Learning Tricks from Set Design!

People creating movie, TV, and stage sets often need to be really ingenious.  The things they lavish the most attention to likely have powerful effects on our experience of space.

As Alexis Soloski (2023, “Flowers and Fake Marble:  How TV Production Designers Create the Past,”  The New York Times,https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/arts/television/gilded-age-lessons-in-chemistry-production-design.html) reports: “The scenic artists of “The Gilded Age” can paint a half-dozen distinct marble varieties. To pause at nearly any frame of the show is to marvel at the meticulous mix of authentic materials and brilliant fakes. Look closely at the candelabras, for example: They are fitted with fire-safe LEDs hooked to wavering filaments that substitute for open flame. Though production design is often seen as a mere backdrop to the action, the scenery, furnishings, finishes and props have their own stories to tell. And these stories are often especially intricate in period dramas, in which a need for accuracy must accommodate narrative demands and the constraints of a show’s budget. The New York Times spoke to the production designers of four shows. . . . the designers discussed the challenges and rewards of stepping back in time with high-definition cameras watching.”

The four shows featured in this intriguing article are “The Buccaneers,” “The Gilded Age,” “Lessons in Chemistry,” and “The Continental: From the World of John.”  Their plots are set in the 1870s, the 1880s, the 1950s and the 1970s, respectively.