Introduction - Text 1
Knowing how to draw, paint and use software for designing spaces; knowing one’s way around woodworking and metalworking: the professions in decor[1] immediately call to mind cinema’s artisanal quality and the constant tension between old-fashioned, manual technical elements, adapted from worlds unconnected to cinema, and cutting-edge technology which have compelled professions in film decor to be constantly changing. More than any other profession in cinema, professions in film decor reveal the necessary partnership with every other profession, in a spirit of cooperation but also sometimes of strong rivalry, exacerbated by the rise of digital tools. The decor team is made up of a series of professionals who, one after the other, gradually create the decors required for a film, whether out of doors or in a studio. Although they adapt to technological change, the personnel’s actions and roles nevertheless change little, subject to budgetary constraints, the use to which the technical elements and materials of the moment are put, and aesthetic and narrative questions. The chef décorateur, in French, or the production designer in English (in earlier times the terms “set decorator” or “art director” were used; here we will generally refer to the profession by the contemporary term “production designer”), each with slightly different prerogatives, coordinates this chain of activity, which starts with the script and is completed with the film’s release – or even afterwards, in the case of promotional activities for certain films.
The first phase consists in conceiving a decor on the basis of drawings, models or 3D simulations. In the special case of animated film, this creative phase and the numerous tests it requires are pushed to the utmost. This conception then guides the work of scouting locations in the case of exteriors or “real situations.” Scouting shooting locations requires aesthetic expertise, but also organizational and legal expertise: a “nice place” must also be able to host, for a given period of time, a huge crew with needs related to the various decor professions. This stage then gives the green light to the construction of ephemeral sets, if necessary which will be destroyed once the project is complete. Given the complexity of creating a decor, the construction crew brings together diverse expertises. Once delivered, the decor then takes on a new life during the film shoot. When lit, filled with props and inhabited by actors, this space, whatever its nature, is then modified by the camera crew, which takes the space in hand and makes new choices. In post-production, graphic designers carry out a final mutation of the decor by extending it digitally, as the specialists in optical effects did with analogue tools in cinema’s earliest days. It is now the viewer’s turn to take possession of the space; paradoxically, in dominant narrative cinema, a well-made decor should not be seen as such. Moreover, the marketing campaign accompanying a film’s release is rarely based on the work of the production designer. This diversity of film decor professions reflects the variety of technical elements and technicians, how they have changed throughout film history and the need, whatever the period or style of film, to join art, technical matters and economics in order to transform the written lines in the script into cinematic space.
