Conceiving a Decor, from the Chef décorateur to the Production Designer - Text 3
In all his models, which were closer to perspectival sketches, Aguettand studied the location according to the camerawork, the lighting and the movements of the actors, as he did in these materials from the film Bolero. As the “concrete starting point for every technician on the film shoot”[3] and faithful approximation of the work space, a sketch plan gave rise to dialogue between each department head, from the sound engineer to the director of photography to the lighting engineer. In the end, these sketches are “to the action what the drawn line is to hopscotch and the square is to a chess game.”[4]
Alexandre Trauner, a production designer who was Aguettand’s contemporary, turned to the art of designing film sets in the early 1930s under the wing of Lazare Meerson (1897-1938).[5] In Trauner’s view, film decor is “the first materialization of what had previously been only imagination.”[6] Before making drawings, and after close study of the script, Trauner embarked on research: “Documentation is curiosity... It takes place while walking about, in libraries... It is the most important part of the work.”[7] The set decorator did not try to reproduce reality faithfully on the basis of the books he consulted, but rather to depict a lifelike space in keeping with cultural imagery which would be evocative for film viewers, something seen in his models for the decors in Land of the Pharaohs.
