BAFTA Crew Production Design Masterclass

BAFTA presented a masterclass with the BAFTA-winning team of Production Designer Sarah Greenwood and Set Decorator Katie Spencer. Sarah and Katie joined this programme to discuss their technical and creative techniques behind the work on they have created on big, well known films such as, Pride and Prejudice, Sherlock Holmes and Atonement. They spoke about how their process working together has helped create and produce designs that have won a series and multitude of awards. They also spoke of their longstanding work partnership with director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice).

The talk started off with a brief overview of their work in theatre and their awareness of the freedom Film and TV could offer them at the time. This in turn led them to both meet while working for the BBC. After both working on the series Nature Boy, they started to work in partnership on some of Joe Wrights earlier films; forming a tight circle of ideas, concepts and skills. 

The first big film they collaborated on was Pride and Prejudice in which they explained about fun of locating the building they used. However the inside had been modernized and they were not able to remove any fittings in the house, they discussed that they had to create worktops on top of worktops, which restricted the space in the house, but they loved the flow of the building that much they shot the film there.

They then discussed the bonding that started while making this film, creating a small group of experienced and professional minds under one roof; which is maintained still through their designs. They mentioned that period can be difficult when it comes to dating the scene correctly when having to avoid modern items such as satellite dishes, aerials, street lights etc. but are done mainly by being removed via CGI.

One of their favorite scenes was the creation of Dunkirk at Redcar Beach for the film 'Atonement', where the boat was transported in 4 chunks due to its sheer size, jeeps were made from old Landrover chassis, and the extras were from the factory which can be seen pumping smoke in the background. It helped create the atmosphere along with the extras creating a hazy feel to the scene.     

With Sherlock Holmes however, they had an increased amount of freedom as Director, Guy Ritchie just asked them to do what they wanted. Creating Holmes’ Living room proved to be a difficult but fun task as Robert Downey Jr. kept asking for more props in the room, and that each prop should have a meaning to the character himself. They used an old set from the Harry Potter films (Diagon Ally)  to recreate a realistic 1890’s Baker Street for the film, which was used repeatedly throughout filming.

I concluded from this that it does help to start from the bottom and work your way up through the ranks and that skills aren't everything; "its not what you know, but who you know".  Although they did look negatively about courses that are available to help get into industry they then were contradictory of their own words and encouraged people to build up a portfolio and attempt to get into the industry