When going to the cinema or watching a movie at home, we mostly think of how great the story was, or how good was the actors performance. For the past two years, though, I discovered a hidden passion that I didn't knew I had, but that had always been there, and that is scenography and production design in general.
Did you see how great did the place look? Oh, the costumes, how beautiful! Always the same, binge watching the "behind the scenes" part of my DVDs at home. In my opinion, a movie without a good production design behind, specially those who need to show an original setting, can't be a good movie. The atmosphere and the aesthetics of the film have to work well together. That also applies to the period of time that we decide to set the stoy in. For example, you can't make a good film settled in the city of Paris in the 18th century if you don't know 1) how the place was back then, and 2) how society was back then. You can't let those things slip, you have to master them, because they give the film its true essence.
The Panthom of the Opera was great
Without a good setting, there's no way a good story can develop. In fact, there are films whose camera cuts revolve around the will to show things that tell us more about the story than just the plot itself. Details can speak of many things, things that are left unsaid in movies, but that can tell us a parallel story of how that world is. This concept that relates space and time with the story that is being told is called chronotope, and I actually used it a lot when I was doing my research paper about the fantasy worlds in young adult literature (if you notice, I chose this because, in a way, it had to do with scenography).
This one had a really interesting
production design
Now I'll show you some examples of movie sets that I really like and that have a lot of hard work and art behind.
Let's start with Crimson Peak!
And then we have Anna Karenina! In this film, the majority of the set is a theatre, to represent that the lives of the Russian aristocracy are just like performing on a stage for each other!
There are many films whose scenography is great and I could talk about them for hours but these are the two that I came up with!
Personally, I think that scenography is a great art that combines a lot of things, while allowing to narrate different stories all at once. It's beautiful the way that we can craft stories to real life by giving them a space to really expand and show their true essence.
No comments:
Post a Comment