Designing for Screen E-Book

Georgina Shorter

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 294

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Design is at the essence of storytelling, but how does a production find its style and identity? This book explains how to approach design, whether for film, television, video promo or commercial making, and introduces the techniques needed to make ideas happen. Through theory and practical exercises, it looks at design in a different way and shows how the simplest decisions can become powerful ideas on screen.

Leseprobe

DESIGNING FOR SCREEN

Production Design and Art Direction explained

Georgina Shorter

Copyright

First published in 2012 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book edition first published in 2012

© Georgina Shorter 2012

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN 978 1 84797 446 4

Front cover: Top: model made by Natasha Moses; middle: illustration by Silvia Ruiz-Poveda Lomba; bottom: stills shot from short film Desire (2010)Frontispiece: Aerial view of a model made by Alessandro Vitali.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people without whose help and contribution, this book would not have been possible. Any errors are my own.Industry professionals: Luciana Arrighi, Eve Stewart, Jane Morton, Simon Bowles, Tim Browning, Samantha Morton, Nicola van Gelder, Momentum Pictures, Clare Nicholson of Company Pictures, Paul Bradley of Merchant Ivory Productions, Paula Mackersey of McCann London (Nescafe), Drew Pautz, Phil Fisk, Leon Westnedge; Justin Salinger, Liz White, Denise Gough, Sarah Jane Prentice, Barbara Blyth.The Art Direction for Film students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design: Fernanda Salloum, Marielle Misson Pereira, Silvia Ruiz-Poveda Lomba, Rini Handayani, Cecily Duckett, Leighton Johns, Alessandro Vitali, Natasha Moses. Very special thanks to my family and friends for their contribution and support, especially my husband Nick McCarthy, father Crispin Shorter and sisters Jacqueline and Ana; my friends Merle Hensel, Jane Trowell and Gary Thorne.For the photographs, my thanks to Nick McCarthy for Figures 4–13, 77–85, 99–147.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

1. Colour and Texture

2. Creating an Environment

3. The Script

4. Research

5. Illustrating your Ideas

6. Preparation in 2-D for 3-D Realization

7. Model-Making: the Basics

8. More Detailed Model-Making

9. The Production Process

Glossary

Bibliography

Recommended Viewing

Index

Fig. 1 Preliminary visual for an opera made for television.

Introduction

A PASSION FOR FILM

I was introduced to the media of film and television at a very young age and have remained transfixed for more than thirty years. Many times, my parents despaired of my interest in anything other than escaping into a fantasy world. My mother and father, themselves, liked watching television, but enjoyed film more.

Going to the cinema was a big deal in our household. The getting ready, travelling there, then the anticipation as you entered the cinema, sitting down with some popcorn – or in those days in Singapore, sugared peanuts stuffed into a cone made from newspaper – then the excitement of the film, no matter how dire and the fun of discussing it on the way home.

The critical eye didn’t come until my teens when I watched films I had liked as a child, only to discover they weren’t as good as I remembered! But they were memories, and, as such, made up my childhood. It was only later that I realized that all these memories were going to become very influential in my future career choices.

Up to, and on, entering Central Saint Martins College, my focus had been on becoming a costume designer, without much thought of the set as an integral part of telling a story. However, this rapidly changed over the course of my degree as I learned the importance of the overall visual context in helping to convey and support the cast and narrative; the idea that you could use images, colour, texture, darkness and light to captivate an audience.

This book will explore ways of designing using various media. It will look at production design for film, television and video collectively, as screen design. It will also discover the designer in you. How do you extract design information from a script? What are the key themes and how do you turn them into a concept that will support the telling of the story? Where do you begin researching and how?

The most important thing to remember – and the basis for this book – is that design is crucial to storytelling. There will be many references to existing examples of film and television, so as you read you can watch them and see and feel for yourself how their design decisions contributed to the story, making it a fuller, richer and more rounded experience for the viewer.

THE MEDIUM OF FILMING FOR SCREEN: COMPARABLE AND FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES

WHAT IS ART DIRECTION?

Art direction is the term used in the film, television, commercial and music promo industries for set design. It encompasses the concept, design, creation and arrangement of all visual elements in a screen narrative and ensures that all conceptual ideas run consistently and coherently throughout the story. In short, it is the thread that links all visual components of the project together.

WHAT DO A PRODUCTION DESIGNER AND AN ART DIRECTOR DO?

When you sit through the credits of a film or a television show, you may be forgiven for confusing the roles of the Production Designer and the Art Director. Historically, the roles in the Art Department have been hard to define, mainly because of the ever-evolving nature of the job, the continuous changes in filmmaking techniques and the arrival of new media, such as television and computers.

The title of Art Director came about in the 1930s, when filmmaking was brought indoors thanks to artificial lighting. Before that, the closest-related credited roles were Technical Director and Interior Decorator when most shooting still took place outside. The Hollywood studio system further defined the role of art director by splitting duties between a supervising art director, who came up with the concepts, and a unit art director, who turned them into reality with a team of draughtsmen and illustrators. However, this too changed with the Supervisory Art Director becoming more of a manager – assigning a script to the Unit Art Director, who, after consultation with the Director, would come up with the designs. But, the credit would always go to the Supervisory Art Director, who had the final say, whether or not they had actually contributed.

With this fight over credit and the close working relationship developing between Art Director and Director, it became necessary to accord the position of Art Director greater status, and so the title of Production Designer came into being. First created by David O. Selznick for William Cameron Menzies in recognition of his work on Gone WithThe Wind (1939), the new title conveyed not just the designing aspects of the job, but the collaborative nature of the role from the start of a project. Thus Art Directors became known as Production Designers and their assistants became Art Directors. (Production Design: Architects of the Screen, Jane Barnwell, 2004)

And they haven’t changed much since. So here are the roles as they are today, though bear in mind that these distinctions are fluid.

The Production Designer, as the title indicates, is responsible for the look of the entire production. He or she, in collaboration with the Director and the Director of Photography (DoP), comes up with all the concepts and designs and oversees their execution, making sure all sets are built on time and within budget.

The Production Designer is also involved in choosing locations outside the studio and is then responsible for adapting them for the story. Generally from an artistic background, Production Designers are familiar with all technical aspects of filmmaking from camera equipment to lighting and special effects and need to be able to work within a budget. Given the vast changes in the world of filmmaking, it is essential for Production Designers to move with the times and keep up-to-date with all new design and special effects techniques.

The Art Director reports to the Production Designer and works with them to realize their vision.

Whether you have both depends on the size of the production. The more budget or the greater the size and complexity of a project, can even mean that there are several Art Directors all reporting to one Production Designer, while smaller projects only require (or can only afford one) who fulfils both roles. So, next time you watch a film or television programme, look at the credits to see which roles are listed and note that for every crew unit listed: ‘first unit’, ‘second unit’ and so on, each has its own Art Director. (The Complete Film Dictionary, Second Edition, Ira Konigsberg, 1997)

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Throughout this book, when talking about creative decision-making, I sometimes refer to Production Designers as Screen Designers. The book is, first and foremost, a tool to furnish the reader with a basic skillset with which to enter the film and television programme-making industry. It also aims to enhance the reader’s design skills and techniques and to guide and encourage anyone who wants to follow a career in the industry.

Fig. 2 Colour and texture detail.

1 Colour and Texture

COLOUR

For a Production Designer, colour is a vital part of communicating the visual language of a story to an audience. This chapter aims to help you start thinking about colour and texture in a different way, and to make you realize how the right emotional connection can have a profound affect on the audience.

Colour is a massive part of our everyday lives. It allows us to process, understand and relate to everything that we come into contact with, and can directly and indirectly affect our mood. Its versatility means that colour can be used in simple and complex ways to manipulate and control how we experience emotions and memories. It is a screen designer’s primary tool for creating a visual language for the narrative. By providing information to the audience in this way, the Designer can convey a great deal of detail and information.

So powerful is this medium that it requires the Designer to approach a production’s colour palette with considerable care and thought. Each project has its unique narrative, and you must carefully consider the colours to support and enhance that narrative. Colour should not be chosen just because you like it, but rather on the basis of how it will affect the audience.

The use of colour must come out of a complete understanding of the story and how it is told. Colour can provide a real or unreal look, depending on the form of storytelling. For example, music videos are a form of musical storytelling, where colour can be used to punctuate the melody, rhythm, narrative and mood of a song in a short space of time. Dramatic colour and unreal colour changes can grab attention and provide a more immediate experience.

This differs greatly to how colour is used in film, television, and video, where time is taken to tell the story. So, the colour palettes can be subtler, mimicking a sense of reality and authenticity. Dramatic colour changes in drama enhance the action and the narrative, for example, dream sequences that use unreal colours to indicate to the audience that this isn’t reality. It can also be used as a subtle change to blur the boundaries of the real and the unreal.

Colour is especially important for lower budget productions, as it is virtually impossible to build elaborate sets without a decent budget. Through experimentation, colour can be an invaluable and effective way to communicate ideas. But before we continue discussing colour further, in terms of creating mood and atmosphere, we must understand the theory and psychology behind colour.

COLOUR THEORY

Colour is the visual characteristic of refracted white light. Fig. 3 shows what happens when white light passes through a glass prism – it creates a spectrum of colour. Our eyes are only responsive to three parts of the spectrum: red, blue and green, known as the primary colours of light. When these coloured lights are blended together in different combinations, they form every single colour of light that we see.

Fig. 3 How white light creates a colour spectrum when shone through a prism.

Colour is divided into two groups: light and pigment. A lighting designer works with coloured light. The Production Designer and Art Director deal with colour in pigment form. Even though light is not a Screen Designer’s medium, they must be familiar with it and the way in which it affects pigment colours.

LIGHT

Different-coloured lights can be used to produce what is known as ‘additive’ colour. Red, blue and green are the three elements of the spectrum that the human eye can detect and respond to. These are the basic primary additive colours for direct light, television, computer monitors, stage and screen lighting. When these colours overlap equally (Fig. 4), they create secondary colours: yellow, magenta and cyan. When all three are positioned on top of each other, they produce white light.

Fig. 4 Primary colours of light creating secondary colours, and white light.

PIGMENT

Pigment is a substance that can change colour in reflected light by absorbing different parts of the wavelengths of that light. It is used to create paints, inks, and other materials.

Pigment has been in use for millennia and developed alongside painting. Early pigments were made from mineral or biological matter and experimented with through painting. The most vibrant pigments were purple and blue. The earliest purple pigment came from a rare species of snail, while the blue pigment was made from powdered lapis lazuli (a semi-precious stone). These striking pigments were rare and expensive, making them a symbol of wealth and power. One of the great Flemish painters, Jan Van Eyck, charged extra if clients requested those pigments in their portraits. (Blue: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau). Today, most if not all, natural and biological pigments have been replaced by synthetic ones that are less toxic, easier to use and cheaper to produce.

Primary pigment colours are different from primary additive colours. They are red, yellow and blue and are absolutes – they cannot be created through any other colour combinations, but when mixed in equal parts, create all other colours. For example, 50 per cent of red mixed with 50 per cent of yellow will create orange. Fig. 5 shows the primary colour combinations that create three new colours, known as secondary colours. By blending these with primary colours, a further range of new colours known as tertiary colours is created.

Fig. 5 Primary pigment colours, when mixed in equal parts, produce the secondary colour palette.

THE MUNSELL COLOUR SYSTEM

Artist, teacher and inventor, Albert Munsell found a way to explain and teach the theory of colour. He developed a system that made it possible to define the hue (colour) through value and chroma. The value refers to the light or darkness of the hue, and the chroma is defined by its saturation and intensity. His theory is widely accepted around the world and has been used as the basis of many other systems.

HUE, VALUE AND CHROMA

Hue: distinguishes one colour from another – yellow from blue or green from red for example. It only defines each colour by name, not by lightness, darkness, strength or quality.

Value: the second dimension that tells you how light or dark a colour or hue is. Munsell created a vertical axis to measure the progression from black to white (Fig. 6).

Chroma: the third dimension that defines the strength of a colour. Chroma defines the purity of a colour in relation to grey. Colour chroma and colour saturation do not mean the same thing. Colour saturation defines its degree of purity (Fig. 7). The strength or weakness of a colour is measured on a horizontal axis. The closer to the vertical value axis, the weaker or greyer the chroma (Fig. 8). The further away from the vertical axis, the stronger and purer the hue (Fig. 9).

Fig. 6 The vertical axis measures the value from black to white.

Fig. 7 Chroma defines the degree of saturation of a hue.

Fig. 8 The combined vertical and horizontal axis.

Fig. 9 Albert Munsell’s colour theory.

SOME USEFUL COLOUR TERMS

• Tint: created by adding white to a hue.

• Shade: created by adding black to a hue.

• Tone: created by adding grey to a hue.

• Monochrome range: consists of shades and tints that come from the same hue.

• Complementary hues: colours that sit opposite each other on a colour wheel that evoke excitement.

• Analogous hues: are neighbouring colours that can create both harmony and disharmony.

Fig. 10 The difference between a tint and a shade.

Coloured objects in a black space appear brighter, whereas the same colour can seem darker in a white space. Higher saturated colour like red and yellow give the illusion of closer proximity to the camera because of their intensity compared to colours with lower saturation and value that give the illusion of distance.

Task 1: Create a Colour Wheel Observing Munsell’s Colour Theory

1. Begin drawing a circle with a compass on a piece of white board or thick cartridge paper.

2. For this colour wheel, we will use the primary, secondary and tertiary colour range. Using a protractor, divide the circle into twelve equal parts (30°). Connect the edges of each pie shape with a straight line (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11 The outline of the colour wheel.

3. Number each pie section from the twelve o’clock position clockwise.

4. Now assign each pie section with a colour in the following order:

1 RED

2 RED ORANGE

3 YELLOW ORANGE

4 YELLOW

5 YELLOW GREEN

6 GREEN

7 BLUE GREEN

8 GREEN BLUE

9 BLUE

10 VIOLET

11 PURPLE

12 RED PURPLE

5. Select your primary coloured paints: red, yellow and blue.

6. Use a paint medium that mixes freely with water. Gouache is used in the examples shown here. Paint the three sections in undiluted colour. Use a flat brush, keep within the lines and apply the paint evenly. Or, if you find it easier, apply removable adhesive tape for accuracy.

Fig. 12 Use magic tape to paint with precision.

7. Blend the secondary colours by adding equal parts of the primary colours together.

8. Follow the same method to create the tertiary colours, using the secondary colours.

Fig. 13 The colour wheel, complete with primary, secondary and tertiary colours.

9. Make sure that the paint is dry to the touch before removing the tape. Take care to peel each strip off without taking the paint with it.

Task 2: Experiment with Value and Chroma

Value Create a vertical axis of value from black to white in nine steps. Begin with black and white paint, and gradually mix them together to create values of grey that progress from black to white.

Chroma Create a monochrome range. Choose a colour or hue and a grey value from the value axis. Begin with the grey value, and gradually add strength to the chosen colour until it is at its most vivid – record each sample as you go.

Quality of the Captured Image

The effect of coloured light on coloured pigment needs to be extensively tested. The quality and appearance of colour varies depending on the format and medium used to capture the image. Colour is captured differently on film stock than on video or digital. For example, film stock has a high range of contrast and is able to capture high-saturated (pure) colours compared to video. Through video the same high-saturated colours lose their definition and the edges seem to blur. Digital cameras are catching up with traditional film stock cameras, and can capture film-like images.

The grain quality of film stock can make or break the visual language of a narrative. Light grain film stock captures smooth, clean and crisp-edged images; whereas heavier grained stock captures more textures with less defined lines. This look has become associated with horror and thriller dramas, where the lack of light play tricks with the mind.

Black and White In black and white productions, the colour spectrum does not exist. Instead it works with black and white and the number of grey shades or values in between grey scale. Working in this medium can also be termed monochromatic, as it has no hue. Filming in black and white captures colour in a distinct way. Research black and white film and photography and observe the use and variety of the grey scale. Are there shades of grey that represent different colours? Can you measure their value? Can you imagine what the image would look like in colour? How do the colours translate to a black and white or grey scale value?

Task 3: Use Black and White to Good Effect

Design an image or set in colour and then photograph it in black and white. Using Munsell’s colour theory, match the values of the colours to the grey value scale. Now translate the same set into black and white, and photograph it in colour. Were your values correct? If not, repeat the experiment until you can recreate the identical values. You will find that the strength of your colours might be brash and loud in a coloured format, but when filmed in black and white the values will be similar to each other. For example, light pink and yellow can appear to have the same value in grey scale.

USING A COLOUR PALETTE TO TELL A STORY

Colour palettes are specifically created by the Production Designer, with collaboration from the Director and Director of Photography (DoP) to define a story. Using colour to complement or add contrast can greatly influence the narrative. It is an emotional element that can add symbolism, convey a mood, and add psychological impact to bring the story to life. It should unconsciously act separately from the narrative, yet work in the same rhythm. For example, colour states can change the emotion of a story and can complement the action, providing visual support during pivotal changes to move the story forward. This can set the tone and language for the whole production making it vital that all departments have a complete understanding and faith in the decisions made by the ‘Creative Three’ for the overall look of the piece. This in turn will determine how each scene is shot, what type of lighting should be used, what sort of film stock and camera type should be selected to achieve the look. Postproduction teams must also be kept informed to maintain and enhance the look. Extensive film stock tests need to be carried out during preproduction to ensure that the colours and overall quality of the images are being captured in the right way.

COLOUR ASSOCIATION

COLOUR AND THE SENSES

When we think of colours, we associate them with certain objects because of our culture and upbringing. As children we discover how to identify colours by association, such as, red as an apple, green as grass, yellow as the sun, blue as the sky and so on. As we move into adulthood, these associations take on deeper meanings, where we respond to colour through an emotional connection; how we feel, and how it makes us feel, not just by object association.

Observe when reading a descriptive piece of writing how colour is used to describe an environment, a situation with feeling and emotion. These associations connect with the senses (sight, smell, sound, touch, taste) creating and all-encompassing emotional experience. Think about which colours we consider loud. The brighter and more vivid the colours, the more attention-grabbing they seem. Music videos, for example, create visually interesting images to enhance the sound. Look at the colour choices and combinations. Is there a relationship between the colour and the changes in colour or are they moving in the rhythm of the music?

Consider how colour is used for specific age groups. Cartoons and children’s programmes, for example, use bright, vibrant colours that young children recognize and respond to. But as children mature, the colours they see and respond to change. Bright colours become subtler, have more depth and become intellectually more stimulating. Observe the different applications of colour of a cartoon for young children and an animation for adults. Essentially, they are the same medium, but what are the differences? Which colours are used? How are the colours used to tell each story? Does the subject matter affect the way you react to the colours?

We have already looked at the physical structure of colour, but how does it affect us psychologically? Even though how a person perceives colour depends on how they mentally process it and their cultural upbringing, there are still universally accepted associations with particular groups of colours.

• Warm colours – red, yellow, orange. These colours evoke positive feelings of warmth, passion, happiness, and energy, but can also signify anger, hatred, aggression, and violence.

• Cool colours – blue, green, purple. These colours convey serenity and calmness, but also apathy, melancholy and sadness.

• Black – absorbs all the colours in the spectrum and can symbolize evil, death, threat, as well as power and style.

• White – reflects all colours in the spectrum. The opposite of black, it can symbolize youth, purity, innocence and goodness, but can also suggest sterility, and coldness.

Look at the colour red. As children, red is a strong playful colour. We relate it to apples, fire engines, London buses or post boxes (in the UK). But as adults, red can mean different associations – passion, sexuality, speed, power, strength, anger, love and, ironically, war. Think about how red is used in your daily life. Where do you see it, and how does it make you feel? Now take a look at the red on your colour wheel. Could the colour stir up one emotion more than another? How would your feelings change if we were to add black to create a darker shade of red, something that might resemble red wine? Notice how the saturation (its pureness) has disappeared, creating a much more specific colour. Recalling what red symbolizes, ask yourself what this new colour signifies. Can you connect it specifically? Choose another colour from the colour wheel and observe and note down whether they take on a more specific meaning for you.

You will find that like all creative interpretations, connecting colour with emotion through association can be very subjective. Therefore it is crucial to make sure that you are communicating the right feelings. Colour needs to be placed in context, especially cultural context, for it to have a specific meaning, and, as discussed, all colours have multiple meanings. Change the context and you could evoke a feeling opposite to that normally associated with that colour.

The importance of colour in context is evident in the world around us. Through our senses, we can be transported back in time or propelled into the future, where different combinations of colours connect to memories. But what helps us form memories? What influences us? Can the method in which the image is captured really influence how we imagine a period in time to be? Like an art historian, a Production Designer will carry out detailed visual research (photography, books, drawings, film/video, paintings) to build up a mental picture of life in another time. How these colours looked back then and how they look to us today depended on the ‘technology’ available at the time and can ultimately influence what colour palette a designer will use to capture the essence of it.

CULTURAL INTERPRETATIONS

Around the world, people from different cultures view colours in different ways. This is a hugely important consideration for a Production Designer, as the symbolic value of that colour will have an emotional affect on the viewer. For example, in Western cultures, a bride wears white on her wedding day, whereas in China or India she wears red. Using the list below, research the emotional connection of the colours, and how they are perceived in the major cultures of the world.

• Red

• Blue

• Green

• Purple

• Yellow

• Orange

• Pink

• White

• Black

The following dramas show how a very specific colour palette can define an era, helping to tell a story.

MAD MEN (2007 – PRESENT)

Set in the late 1950s on the east coast of America, this television series follows the professional and private lives of the employers and employees of a successful advertising agency during the social, political and economical climate of that time. Using a restrained and sophisticated colour palette, such as deep rich colours against a backdrop of warm neutral colours helps to differentiate the masculine advertising world of the city from the homely world of the suburbs, where the focus is on family values and traditional gender roles. As the series progresses, the characters in this world move into the 1960s, and have to adapt to its changes. The design team takes this into consideration by transforming the warm sophisticated colours of the ideal-oriented 50s into the bright intense hues of the swinging 60s.

ASHES TO ASHES (2008)

The colour palette sets the scene in this BBC television drama, where DI Alex Drake is shot in ‘our’ present, and wakes up in 1981, where she leads a parallel life as a police detective whilst lying in a coma back in ‘our’ time. Colour is used to differentiate between the two lives. Her comatose state has a cold palette, featuring varying grey values and grey blues that stir up feelings of coldness, sterility, and lifelessness. This is in sharp contrast to her parallel existence in 1980s London with its vibrant, brash colours and striking combinations, symbolic of the period’s cultural revolution and social upheaval.

HERO (2002)

This film presents four different interpretations in a very stylised way. The role of colour is simplistic and extremely effective in differentiating between each version of the events (red, green, blue and white), as well as helping to boost the story’s emotion and mood. By using blocks of vivid colour and a variety of textural elements, a beautiful ethereal contrast is added to soften scenes that would otherwise be dominated by the striking Chinese architecture. Flowing, layered materials are used both in set and costume to help accentuate the skill and agility of the characters, and their respective emotional states beneath the guise of feared assassins.

Hero is set in China during the Warring States period (approximately 227BCE), when all states were rebelling against unification. It tells the epic story of a nameless prefect from a small area in the Qin state, who travels to the capital city for an audience with the king, who has survived three attempts on his life by three notorious assassins (Long Sky, Broken Sword and Flying Snow). To protect himself from further attempts, he stops visitors coming within 100 paces of his person. When Nameless arrives, he proudly announces that he has killed the king’s most feared assassins and is invited to come closer and recount his tales of heroism. The king does not believe his tales and offers his own interpretation of events as he has personally experienced the strength and skill of these assassins. The Director Zhang Yimou, along with Production Designers Tingxiao Huo and Zhen-zhou Yi, created a production full of vibrant colour and strong visuals. They were very successful in using the psychology of colour to tell the narrative. It is the heart of this story and Zhang Yimou believes that because of this the film will stay in people’s memories.

…a few years later, if someone mentions Hero, you are going to remember the colours. You are going to remember in a sea of golden leaves, two ladies dressed in red are dancing in the air. You are going to remember, on a lake as still as a mirror, two men are using their swords to convey their sorrow like birds flying on the water like dragonflies. It is images like these that will leave lasting impressions in the minds of the audience.

(Zhang Yimou, interviewed for ‘Hero’ Defined: A look at the epic masterpiece, by Elite Group Enterprises, 2004)

SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999)

This is the story of Constable Ichabod Crane who is sent from New York City to investigate a series of murders in a remote Dutch farming community, where everyone lives in fear of the Headless Horseman. Ichabod, who comes from a world of science and reason, has his world turned upside down when he is thrust into another full of myth, magic, witchcraft and superstition. The genre of the film is horror and the lack of colour, muted hues and use of black, white and grey scale work well with the subdued light to create an eerie ambience. This contrasts greatly with the use of strong vivid colours of red and white in Ichabod’s dream sequences as a child. Director Tim Burton and Production Designer Rick Heinrichs created a dark period fairytale-like horror inspired by the gothic Hammer Horror films of the 1950s through to the 1970s (TimeOut Film Guide 2011). The dramatic colour palette used was integral to the telling of this story. The use of black and shades of blue blacks, greys of varying value and muted colours give the film the impression of being in black and white, helping to create the feeling of a town in the grip of a nightmare. Controlling the light and using shadows helped to enhance the atmosphere with horrific authenticity. Also, the use of monochrome colours, black, charcoals, greys and muted colours helped to differentiate wealth and status in the small town compared to the utilitarian, ordered colours of the city.

In the following two examples of film based on the lives of artists, the Production Designer used the style of the painter’s work to compose painterly-like visuals.

FRIDA (2002)

Colour is used to great effect in this film, where it represents and illustrates the painter Frida Kahlo’s life and work. The palette of high saturated colours helps to capture the essence of the Mexican culture, of which she was tremendously proud. The brightness also helps capture the tumultuous life she led due to her serious physical injuries that left her barren and plagued her till her death, and the all-consuming love she had for her philandering husband, mural artist Diego Rivera. This production is a good example of how the colour palette used in her paintings was continued throughout the film design, connecting art to life and back to art again.

GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING (2003)

Set in Delft, Holland, in 1665, it tells the story of a peasant girl, who becomes the assistant and eventual muse for the painter Vermeer. The quality and the colours of the palette mirror the essence of Vermeer’s paintings. These visual choices help to define the story’s place in history, setting the action in a believable time. Like Julie Taymor’s Frida, this production uses a similar formula to translate the story from canvas to film.

TEXTURE

Texture is the surface quality of any substance. Texture allows us to differentiate between different tactile experiences like smooth and rough, sheen and dull, fur or weave, stone or metal, etc. and connects them with our senses to evoke feelings. Very much like colour, texture can trigger a memory.

This element works hand in hand with colour, as it gives authenticity to a story. Like colour, it adds another feature to the appearance of objects and matter, and gives the story a tactile dimension. It can also illustrate a period in time, a place and the passing of time. It can also show poverty or wealth. A Designer has to be sensitive to all of this. For instance, to create a believable old and dilapidated apartment, a Designer would either need old materials and furnishings, or new furnishings that have been ‘treated’ to look old. A lot depends on how the story is being told, and a Designer must pay close attention to that.

VERA DRAKE (2004)