Production Design
About
general info and fun facts!
Merryn has always had a deep love of film media and how it communicates with society. It wasn't until university that her passion for this art form moved from theoretical academic analysis to practical skills and application when she worked on her first film. Mixing a love of make-up artistry and design with symbolism and movement time in space Production Design has been a great choice in cross disciolinary expression.
Bonfire Night At Desire Books
(27.3.18)
These were photos taken on the 27th of March at the March Bonfire Night
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Designing The Interview
As production designer I am responsible for the visuals and the ‘look’ of the film. In collaboration with the director and the cinematographer the production designer creates the world of the film. From the script the Production designer brings to life the physical aspects of the story created by the director. (pg.6-10)
It is from these choices that the production designer helps to build narrative visually.
According to Vincent LoBrutto in his book The Filmmakers Guide To Production Design (2002) “Through architecture, shape, space, color, and texture, the design of a film expresses the story and supports the characters” (LoBrutto, 2002, pg.13). The physicality and design of the space is key in this documentary, Shelf Life, because of its focus on space, and how it shapes and contributes to a community.
In this book LoBrutto poses a number of questions about what a production designer needs to ask themselves about the film they are working on, the key question being how does the character (or social actor in a documentary) interact with the space around them?
This is a question I will be tackling while deciding how to design the seated interview scenes. The two people I will be interviewing are Dom and Julia, both people with big personalities and gravitas.
Julia is a stand up comedian and is the host at the bonfire nights. She is charming, sincere, funny and instantly likeable. This bookshop has been an important part of her life since it began trading, over 16 years ago. For Julia it was a safe space, a warm and cosy space, somewhere she could retreat and hide from the world after she experienced heartbreak. She would sit in the bookshop and read and process her feelings. That is why she wanted to buy it when she heard it was closing down (Bennet, 2017 Julia provides the emotion of the documentary. She is the heart.
Knowing this I ask the questioned posed in LoBrutto’s book “What is their personal style? How do they relate to their environment? How does physical space impact on their lives?” (LoBrutto, 2002, pg.13). To show this I wanted to surround Julia in her interview. Have the shelf behind be littered with knick-knacks and trinkets representative of her fun and original style. Fun old toys (symbolic of familiarity and play) would be in the frame alongside old books that have been thumbed through and loved to death, all would create a feeling of comfort and warmth. This is to recreate for the audience the safety and warmth and community Julia felt when she first came to this bookstore and the warmth and importance this place holds in the heart of the community. Ideally I would like to interview Julia behind or near the counter, in a different spot to where I would interview Dom.
Dom would be framed similarly. He would be seated against a wall of books next to the sliding ladder. Dom is sarcastic, funny and grumpy in a lovable way. The ladder and cascading bookshelf would be part of the frame for this.
References
LoBrutto, Vincent, 2002, The Filmmaker’s Guide To Production Design, USA, Allsworth Press
Bennet, Rod, 2017, Desire Books Has Relatively Knew Owners But Ones With Old Souls,
(15.4.18)