Each movie has its message to deliver to the audience, and there are many filmmaking approaches to doing it, such as the choice of genre, characters, design, and locations. The documentary Masters of Production: The Hidden Art of Hollywood is directed by John J. Flynn, and reflects the main concepts and techniques used in production design for famous movies that made them classical. This essay aims to reflect on the documentary and discuss the speakers’ concepts of production design.
The documentary uses iconic movies as examples of the outstanding work of production designers. One of the crafting design concepts is shown through the famous drama “Amadeus,” filmed in 1984. The production designers played with colors to show two opposite characters: the colors of settings around Mozart were light, blue, and pink, while the scenes with Salieri were dark, heavy, and velvet (Flynn, 2004). The concept represented each character’s lifestyle and traits and was conducted with the music that the compositors included in the movie.
Another concept of the production design that turns a movie into a masterpiece is the description of its plot via the visual details. The example used in the documentary movie is the 1974’s film Chinatown: its production designers paid attention to the details of each location the main character visited through the plot (Flynn, 2004). The burned grass, the bright sun’s heat, the white-colored buildings, and the sandy landscapes revealed the growing tension and showed the audience which scene is a turning point of the character’s journey.
The design producers can make the world imagined and written by a director real and understandable. They use details like colors, music, locations, and characters’ appearance to fill a movie with more insights about its plot and deliver the message to the audience. The documentary reveals how important it is for the design producer and director to have a clear vision of action and agree on how exactly the design should reflect the meaning of a movie’s scenes.
Reference
Flynn, J. J. (2004). Masters of production: The hidden art of Hollywood [Film]. Timeline Films.