Production Design Screen Shots

As the Production Design blogathon approaches its end (though there's still tomorrow), I am moved to put up another post. As before - I am not sure I have much to say - so I will just post some pictures of things that caught my eye. I will start by noting two of the films I usually go to when I want to say something about the use of space and decor in films: Imamura's The Pornographers, with it's clutter and squalor:





and Billy Wilder's The Apartment, with its deep spaces and carefully arranged bric a brac:





Then - I was thinking about production design on a budget, as per Ed Wood - using the same lamp, say, in two different sets:





Meanwhile, rooting around my Ed Wood collection, I came upon this shot, which reminds us what even a hack can come up with once in a while (in fairness, Wood came up with more decent shots than he gets credit for - that's not where the problem lies, usually):



It also calls to mind another do it yourself film, though with a somewhat higher level of accomplishment - I will leave you then with some of the lamps in Inland Empire. And add - if you have the DVD, or have seen the Lynch One documentary that circulated last year - you might have noticed how much of the extra material is devoted to production design. Lynch building sets - building objects - choosing locations. The strong sense you get from the extras is of the pleasures of the physical work of building a film... so I think this is a good place to end my rather bland contributions to this project.