Take you favorite movie and remove all the actors. You will see a combined creative work of two people – cinematographer and art director. In this conversation Sarah Horton takes a deep dive into the craft of art direction, shedding light on the fascinating fusion of the artistic and financial sides of movie productions. In the last few years Sarah took the role of art director on “The Bourne Supremacy”, “Aeon Flux”, “V For Vendetta”, “The International” and, most recently, “Hanna”. The second part of this conversation focuses on “The International”, an action thriller that follows Clive Owen and Naomi Watts as they unravel the role of a high profile bank in an international arms dealing ring.
Kirill: Tell us about your path so far in the movie industry
Sarah: I never went to film school. I studied History of Art at London university and by chance, my summer job was working at the Edinburgh film festival. This was my first contact with film and it started to really interest me. Shortly afterwards I started working as an Art Dept. volunteer at the National Film and Television School just outside of London and realized that this was absolutely what i wanted to be doing; In those days the Film School only had courses for camera, direction and production so the students with graduate film projects were always looking for help on the design side. After having worked there for a while, I started writing to various designers and after a few more films, started work at Elstree Studios, which was then one of the major studios in UK, where films such as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ were made. This was during the early eighties when many large-scale movies were being made in the UK, like “Labyrinth” and “White Nights”. I started working as the Art Dept Assistant on a movie called “Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear” directed by Barry Levinson and produced by Steven Spielberg.
Kirill: And so you progressed to assume bigger responsibilities as the time passed?
Sarah: I literally learned my trade within the industry, and consider myself very fortunate to have had this chance. I learned from some wonderful professionals, many of whom are no longer with us. Their background were films like “Dr Zhivago”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, “2001” and of course all the Bond movies and I feel that what i learned was gold dust because it was that old fashioned way of making movies which doesn’t exist anymore. It is the best training I could have had.
Kirill: Do you see a difference between European and US movie productions?
Sarah: Not really. Most of the work that we do here is funded by Hollywood, coming to Berlin or London simply because the rate of the dollar against the local currency makes it economically viable. Most of the movies that i do are Hollywood or American-based productions, and the way they are made is very similar. There are some differences in crew structure, because of the unions but these differences are minimal. However, I also work on smaller local German productions for a very active German market – and they are quite different, simply because there is a lot less money available for each production. Having said that it’s still a market for a population of 80-million, many of whom are happy to pay money to watch movies with well-known stars in their own language.
Kirill: Transitioning into the role of an art director, your job is take the creative vision of director, cinematographer and production designer and make it a physical reality.
Sarah: My boss, the production designer, creates the visual identity of the film. My job as the art director is to realize that identity in physical form which takes the shape of sets and whatever else goes along with the script. The Production Designer establishes a kind of visual scaffolding, defined by color, light, texture and contrast in which I am free to operate. In discussions with the Production Designer, the Art Director is responsible for the construction of the sets and they can take many forms. It can be a set in the studio (like The Guggenheim Museum for “The International”), it can be a location where shooting takes place over a couple of days with minimal or more complex structural alterations of the existing space, including furniture and dressing, or it can be a mixture of both – a “set on location” – where a big set is built within an existing space, using the original features or not, as required by script, budget, logistics and director.
Kirill: In his interview for the “100 Careers in Film and Television” Jeff Mann says that “dealing with money and budgets is probably what I most dislike; trying to put a price tag on aesthetics”. Do you share this sentiment?
Sarah: It’s a constant struggle. As an art director, you’re expected to be both a financial and creative genius, coming up with solutions that don’t compromise the vision of the production designer but at the same time fit within the confines of the budget. It’s a give-and-take process, where the Art Dept budget is spread out over all the sets. However, since one can never predict precisely in advance what the parameters of each set will be, the budget often has to be redivided many times over. It’s a question of being able to manage the money available, but i see this as a challenge not a restriction. It doesn’t matter how big the budget is, there’s always never enough money! Whether you’re working on a $5M, a $50M or a $100M movie, you still end up having the same conversations about what is affordable and what isn’t. I think this is interesting, because it proves that it’s the same process, and one has to think outside of many similar boxes to find solutions to budget problems. I guess that on big budget movies you have the possibility to go into much more detail – which is where the differences lie – more sets, more stunts, more special effects, more options on how to shoot, just more of everything – while on a smaller production you are forced to reduce everything down to absolute essentials.
Kirill: Do you feel constricted when you operate within someone else’s vision?
Sarah: I enjoy the freedom to ‘play’ within an existing framework and find solutions which work creatively and financially. I wouldn’t describe it as being constricted – working with a Production Designer is a process of combining ideas to achieve the vision of the film. Ultimately, anything is possible to recreate – it’s just a question of time and money, so for me, the ‘art’ of what I do, if you can call it art, is when you put those restrictions in, that’s when it becomes interesting for me.
Kirill: When do you start working on the production?
Sarah: I start long before shooting begins, and continue up to the end of principal photography. An average shoot takes between 8 to 12 weeks but since it’s not possible to have all the sets ready and standing in advance of this, I work throughout shooting preparing the sets as they come up in the schedule. During pre-production most of the time is spent working out what each set is going to look like and preparing the construction drawings, surface finishes, stunt and SFX requirements, dressing, etc. Once shooting starts, it’s like a moving train which needs new sets to be ready for shooting sometimes on a daily basis. I’m always working one step ahead, getting the sets ready for the shooting crews, and as soon as they show up, i’m off to get the next set ready, while another team is pulling down the set that they’ve just finished on. I really like my job because i don’t have to stay on set all the time! (laughs)
Kirill: You mentioned that anything is possible. What do you think about digitally-created fantasy environments of movies such as “Star Wars” and “Avatar”? What changes do you see in your craft of creating physical sets?
Sarah: It is changing, and it’s something that i observe more and more often. I think the approach to set building has changed but it won’t disappear. Compared to a production like “Young Sherlock Holmes” where something like 75% of the film were built sets and the rest a mixture of matte paintings, digital effects and animatronics, it’s almost the other way around these days. Having said that, my own experience is that visual effects are often sourced from the built sets using and extending from the physical surfaces and lighting. It’s much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive to start from nothing in the computer. And a physical set also allows the actors to directly interact with it, and all its furniture and props.
Kirill: The make-up designer of “Tron: Legacy” mentioned that almost all productions do reshoots a few months after the main shooting is done. Do your sets stay intact until the post-production is fully done?
Sarah: In the course of pre-production it becomes clear what the key sets are, the sets that are so expensive to rebuild that it makes it worthwhile keeping them with the option of a rebuild. When shooting has finished these sets are flat-packed, that is, they are taken apart and stored. They are kept until there’s a green light on the rough cut, which takes about 2 – 3 months after shooting is finished. The sets are scrapped when the reshoots are over. However, I should add that having the luxury of being able to afford reshoots is something that smaller German productions generally don’t have.
Kirill: How do you feel about the transient nature of what you’re creating?
Sarah: The funny thing is that i don’t mind that at all. I think that’s what makes my job so great – where else can I get to work on building a space ship for example followed by a medieval castle and then an iconic museum? Every set is the sum of many ideas – a statement of the film – and they exist for as long as is needed to tell the story. Film is story-telling. I am always looking for the next story and the next set. I was a little upset was when The Guggenheim was scrapped – it seemed to happen so fast! Striking a set happens in a tenth or less of the time that it takes to build.
Kirill: The real Guggenheim was not really an option given the sheer volume of destruction left by the hitmen by the end of the scene. In the “making of” video you talk about finding an abandoned structure in Berlin and recreating the entire location there.
Sarah: It was right up the road from the studio and we could walk to it from our offices. It was an abandoned railroad shunting yard, and it was perfect. We looked at a lot of industrial spaces and we needed a span of 40 meters, about 120 feet, across without any pillars. It was very hard to find because most of the structures, like power stations, have some kind of support in the middle; this was the only form of architecture that didn’t have any support structure in the middle and was high enough to enable us to build the Guggenheim in it.
Kirill: And the goal was to create a one-to-one replica of the original?
Sarah: Yes, because we knew that we would be intercutting between the original and the set. For the scenes where Salinger (Clive Owen) looks up at the roof – that’s real. The chandelier that fell down at the end was built and added digitally to the scenes in the original building. All of the fight sequences were shot on our set. There’s a linking shot when Salinger comes in from Fifth Avenue into the foyer – and it was important that this matched to the built set.
Kirill: And even though you did not use all the original materials, you started from the blueprints that you received from Guggenheim, building a sturdy enough structure to support the cast and crew?
Sarah: We worked very closely with the Guggenheim. They sent us the CAD drawings which were tremendously useful. We built it to 90% of the real size, it had to be a little smaller to fit into the space. And we had permanent issues with the walkways, because the scaffolding frame had ramps which were cantilevered out four or five meters. So we knew that weight on the outside edges would be a problem, and none of us really knew how well the structure would hold up to the shooting crew. Crews have a tendency to all gather around the director [laughs] and the first few days were spent moving equipment and people to spread the loads which was pretty time-consuming until everybody got the idea.
Kirill: The Guggenheim sequence lasts about ten minutes in the final cut. How much time did it take you to create the set?
Sarah: We had 12 weeks to build it. I started on the film in April 2007, the construction started around July and we shot on it from September to November of that year – main unit and second unit.
Kirill: Destruction is the main theme of the sequence. Even though there are no explosions, and the building stands after the fight is over, there are thousands of bullets flying around, screens smashing, chandelier collapsing. Is there anything special you do when you build a structure destined for destruction and recreation?
Sarah: We had some complicated breakaway walls. Breakaway walls are squibbed by special effects, who build in charges that recreate the ricochet of machine gun holes when set off electronically, in sync with the action. As the Guggenheim walls are all slightly curved, ramped and slanting, it was a real challenge to set up the breakaway walls. The shootout was shot by the second unit, and there was a phase where we were working in 24 hour shifts. The second unit would come in and shoot all the scenes in the daytime until about nine at night, and then either myself or the 2nd Unit Art Director, Daniel Chour, would get instructions from the first AD as to what would be shot the next day. Then a second shift of craftsmen and SFX technicians would come in and prepare new walls as dictated by the shot list and stunt action. It was very intense, but it was the only way to stay on schedule.
Kirill: There goes your favorite part of not staying on the set
Sarah: [laughs] I stayed overnight with the second unit. The second unit art director and i swapped, with one of us doing the day shift and another the night shift. So yes, i was much more active on this set, while the main unit were shooting all over Berlin on other locations – which was being taken care of by other people.
Kirill: Did you also create the art exposition itself?
Sarah: At a fairly early stage Uli Hanisch the production designer and Tom Tykwer the director began to research the exhibition and as a result made contact with Julian Rosenfeldt who is a video artist. Tom and Julian made a concept together of the exhibition which covered all six ramps since the action plays from the top level down to the foyer. We built a polystyrene model of the entire Guggenheim Rotunda at 1:10 scale which was big enough to walk into, and into which Tom and Julian built the exhibition. Julian supplied all of the video artworks for the exhibition and we installed them using screens and projectors. Organizing this exhibition was a major job in itself for us, particularly because we had two phases of shooting. Initially ramps three, four and five were built followed by a revamp into ground floor plus ramps one and two. Of course the exhibition had to be revamped as well.
Kirill: What about the wide shot of the entire scene that gives a perspective of the overall destruction? Was that added digitally in post-production?
Sarah: No, that was built as a real set. There was an enormous amount of smashed glass on the floor, a mixture of real and rubber glass, much more than is actually visible on screen. So we built the chandelier intact, and a second time completely destructed on the floor. The fall sequence in between was a digital effect.
Kirill: The video exhibitions were integral part of the action sequence, allowing the characters to see each other.
Sarah: That was very much something that Tom took up at an early stage. Julian’s work lended itself very well to the idea that the characters see each other’s refections in the glass panels of the chandelier. There was also a connection between the stories being told in Julian’s videos and the action taking place in front of them. We hid all the projectors in boxes attached to the ceilings which go unnoticed since the eye naturally follows the action. We did have some issues with ‘bouncing’ images when the action was taking place on the cantilevered walkway immediately above. Fortunately you don’t see this in the movie!
Kirill: As you mention the eye following the action, i have a question about people who spend inordinate amount of time trying to find incontinuities or inconsistencies. Does that bother you?
Sarah: Not really! If the story is good enough, the inconsistencies are just a quirky side effect that does not detract from the film as a whole. People who spend time trying to find them are just as much fans as anyone else. There’s one particular shot in “The International” when Clive Owen escapes and there is a whole section of wall which simply does not exist in the museum itself. I guess that anyone who knows the geography of the Guggenheim might have noticed this, but it still doesn’t detract from the story, in my opinion.
Kirill: Do you spend extra time on such long scenes to make sure that you maintain consistency throughout the shooting?
Sarah: We do. Storyboards are really important for long action scenes and help to maintain continuity. We spent a great deal of time making sure that there was consistency on the bullet holes. We didn’t shoot according to the script and because of this, the number and position of the bullet holes varied, depending on where we were in the sequence. So we made huge templates using dust sheets to mark the position of the bullet holes for each section. This way we always knew where the bullet holes were supposed to be depending on which sequence it was. Even though this all happens in the background, it’s important to get this correct otherwise the audience would be distracted from the action.
Kirill: Did you spend time on other sets? I was particularly impressed by the bank headquarters, with very stylish and spartan furniture, designed and arranged in a very attractive manner.
Sarah: That was another location in Germany about two hours from Berlin. It is the headquarters of Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, and the foyer with the globe is the main reception area. We also spent a lot of time on the interior of the offices rebuilding and converting several modern glass-and-steel Berlin office locations. It was an important element of the design that the coolness and minimalism worked within a realistic and believable environment without getting too ‘James Bond’ or futuristic.
Kirill: What about the overseas locations in New York and Turkey?
Sarah: When a movie shoots in several different countries you generally have an art director for each country. I was the art director for Berlin and Germany, which was the main chunk of the shooting. There was another Italian art director who did Milan and Turkey, and we had another local art director who did the last ten days in New York.
Kirill: Was it your most challenging production?
Sarah: Yes, I think it was the most challenging up until now and certainly one of the most fun as well.There was a great crew and the construction team was amazing. Recreating something like this is always about teamwork and I think everyone can be a little bit proud of what was achieved. Even if it was a one-to-one copy of an existing building and not ‘design’ in the purer sense, it was still a tremendous professional challenge and I am very happy to have been involved in it.
Kirill: Closing the loop on the evolution of digital productions, do you see your craft changing in the future?
Sarah: I see it changing, but i see that there will always be a demand for film sets. I think it’s important to keep up with new technologies and new software. It’s no longer just working by hand doing pencil drawings, but at the same time i don’t think that this will disappear either.
Kirill: Does it bother your eye to watch digital productions with computer-generated environments that, perhaps, lack the warmth of real-world textures and shadows?
Sarah: I thought “Avatar” was absolutely stunning. I enjoyed every minute of it, and it’s a huge achievement. I also think that 3-D means more people going back to watch movies in the cinema, at least in the short-term until 3-D television makes it into our homes. On the other hand, some of the great American TV shows such as ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ or ‘Mad Men’ show that set design is alive and well! So I think it’s hard to predict the future; ten or twenty years ago nobody could have said or predicted what is happening now.
Kirill: Can you recommend some of your favorite movies, from the professional standpoint and in general?
Sarah: “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is my favorite production designed movie of the last few years. It’s so restrained but full of detail – i absolutely love it. I guess I’m a fan of design that supports but doesn’t overwhelm the action. Another favorite has to be “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – Jim Carrey is a fantastic actor. And “A Series of Unfortunate Events – Lemony Snicket” – the design is so playful and crazy.
Sarah has also graciously agreed to share a few behind-the-scenes photos of the Guggenheim recreation, conveying the scale and complexity of the construction process:
I’d like to thank Sarah for this fascinating peek into how movies are made or, in her words, “the artifice of illusion and the thin line that exists between what the brain accepts as ‘real’ and what not”. And here i leave you with my favorite establishing shots from “The International”:
Production design: Uli Hanisch
Art direction: Sarah Horton, Kai Koch, Luca Tranchino, Jennifer Santucci
Set decoration: Simon-Julien Boucherie
Costume design: Ngila Dickson
Cinematography: Frank Griebe
Director: Tom Tykwer
“Easy Virtue” is set in the late 1920s, following the story of a young American race driver played by Jessica Biel as, after an impetuous marriage, she arrives with her husband to his family home. A battle of wits between her and his mother starts almost immediately, swinging between comedy, romance and, at times, melancholy. The title sequence sets a nice visual mood, transitioning from the balcony view of an old movie theater into a semi-documentary scene of Monte Carlo racing, all set in faded sepia monochrome colors:
Stylish costumes and striking bleach blonde hair arrangement are reminiscent of Hollywood glamour era of Mae West and Jean Harlow:
The family house is a vast mansion crowded by furniture, hunting artifacts, embroidery, sculptures and never-ending book shelves. As the camera moves between the rooms, it lingers on ornamental mirrors, adding yet another layer of depth to the beautifully arranged interiors:
Mirrors play a central role in one of the more emotionally charged scenes; the camera catches the two characters in both mirrors, while they are talking to each other’s reflections. Also note the rich beige-brown color palette with just a touch of golden sand:
Jessica Biel’s character, Larita, struggles to find her place in this turbidly quiet setting, resorting to spend her time reading books and waiting to get back to the bustling landscapes of the big cities. Note how much lighter the color palette of this scene is when all heavy wooden browns are taken from it; even the deep vermillion brown of the upholstery is very relaxing:
Larita finds a few moments of peace in a rather unexpected place – the garage where her father-in-law (played by Colin Firth) spends his days away from the family. Note the much cooler soothing grays with an almost imperceptible touch or laurel green:
This is one of my favorite scenes, and the only one where there is any real intimacy in human conversation. This is also the only place where the shallow depth of field places the viewer directly behind the blurry pieces in front of the main characters:
As Larita’s struggle to convince her husband to leave stretches into the winter, so does the entire visual mood of the movie. Here, a rare outside scene with the sun washing their faces and green moss covering the branches:
And here a much more subdued mood, with heavy browns and blues taking over:
I am quite fortunate that Mark Scruton, the art director responsible for these beautiful sets, agreed to answer a few questions about the movie itself and the industry in general.
Kirill: Tell us a little bit about yourself
Mark: I’m a freelance Art Director living and working in London. I wanted to work in the film industry ever since I watched “Krakatoa: East of Java” at the age of 6. I trained at the Bournemouth Film School and have been working in the industry for the last 15 years. In that time I’ve had the privilege to work on a wide selection of challenging projects.
Kirill: Can you elaborate on the initial design phase where you work with other production departments to define the visual language for each movie scene?
Mark: Filmmaking is always a team effort. One department can never exist in a vacuum. This was especially so on “East Virtue”. Stephan Elliott, the director, had very clear ideas on the look and style of the film right down to specific dressing and even colours. Obviously this was a period movie, which gives each department an immediate starting point but Stephan wanted to play with this. He wanted to use a more modern style of filming and he wanted to play with the period look to establish the differences between the characters. John Beard the designer, Niamh Coulter the set decorator and myself spent a long time in pre production visiting locations with the director and DOP (director of photography) trying to find just the right style of environment that also gave him the angles and relationships within the layout for what he wanted to achieve. There is no point in finding an amazing location if you all turn up and you can’t film it!
Kirill: Do you spend time designing and refining a complete set, even if some parts of it will never be captured on camera?
Mark: Yes, more so these days than ever before, for various reasons. Attention to detail and creating a “complete” environment is vital if a set is to be believable to an increasingly sophisticated audience but also to the cast and to some extent the crew as well. Film making is a lot more organic than it used to be and there is never any guarantee that when a director arrives on set he won’t turn his camera 180 degrees in the opposite direction, so you have to be covered. That said if it’s a tiny scene and you have a limited budget you have to try and cut your cloth accordingly. It’s always a bit of a balancing act.
Kirill: “Easy Virtue” takes place not long after the First World War. How do you research and recreate a look of days long gone? Do you strive for complete authenticity?
Mark: When you’re doing a period film the design is entirely led by research and you always aim for complete authenticity. Research is normally a mix of reference books, expert advice and personal knowledge. On “Easy Virtue” things were a little different though, as Stephan wanted to emphasize the difference in the characters using amongst other things, the props and dressing. So we had a bracketed time period rather than one specific date. The idea being that the Whitaker household was at one end and Jessica Biel’s character, Larita was very much at the other. Her car, accessories and wardrobe were all about 10-15 years later than everything else in the film and were specifically chosen for their “futuristic” look. The idea was to make her character look extremely incongruous and the Whitaker family, look antiquated and stale.
Kirill: Vintage cars and motorcycles are featured amply throughout the movie as the main passion of Jessica Biel’s character. Do studios have vast stocks of these vehicles, or do you obtain access via more exotic means (museums, private collectors, plaster molds on modern cars)?
Mark: Nearly all-period vehicles on films are sourced from collectors or enthusiasts. Michael Geary was our action vehicle co-coordinator. He helped us track down the specific cars required or gave us options based on our brief. Jessica Biel’s car was the hardest. It needed to be silver, stylish & conceivably usable as a racing car but also needed to be a two seater with a trunk, not very common even for the later time period that applied to her character. We ended up using the BMW 328 as it fitted all the criteria except it’s production dates were slightly later than we wanted but it was too good not to use. In the end it all helped to highlight the differences of Larita’s world even further and it was a beautiful car. We used this device again with her motorbike. The bike she finally rides at the hunt is actually a later model than the one she is seen working on with Colin Firth. It was faster and more able to cope with the off road terrain plus it created a far greater juxtaposition with the horses.
Kirill: Apart from a few short scenes, the story takes place inside the spacious family house. How does a limited environment affect your designs for scenes with different emotional moods?
Mark: The house was in fact three different houses, chosen specifically for this reason. No one house had all the right scale rooms and exteriors for what we required. Blending different locations meant we could have exactly what we wanted in terms of scale and look. Even with this freedom we still couldn’t find the right environment for the re decorated suite of rooms that Mrs. Whitaker offers up to John & Larita. So we built it as a set within the theatre hall that would later become the “War Widows Review.” All the different locations were linked by pieces of set that carried the architecture through from one house to the next so hopefully audiences were none the wiser.
Kirill: Do you find yourself planning unrealistically large indoor sets to accommodate multiple camera angles and wide shots showing group scenes?
Mark: If you are building sets you normally have the flexibility of wild walls. That is, stretches of wall that can be removed to allow crew, equipment & camera to be outside the room you are filming in. If you are on location you always consider this and plan accordingly. Sometimes it can get a bit cozy in the smaller rooms but there is normally a way of getting what you want.
Kirill: Your work has spanned multiple genres, from Geonosis dungeons in “Star Wars” to stalactite caverns in “The descent”. Do you seek challenge working in such a variety of target environments?
Mark: The variety is one of the things I like about this industry. As a jobbing Art Director with a mortgage you generally have to take the work that comes your way. I’ve been lucky that most of the projects I’ve worked on have been varied and interesting, one minute you’re researching the past next you are inventing the future. It’s all part of the fun.
Kirill: Your portfolio shows an impressive level of detail in your sketches and final constructed sets for TV commercials. How different is your approach for these extremely short, but very frequently viewed spots?
Mark: In dollars per second, commercials can be as, if not more expensive than some films and will probably receive more scrutiny. You have three tiers of decision making, client, ad agency & director – all of whom have their own ideas. So they require as mush attention to detail as a film if not more, plus you are normally working within a corporate identity, which is often tricky to balance against the director’s creative requirements. It can make life very interesting.
Kirill: How is the movie production craft changing with progressively more movies shot on green screens, creating the entire environments with digital tools?
Mark: Certainly we are entering a new era of movie making. The digital palette is growing at a rapid pace. The film I have just finished was a very interesting mix of traditional movie making, tried and tested VFX and absolute cutting edge technology. If the whole thing comes together it will definitely open up some new and exciting possibilities. However I think movies will always be shot in a manner that is appropriate to the subject and story. “Easy Virtue” would be shot roughly the same way if were shot now, or in 20 years time.
Kirill: What are your favorite movies over the years that you can recommend us?
Mark: That is such a broad question, as different movie resonate at different points in your life. I guess the two that have had the greatest impact (aside from Krakatoa & Star Wars) have been Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” & Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”. Both movies had a profound effect on me when I first saw them and I still find things in them that amaze me.
I’d like to thank Mark once again for his wonderful work on this movie, and for graciously agreeing to this interview. You can visit his portfolio page for “Easy Virtue” to view additional sketches and photographs. And here i want to leave you with another one of my favorites. A scene that lasts, perhaps, a mere 10-15 seconds, but manages to convey so much joy, energy and youthfulness of the blissful couple, just before they are sucked in to a power struggle that slowly corrodes their marriage:
Production design: John Beard
Art direction: Mark Scruton
Set decoration: Niamh Coulter
Costume design: Charlotte Walter
Cinematography: Martin Kenzie
Director: Stephan Elliott
It seems like every time I watch “Tron: Legacy”, I find yet another visual layer to explore and enjoy. After talking with GMUNK about the visual effects, it’s time to take a deep dive into the beautiful world of Tron make-up. With X-Men, Fantastic 4, Watchmen, Sucker Punch, Tron: Legacy and the upcoming Underworld (just to name a few), Rosalina Da Silva has one of the most impressive resumes in the world of big budget sci-fi movies in the last decade. I’m very honored to host a conversation with Rosalina, starting from her work on Tron and later touching on the general craft of big screen make-up wizardry.
Kirill: Can you walk us through the process of interacting with different art departments and defining the visual look of the movie and the characters?
Rosalina: It depends. Sometimes I’m given a script, and other times – for example for Sucker Punch – I had access to a DVD that showed the concept and vision of the director. You start working on the script or these materials, and in general you do a lot of research. I research photographers, for example David LaChapelle and others that are very creative in the looks that they achieve. I go through different types of magazines and movies, trying to create something. I research the latest make-up looks of the European runways, I watch what the make-up artists are doing on those shows – it’s always a great inspiration. You cannot bring those shows to the screen, but you certainly be inspired by them.
Kirill: Do you pitch a few different looks?
Rosalina: Usually i’ll build a book for the movie i’m working on with images and tearsheets from magazines, and i’ll show my ideas to the director, and then he’ll let me know if i’m on the right track. We start there and then narrow in given the director’s feedback and the look that he wants. Then we start testing and testing and testing and trying to achieve the look that they want. We’ll do the make-up tests to see how it looks on the screen; when you put it on the screen it’s different from how it looks on paper.
Kirill: At which point do you start working with hair stylist and costume designer?
Rosalina: Pretty much straight away. Makeup and hair stylist / designers usually get hired at the same time. Often the costume department starts earlier, so when we go in, we look through their sketches and the color scheme that they’re going for; that’s another inspirational point to look at everything they’ve done so far. And the same is true production designers and everybody else – Often they’ve been in production for months and had a lot of meetings. You look at the sketches and their vision for the movie, and that’s your main source of inspiration for the movie – to complement the work that they’re doing.
Kirill: Do you tweak your work based on the actual set lighting or preliminary post-production treatment?
Rosalina: Usually we tweak the looks once we get the actors. Sometimes the look does not complement the actor, so when they come in, we try to put our ideas on the skin and facial structure and make sure it all works together. They also have an opinion which we listen to, and then we do the make-up tests on screen.
Kirill: And you’re on the set every single day?
Rosalina: Exactly. We come in in the morning before everybody else, we get the actors ready for the day and then we go on set. Sometimes there are changes throughout the day if they shoot different parts of the movie, so you have to change the look, adding or taking off what is necessary.
Kirill: As I was looking for some background on your work, I happened upon a site that details dozens of products that go into the final look for one character. How much do you need every day to create that look?
Rosalina: Obviously the production wants to make it as fast as possible. The actors need to have some time off, and there’s only so many hours during the day that they can shoot, and of course they’d rather have them on set rather than sitting in the make-up chair. Some looks can be done in an hour or an hour and a half, including make-up, hair and wardrobe. It depends on how intricate the look is and how much works has to be done.
Kirill: Most of the story happens in a computer world, with very stylish black and white environment and precise lines. Was it an interesting challenge to create a look for what are essentially computer program characters?
Rosalina: Absolutely. Honestly, when I first read the script I didn’t know what to do. It was challenging for me at the beginning. But as I said, the costumes had already been designed, so I started looking at the sketches. Our director [Joseph Kosinski] has background in architecture and he loves simple straight lines. I knew that whatever we had to do for him had to be very clean and streamlined. And since it was all very new to me, with computer world and a 3D production, I had to keep it very simple to make it stunning, sexy, beautiful and appealing to the eye. So me and my team started to work, and we decided to keep it monochromatic – the colors of the grid – and to develop the black and white make-up with straight lines.
Kirill: It resonates nicely with the binary nature of the computer world, zeroes and ones, black and white.
Rosalina: It was that. You look inside the computer and you see the structural grid, and you take all the little shapes from there and create those shapes on different faces.
Kirill: When you start with the surrounding set design and costume, how much freedom do you have in designing the looks of the specific characters?
Rosalina: I had all the freedom that I wanted, being inspired by this. The challenge is to work with the costumes, to make sure that this person looks amazing with the costume, the make-up and the hair.
Kirill: Even when you remove all the skin and lip color?
Rosalina: Exactly. The original design concept of the Sirens had a mask over their mouth – but that was not looking quite right. Things evolved and changed, and I decided to go for a nude lip, to create a naked look on a shapeless face, removing any redness on the lips, making it blend and bringing a lot of attention to the eyes. I wanted them to be dolls, since they were made by the other characters – flawless dolls with big eyes, just stunning women.
Kirill: The club scene in the “End of Line” has a lot of supporting cast, and every single one of them has his or her own style. How much effort do you spend on the supporting characters and how important is it to have a complete look for everybody?
Rosalina: Very important since they are part of the scene since they must belong there and support the main cast. On the day we were doing that scene we had 21 make-up artists to get everybody ready. Everybody was fitted for hair, make-up and wardrobe to suit the whole look, and every single make-up was designed prior to that day. We put all the looks in a book, showing it to the director every day or so, and he would choose the looks that appealed to him.
Kirill: Do you work with stand-in replacements for a big scene like this?
Rosalina: We used the actual background actors. They would come in for fitting, and he or she would be designed on. They came for 3-4 days before starting the shooting, and we designed every single face.
Kirill: A scene like this is not shot in one day?
Rosalina: It takes a few days to shoot such a scene, maybe a week. We had quite a few scenes where the challenge is to make sure that different actors in different scenes do not have the same look. We had different types of programs in the script and we didn’t even have common names for them like people do. The whole script was computer language, and it was quite a bit of a challenge for me [laughs].
Kirill: For these multi-day scenes, how do you make sure that the look is consistent for the final cut?
Rosalina: We make charts to help with the continuity of the of the make-up…on a day to day basis, taking close-up photos and writing down everything we do – to have full references. We do continuity photos for everyone, not only for the next day, but also for reshoots six months later. We reshot some of the scenes in the lightcycle game, and you can barely see it.
Kirill: That’s the best outcome where the viewers can’t tell. What’s the reason for the reshoots?
Rosalina: Sometimes during the editing they want to make a scene more complete and have extra footage. Sometimes you want to develop or enhance a character a little bit more. This comes up at the end of the shoot when they start editing and putting the movie together. It hardly ever happens that there are no reshoots.
Kirill: I saw a few faces with deep scars running across. Was it part make-up, part computer-generated?
Rosalina: That was Bill Terezakis who designed the scars and the half-face man. The scar was fully make-up, and the half-face man was computer graphics together with make-up.
Kirill: Is it more fun to work on villain characters, like Castor and Jarvis?
Rosalina: Both characters were very challenging. We shaved James Frain’s head and bleached his eyebrows for his Jarvis character; most people don’t know who he is. And Michael Sheen underwent a total transformation as well, with the wig and full beauty make-up. He was wonderful to collaborate with, giving us ideas and taking inspiration from Ziggy Stardust. The Sirens were also very challenging and fun make-up to do. I kept Garrett very simple; as a human it was very important that he didn’t look like anybody else on the grid. I did a little bit of corrective make-up to just show off his good looks. Quorra could not look like a Siren, she had to be more human. She was undercover, hidden away, so she had to look different, but not very noticeably different. Olivia Wilde is a stunningly beautiful woman, and we had a lot of choice with her character.
Kirill: How did it feel to see the complete look on the set?
Rosalina: We went to the set for the nightclub scene, and my jaw just dropped. I have a group of very talented make-up artists that give me their best. I put my ideas, but at the end of the day they execute the job. So you never know how it will look like until you get to the set. I did my actors and arrived at the set, and it was absolutely amazing. To see the whole thing, the costumes, the make-up, the sets, everything together was just amazing. We were sitting in the basement for over a month creating, designing and developing looks and one of the producers said to me: “So this is what you’ve been doing?”
Kirill: Now that we’ve talked about Tron, perhaps we can turn to a more general conversation. You’ve started in the late 80s and 90s on TV movies and then transitioned to the big Hollywood productions. Was there any specific reason for this move?
Rosalina: You always want to do bigger and better, and that was it for me. I always look for the opportunities to work with amazing creative people. I believe that the ultimate product is the combination of a lot of people working very hard and working very well together. It just happened that I transitioned to work on sci-fi movies; I was just lucky to get those calls. You build a body of work and you keep on going and working very hard, and then you get the job and you’re very thankful. Many years ago in the television we didn’t have a lot of challenges in make-up, but nowadays people are doing beautiful work. And it was certainly great to venture to the big screen and do all this work. I am grateful every single day to have this chance.
Kirill: Is your work made more difficult by the high-definition projection systems, TV sets and BluRay discs where the viewers can see every single pore on the actors’ faces?
Rosalina: Yes, you have to think about this really seriously. You have to make good product choices, to choose the products that suit the screen. Everything – the big screens, high definition, 3D – is making your work very difficult. What I try to do is to go easy and simple, to do the simplest design I possibly can and leave as little room as possible for errors. The worst thing is the difficult skin with pores, pimples or breakouts that you cannot hide. Lighting plays the biggest part, it can make your job look beautiful or bad. I leave the lighting to experts and my job is to bring any particular challenge that I have to their attention and ask for their help. Otherwise I watch and learn and adapt.
Kirill: “Sucker Punch” is your latest release. Was it more fun working with colorful palettes for all the girls?
Rosalina: We went from one extreme to another. Zack Snyder is a genius director. He gave me a carte blanche, saying that he wants it to be very theatrical and big. The question is how much is too much – you just push the envelope and listen to what he says. My job as the make-up artist is to bring the director’s vision to the screen, to learn from the script what is the vision and do the best I can in order to create that.
Kirill: Are male actors less open to the experimentation with make-up?
Rosalina: The male actors in my last two movies were very willing to wear a lot of make-up. All the boys in “Sucker Punch” wore make-up, it was very theatrical, very film noire. And the same for the male characters in “Underworld” that I just did. This is especially true when you’re working with theater actors that are used to wearing make-up and playing different characters – they love to explore and they love to look in the mirror and see the character.
Kirill: And before that you worked, among the rest, on two “X-Men” movies. These movies have the human characters that transform into different mutants with non-human skin and faces. Do you have make-up artists creating the facial look and expressions for those characters?
Rosalina: There was a separate team working on the mutant characters, together with the visual effects people. The make-up artists take a look to a certain point, and then the VFX comes in and takes it further. You take it to a particular point, as far as the skin tone and shading, as far as you can and then hand it over to the visual effects. I also worked on the movies with prosthetic pieces and aging, where a separate team would apply the pieces and i’d do the make-up on top of the pieces to keep the continuity. For example, on “Watchmen” when Carla Gugino ages, Greg Cannom did the aging pieces and the I did the beauty make-up on top of it to keep the whole look.
Kirill: The advances in the capabilities of visual effects make it possible to go beyond non-human characters and experiment in creating fully computer-generated human ones. For example, the CLU character in Tron is a younger “version” of Jeff Bridges. Do you think that a human face can be done realistically at the present moment or in the near future?
Rosalina: Maybe in the future. I think it’s still very questionable and not completely perfected. Of course everything changes, and every six months there’s a new way of doing things; it’s unbelievable how fast visual effects evolve. It’s the eyes, the mouth and the skin texture. I think the skin texture is hard to achieve, and it always looks so smooth and plastic while in reality it’s not quite like that. But whatever they do is amazing, we couldn’t even think about doing that years ago.
Kirill: And in the future where these capabilities are more realistic, how is your craft affected? Do you see make-up artists reduced to specifying the overall look, and the post-production stage applying that look?
Rosalina: I hope that never arrives. I hope the human touch is always there. I think there’ll be a place where you take the artists in the morning and you transform them visually in the computer, but it’s going to be incredibly expensive. In my humble opinion, there’ll always be place for the human touch and contact.
Kirill: It’s quite fascinating to see how the landscape of movie making is changing as compared to a few decades ago. Can you recommend a few movies that keep on inspiring you?
Rosalina: If you think about any of the old movies, like “Casablanca” or any of Fellini movies, don’t we reminisce about how wonderful they are? The contrast was quite amazing, with very blunt use of saturated colors. When I do my research for movies, I always watch Fellini to get inspiration. “Sweet Charity” with Shirley MacLaine is the first movie he did in US and I just love the incredibly beautiful visuals. I like to watch the old French “Casino Royale” with Ursula Andress and David Niven, it’s visually stunning. “Juliet of the Spirits” was the first movie were Fellini used color and “8½” are some of my favorites. “La Dolce Vita” of course. How can you not watch “La Dolce Vita” with Marcello Mastroianni. And “Fellini’s Roma” is another great one.
You can find Rosalina Da Silva on her blog A More Beautiful Makeup, on Facebook and on Twitter.
Who am I? I am Sugar. I am what you would call a fallen woman. But I assure you I did not fall. I was pushed…
This is the tagline of “The Crimson Petal and the White”, a mini-series that unfolds the story of a young prostitute named Sugar living in London in 1875. Played by Romola Garai, the young girl chances upon a married heir to the family perfume business and uses her passion for literature to ensnare his mind away from the unstable situation at home. Pushing the limits of broadcasting censorship, “Crimson Petal” offers an unfettered look at the lives of rich and poor – alternating between unsettling and riveting, revolting and fascinating, voyeuristic and enchanting.
Sugar’s fiery golden tresses highlight the sensuous setting of the local brothel, with deep reds, greens and golden browns welcoming the customers onto the premises.
The first encounter between Sugar and William Rackham places the viewer at a nearby table, with dancing candlelight flames and blurred reflections framing her face. As she deftly weaves the conversation and plays to his vanity, the camera never goes below her neck, highlighting his noetic enchantment with Sugar.
This is the beginning of a scene where Rackham talks to the brothel’s mistress, offering a full patronage arrangement for Sugar. While the conversation is very detached, deep reds and yellows highlight the very intimate nature of the transaction. Note the richness of the dress, chandelier and the tapestry – all in the area that welcomes the customers.
As Sugar herself is listening to the conversation, the camera places the viewer half peeking from behind a curtain. The cool colors of the environment – turning her fiery hair into sand brown – highlight her emotional detachment from the impending transaction. She has been planning this move all along, deftly planting the idea seed in his mind. All that is left to do is to complete the deal.
And here she is, a few moments later, entering the scene and “adopting” the rich sensual palette that washes her hair and face in deep ember. This color transition from warm to cool and back to warm is one of the best color sequences in “Crimson Petal” and is certainly worth rewinding a couple of times.
With Rackham back at his house, Sugar bids farewell to the mistress. A short conversation reveals many intimate details, including how the mistress (which is also her mother) pushed her to sell her body. The dialog is brief and very cold, and is washed in desaturated browns, cool blues and soft yellows – with not a single hint of a warm color anywhere in the frame.
As the story begins to unfold in the winter, the outside scenes in the Victorian slums are dominated by grays tinged with sea green.
Even these few short moments that the main characters spend outside are enough to show the destitution and despair that engulfs the poor parts of the capital. The stark contrast to the lush interiors of the Rackham residency is just another reminder of why Sugar is so desperate to claw her way out of this misery.
As Sugar’s plan begins to materialize, the plot gives additional meaning to the name of the series (and the book it is based upon). Michel Faber that wrote the original book explains the many meanings of the name:
It comes from a Tennyson poem that begins “Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white”. But the poem has no particular relevance to my story. I like the complexity of associations suggested by crimson and white—Sugar is a “scarlet woman” but she is mistaken for an angel by Agnes Rackham, and is also desperate to move into a new life that’s respectable and innocent. Agnes is, by birth and inclination, pure white, but is troubled by the phenomenon of blood. William uses and destroys petals of both colours in his profession of perfume manufacture.
This is just one of many scenes that happen in the Agnes’s bedroom. Bedridden with frail body and mind, she spends most of her time surrounded by the sea-green floral patterns of the wallpaper, oppressed by the frequent visitors of the family doctor.
Elsewhere in the house, the wallpapers and tapestry are much lighter and warmer, with bright patterns dominating the dining room and mahogany red wrapping the main family room.
This is one of my favorite shots. This is the outside of Rackham’s factory that packages various perfumery products for domestic and international shipping. As inconspicuous and slightly decrepit as it is on the outside, it only serves to enhance the visual impact of the interior design, with its immaculate color palette, ornamental embellishments and intricate woodwork:
Luke Dunkley did the editing for this wonderful mini-series, and you can imagine how delighted i was when he graciously agreed to answer a few questions I had about his work on “Crimson Petal”
Kirill: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your busy schedule.
Luke: I’m a freelancer of TV drama and have been for 15 years. Budgets have steadily been reducing in real terms so schedules become ever more squeezed. So I find myself in the cutting room from pretty early to late in the evening.
Kirill: As the editor, how important is it to spend your time on the set reviewing the daily shoots?
Luke: I spend very little time on set. In fact I feel like a spare part when I’m there as there’s nothing for me to do except be positive about the dailies I’ve been given. There is the odd occasion where it’s necessary to visit the set for a specific problem but they’re rare. However, reviewing the dailies is terribly important; I need to be able to watch them and give constructive feedback to the director on set. Feedback can range from coverage (the lack of it and whether it will cut together as a story and whether we need any pickups) to an actors performance up to the look of the show.
Kirill: Given how much time you spend with the director during the post production stage, is there a special bond of trust that is developed?
Luke: Definitely. It’s essential. The more you work with a director the easier it is to interpret their vision. You build a trust that works both ways; so if I say something isn’t working, even if the director loves it, then they will listen. They won’t always change it but they will listen. Plus, if you’re with one person for 12/16 weeks you have to have fun.
Kirill: You’re mostly doing TV productions for BBC these days. Knowing the hard limits on each episode length, how far is the editor’s cut from the final product that the viewers see on the screen?
Luke: By editor’s cut you mean the 1st assembly I think. That is always 10 to 20 percent longer than the final product. It’s usually in scripted order and it has what I call fat in it. As an editor you know from that assembly where you want to make trims, add music, move scenes and generally start shaping it. Depending on the director you could do that before they see it in scripted form or, if they trust you, you can start shaping it before the end of the shoot. Mostly I’m somewhere in the middle.
Kirill: On a related note, how different are editor’s days between the movie and TV productions?
Luke: None really. They’re all long.
Kirill: How much of the eerie atmosphere of “fallen” London streets and the opulence of the upper class surroundings was done during the post production? Is it mostly the right selection of camera equipment or dynamic software processing?
Luke: Obviously the design was a huge factor, which meant that Lol Crawley (director of photography / DOP) could shoot it in a particular fashion. What we did in post was a combination of sound, light and image manipulation. Very early I started playing with the idea of drones. I sent Marc Munden (director) a cd of about 90 drones that he loved (not all of them). We added them to scenes for atmosphere and tension. Lol (DOP) and Grant Montgomery (designer) did such a fantastic job that when it came to grading the series they had a great deal of scope. And finally image manipulation; there are about 50 shots per episode that we changed from their original format. This might have been as simple as adding a zoom, but occasionally I would stretch an image (a bit like a circus mirror) to hopefully add unease. You can’t stretch it too much though or it looks silly.
Kirill: What part do the advances in professional editing software play in merging all editing responsibilities in the hands of a single editor? What are your current tools of trade?
Luke: I’m currently using Avid media composer and have done for years. I like to think that the tool doesn’t make that much difference it just makes you quicker (I can cut as quickly as I think). Obviously nowadays you are expected to add temp music, vfx and sfx and this is made easier in the non-linear world.
Kirill: “Crimson Petal” has a lot of close-ups with dynamic focus and lighting effects. Is this something that you’re doing during editing, dynamically altering the frame selection and applying various continuous effects?
Luke: Not really. Lol used 1970s Prime Canon lenses that had a very shallow depth of field and a slight softness to them. I thought it looked great but you should ask him about that.
Kirill: Some of the productions you’ve worked on (including this one) are adaptations of much lengthier books that have the luxury of conveying characters inner thoughts. How far can you as the editor take an adapted script and use the visual tools at your disposal to bring the viewer closer to the original complexity?
Luke: It’s very hard, especially if there’s an inner voice. you can get round that with voiceover/narration, but that is very much down to the screenplay/script.
Kirill: Some people spend inordinate amount of time ferreting the smallest physical discontinuities, even if they don’t matter for engaging the viewers in the emotional story lines. Is this something that bothers you?
Luke: Not at all. If someone is overly concerned with continuity then we have failed them because they’re not engrossed in the story. There’s a very obvious continuity jump in Crimson where Mark Gatiss’ character knocks over a teapot and the proceeding shot it’s upright. We kept it in because on numerous viewings it was never noticed, people were watching the actors not the props. The best take for performance is always the priority.
Kirill: Can you recommend a few of the productions (movies or TV) that have particularly impressed you?
Luke: There a whole host coming out at the moment that are very good, I think British drama is in rude health. I’m particularly enjoying the Shadow Line at the moment.
Kirill: What’s next for Luke Dunkley? What are you working on these days?
Luke: Currently I’m working on the first three episodes of a new BBC3 series called The Fades. A graphic comedy horror – should be on screen in September.
And here i’d like to thank Luke for his work on this production, and once again for taking the time to do the interview. As for the readers – i hope you enjoy the series as much as i did.
