In the workshop, Second Chan has introduced us the roles of an art director and his process of from designing sets to producing movies.
The job of an art director
Second introduces us that the job of an art director is the one who determines the overall look of a movie. Except for characters design and costume design, art director’s job is to response everything on the screen, including selecting shooting location, building sets, as well as set and props decoration.
What processes have you gone through to decide what should be included in the set or what to present in front of the screen?
When responding to the question, Second explains that it is all about telling the story. He always start producing the sets by visualizing the whole movie in his mind first, therefore to better understand the desired atmosphere for the scene. Researches may be conduced depends on the story. For example in love movies, a more saturated color would be used for the sets. While research is conducted for the movie Kung Fu Hustle, in order to present the appearance of southern china neighborhood in 1940s. There is always a need to communicate with the director and compromise each other’s ideas. So by the end, the design of the set should help to tell the story and there is never a fixed way in the process of designing. In addition, safety and flexibility of the set has to be considered.
Often time movie is used for the public to understand the appearance of a region. However the sets in the movie is sometimes changed to enhance the visual quality of the movie. How do you choose whether to keep the reality or fiction when this conflict occurs?
Second points out that every design of the sets are related to the question of whether they can help to create the desired atmosphere. For example, in the movie Push, because the director wants to achieve a surreal feeling to respond the fictional story, while still want the audience be able to identify Hong Kong. Therefore a colorful tone is used and most of the scenes are filmed in the studio. He explains that he is never interested in the stories that require to accurately reproduce historical scenes, because he considered it rather similar as a documentary film, where imagination is limited. By the end, the audience only enjoys the story and would not mind whether the appearance of a place is fiction or not.
After the talk delivered by Second, I gained a better understanding of the roles of sets. The most impressive thing that I learned is that, every set have their meaning, while element in a scene should be able to tell the story, even the reality is changed. This is because in the end, movie is about imagination and expression.
Irene Lau Tsz Chiu (3035445027)