and even the interiors.
Minas Tirith also were built as full-scale sets. These were
This was necessary because director Peter Jackson
constructed at the huge Dry Creek Quarry (also used for
wanted elaborate camera moves, swooping across the
the Helms Deep Castle sets in The Two Towers ). Building
rooftops, between the buildings, and down through
these sets required six months because Jackson wanted
the streets, especially in the battle scene.
the size and scale of a true city and wanted it captured
These moves were accomplished with a snorkel
in real photography rather than as a digital effect.
lens . Attached to a camera at the end of a long flexible
Director Peter Jackson said that he wanted viewers
tube, or snorkel, the lens can be maneuvered through
to feel like the film had been shot on actual locations
the very small and tight spaces of a miniature model,
in Middle Earth. He wanted everything on screen to
and it has a pitch-and-roll mechanism that enables it
seem real. He knew that digital effects alone could
to move in an acrobatic fashion, as if the camera were
not achieve this. Thus traditional methods of produc-
mounted in an airplane. This produces a convincing
tion design became key ingredients in this strategy of
illusion of elaborate and extended camera moves. In
visiting Middle Earth “for real.” ■
115
Production Design
Case Study THE EVOLUTION OF DESIGN IN CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE FICTION FILMS
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had
including such pictures as Blade Runner (1982), Escape
special effects far more sophisticated than any film of its
from New York (1981), Robocop (1987), and Dark City
time, and even today they remain impressive. Kubrick’s
(1998). Locales are dirty and dimly illuminated, with rain-
model spaceships were remarkably detailed and three-di-
and smoke-filled air. This mise-en-scène might be termed
mensional, and he used mattes to insert moving images
future noir because of its similarity to the gloomy and op-
of people into their interiors, glimpsed behind windows.
pressive look of classic film noir. It has another root in Fritz
Inside the spacecraft, the production design emphasized
Lang’s Metropolis (1927), specifically that film’s under-
blank, white, controlled, and regulated environments
ground city where the workers reside and labor, a place of
that suggested an antiseptic future, in which human
enormous machinery, darkness, and congestion.
behavior was rational and orderly rather than unpredict-
Alien ’s future noir transitioned film away from the
able and impulsive. The designs spoke to control and
antiseptic 2001 look, and Blade Runner ’s landmark
authority rather than decay and chaos. Doing so, they
production design reinforced this shift with its dark
embodied the central irony of the film, namely, the way
vision of a future city. Production designer Lawrence
in which people had ceded control over their lives to the
>
G. Paull based his design concept on the social reali-
mechanical systems and synthetic environments they
ties evoked in the film’s script and the novel from
created. The pessimism inherent in this view would in-
which it derived. The film is set in a futuristic society
spire the next generation of science fiction film and give
where the middle class has relocated to pleasurable
rise to an alternative way of visualizing the future. Alien
off-world colonies, leaving the cities to choke in
(1979) initiated this alternative visual design.
urban decay, architectural collapse, and overpopula-
Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner , has
tion. The visual design of the film creates a world
acknowledged the importance and influence of Kubrick’s
of clutter, a ghettoized alley environment in which
film. Alien replicated the antiseptic Kubrick design in se-
transient, jobless, urban poor jostle together in a mix
lected sets of the spaceship, Nostromo, but in other ways
of nationalities and languages, whereas, far overhead,
it established a new design template for the next decade
video monitors and electronic billboards carry corpo-
and a half of science fiction filmmaking. The Nostromo
rate advertisements and media messages. High-rise
has two faces. The control rooms and science bays up-
buildings of high-tech opulence coexist with the
stairs are gleaming and antiseptic. By contrast, sets in
crumbling alley environment, creating a striking mix
the bowels of the ship—its engine rooms and storage
of contrasting architectural and social styles and reali-
areas—were grimy, dark, and dank. These established a
ties. Paull’s production design is a stunning transla-
mise- en-scène that became the norm not just for the Alien
tion of the social realities of the story into extremely
series but for subsequent science fiction films in general,
powerful visual environments.
2001: A SPACE
ODYSSEY (MGM,
1968)
Human figures against
a sterile, white environ-
ment. The production
design evokes an anti-
septic, sterile future in
which human beings
have ceded authority to
the technological sys-
tems they have created.
Frame enlargement.
( continued)
116
Movies and Meaning- Pearson New International Edition Page 20
