Set Designer's Processes
Although each set designer works somewhat differently from others,
they follow similar steps in the design process, beginning with an analysis
of the play text and ending with a rendering and/or working drawings for
the technicians who will build the scenery.
The designer's text analysis is somewhat different from the actor's
and the director's. While a designer must analyze plot, characters,
themes, and language, her focus will be on the visual needs of the play.
She specifically looks for the locations needed in the play, objects needed
by the action in each location, and suggestions as to the theatrical style.
If a play involves multiple locations, one of the first decisions a set
designer must make is how to change locations. A unit set is
a single set which will stay the same throughout the play. A unit
set might represent one single location; however, it might be varied
by adding and subtracting wagons for other locations, or it might be a
simultaneous
setting,
which means it represents many locations at once and requires the audience
to imaginatively provide the distance among the various areas in the set.
A box set is a setting made of flats positioned to represent three
walls of an interior setting; these can be changed by flying the
flats in and out, rotating the flats to show the reverse side, or placing
several box sets on a revolve which only reveals the set currently turned
toward the audience. The designer must also decide how theatrical
or illusionistic a visual environment to create; a theatrical environment
suggests a fuller environment by providing a few key set pieces, whereas
an illusionistic environment seeks to fill in all pertinent details
with a life-like accuracy. Whereas earlier in this century audiences were
content to see a curtain descend, wait for the set to be changed, and watch
the curtain rise to reveal the new set, audiences today enjoy watching
elaborately choreographed, spectacular
set changes. Using
a curtain to hide set changes also interrupts the action of a play more
than many designers and directors desire.
Once the designer has a basic grasp of the needs of a play and the style of scenery and set changes, he goes into production meetings. In production meetings he hears the director's production concept and perhaps helps to shape that concept. He refines his design concept in dialogue with the other designers and the director. If he has not worked in the specific theatre building before, he learns details about the capabilities of the stage.
The scenic designer's next step is to begin to sketch out his ideas. These preliminary drawings are called thumbnails; because he is describing visual elements, thumbnails communicate his ideas to the other artists far more effectively than words. At this stage a designer will also fill in his ideas for set dressings and perhaps properties. Set dressings are objects like furniture, fences, shrubbery, and carpets. Properties fall into three categories: they are "set props" if they live on the set, even if they are used by actors; they are "costume props" if they accessorize a costume; and they are "personal props" if they are carried on and off by actors. The set designer is often responsible for designing or approving set props.
The first element that must be finalized is the groundplan, or
map of the stage floor looking down on it. The designer usually drafts
a groundplan so that the other artists, especially the director and lighting
designer, will have the exact locations and measurements of each element
of the final set. Once scenic ideas have been agreed upon among the
producing staff, set designers paint renderings
or build models to represent their finished designs. Many
designers' renderings or models are treated as works of art in their own
right and displayed in museums or published in art books long after the
theatre production has closed. But the initial purpose of the rendering
or model is to communicate to the rest of the production staff how the
set will look to an audience member. Renderings and models each have their
advantages; renderings can be painted to give the full effect of actors,
costumes, and lighting on a set, but models give a more accurate sense
of how a set will work in three dimensions or as set pieces are added and
moved over the course of the play.
Finally, once the entire set design has been coordinated with the director
and other designers and all designs approved, the set designer translates
her artistic vision for the technicians who will build and paint the units.
Either the scene designer or the technical director creates working
drawings, or elevations, which are scale drawing of each set piece
that indicate materials, size, shape, color and texture. Often a
separate set of elevations is drafted for the builders and for the scene
painters.
Historical Conventions of Set Design
Scholars argue about the oldest conventions of scene design because history has left us incomplete records. Ancient Greek theatre festivals may or may not have used painted scenery, and they may or may not have changed the scenery to represent different locations. Ancient Romans acted in front of an elaborately carved, large-scale wall with several doors leading to a backstage area. This wall, or scaenae frons, was a permanent structure, serving as the background for every performance given in the theatre. Many scholars believe that in late Greek theatre and in Rome, there were spaces along the permanent back wall in which triangular periaktoi were placed; these periaktoi had different scenes painted on each of three sides. Until the Italian Renaissance, most performers across Europe used little scenery, instead describing locations with dialogue and using set dressings and properties to suggest an entire location. This approach was practical, given that many companies toured, like the Italian Commedia dell'arte, and few had much money.
At the Italian Renaissance, interest was reborn in all aspects of Ancient
Greek and Roman culture, including theatre architecture, play texts, performance,
and design. In 1545 Sebastiano Serlio published part 2 of
his Architettura, in which he demonstrated how to build a theatre
following Roman models, and in which he advocated three stock settings.
Based on what he read about the ancients' use of periaktoi, Serlio
advocated one stock setting for tragedies, one for comedies, and one for
pastorals. The theatre designers of the Renaissance made several
adaptations to accomodate the recent innovation of perspective painting;s
they added depth to the Roman stages and built the upstage area on a rake
up toward the back wall, and they painted the three stock settings in perspective.
All of the settings, especially when placed on the raked stage, appeared
to converge toward a central vanishing point. All three scenes were
exteriors, all emphasized straight lines and right angles, all the masses
were sizable, and all scenery was placed upstage while actors remained
in front of it.
Serlio's ideas about scenery were generally carried out by painting
sets of parallel flats, called wings, which were placed in pairs
at the sides of the stage, with the pair upstage being placed slightly
further on stage than the pair in front of it. At the back of the
stage was a painted drop. This system of executing scenery
became known through Europe as Italianate scenery or wing and drop
scenery,after the method of building it. This style of scenery spread
quickly throughout the courts of Europe during the 17th century.
Italianate scenery became increasingly elaborate and new innovations
increased its efficiency. During the Baroque era -- the late 17th
century -- in France, many Italians and native Frenchmen experimented with
scenery under the generous patronage of King Louis XIV. Giacomo Torelli,
an Italian lured to France to work for the French court, devised a method
for changing scenes that was to become the standard in Europe for three
centuries. He devised a system of parallel slots in the stage floor,
with chariots on which scenery was mounted and which were controlled by
ropes and pulleys attached to the part under the stage floor. A flat was
mounted on the poles, or upright vertical pieces of a chariot, while the
chariot was offstage, while another chariot was onstage displaying a flat
of different scene. Each stage was outfitted with 3 or 4 double sets
of slots on each side of the stage, and backdrops that could roll up.
Onstage chariots, offstage chariots, and ropes controlling the backdrop
were all connected under the stage floor to a rope and pulley system.
Thus, stagehands could control and entire setting at once, changing all
flats and the backdrop in unison. Audiences were so excited with Torelli's
chariot
and pole system,
that he instigated a vogue for machine plays in France in the mid-17th
century. Machine plays were written purely to show off scene
changes, with minimal attention to plot or character.
In the 19th century, the box set challenged the popularity of "wing and drop" scenery controlled by Torelli's chariot and pole system. A box set merely turns the parallel flats, "wings", along the sides of the stage to form an angle with the upstage scenery, which is now made up of more flats rather than a drop. When placed at these new angles, the flats resemble three walls of a room or box. Box sets are much more effective at depicting a realistic interior location, but they are much harder to shift.
The 19th century also saw the culmination of a trend toward historical accuracy in scene design. This trend coincided with increasing interest on the part of historians, new archeological finds, and publication of new books on, for example, historical costume or armour or interior decoration. Interiors, exteriors, set dressings, properties, and costumes were regularly researched according to historical place and locality. If historical objects were unavailable, then stage objects were constructed to look like the originals. At its most extreme, the trend toward historical accuracy led to stages that were filled to the point of clutter with "realistic" objects. Some designers felt that too many stage objects could detract from the play itself, and that objects should be selected for their significance.
At the turn of the 20th century, stage design took a decisive turn away
from theatrical trends that had dominated since the Renaissance.
Spurred primarily by the Swiss Adolph Appia and the English Edward
Gordon Craig,
scene design turned away from painted perspective scenery to three dimensional
scenery.
The
focus also turned from creating lots of realistic detail to selecting a
few representative or metaphorical objects and allowing the audience to
imaginatively fill in the details. With this selective approach
to scene design,
each object placed on the stage becomes more important and is often invested
with symbolic weight.
Throughout the 20th century, scene designers have made use of the technological
advances that have effected all areas of our lives. First, use of
electrical power allowed areas of the stage and house as well as the scenery
to be operated electrically. From the 1930's designers have made
increasing use of projections; internationally known designer
Josef Svoboda
uses projections as the major element of his designs. In the 1960's
and 1970's, many directors experimented with simplifying scene designs
and creating stage objects with actors bodies or a few simple, multi-purpose
objects. Since then, scene design has become increasingly fragmented
and suggestive.
Some cutting edge contemporary designers are incorporating computer-generated 2D images or 3D environments into their designs. With advances in the technologies used to create virtual reality, it is now becoming possible to create interactive environments in which actors or audience members can have an effect on the computer generated scenery. Such experiments are being conducted at the University of Kansas, for example.
Scene designers today, like the other artists of the theatre, have no single standard way of creating scenery. Instead, they can design scenery drawing on hundreds of years of different styles and traditions, perhaps being true to the conventions of wing and drop scenery for one production while, for another production, they might use projections and fragmented scenery made up of three dimensional structures.
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Part 3
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