Hello everyone!! I�m a student researching the topic on films that use set design- that are blatantly �fake�. Think stylised or films that do not hide the fact that they are shot on sets. I would be very grateful if you can pick a movie from the list or (if you have a favourite movie that is not mentioned) please free to talk about it and give your reasons as to why you like it so much. Likewise, if there�s a film on here that the design of which you do not like. I would love to hear about this also.
The List as follows (these were chosen from various "top 100s" from various magazines books and are in no particular order.)
Edward Scissorshands
Metropolis
Moulin Rouge
Sin City
Nosferatu
Singing in the Rain
Sleepy Hollow
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
The Elephant Man
The Wizard of Oz
Looking to hear from you guys!
Other movies with artificial sets:
Practically any movie with set designs by William Cameron Menzies, especially ones he directed like Things to Come and Invaders from Mars
Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast
An American in Paris
Vampyr
Tales of Hoffman
Son of Frankenstein
My Fair Lady
The Pirate
Invitation to the Dance
All the Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger musicals except the last two
Citizen Kane
(Infamously) Marnie (1964), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
The painted backdrop of the shipyard is much derided but I feel it adds to the old-fashioned charm!
Obviously Hitchcock's Rope.
D.
Try catching some third season episodes of Batman. The show's always meagre budget had been cut even further and in many episodes the sets are little more than items of furnature with a black backdrop. I haven't seen any episodes from this season in years, but I recall it having a strange dream-like quality.
Dogville is certainly minimalist in terms of sets.
I think Mary Poppins fits in with the first list: all fake, all charming, all supposed to look as if you're in the pages of a book.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Brighton Rock (1947)
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
North by Northwest (1959)
Phillip Vandamm house is a set:
North by Northwest - LINK 1
North by Northwest - LINK 2
Also, Mount Rushmore is a set.
North by Northwest - LINK 3
Rear Window (1954)
Rear Window - LINK
The address of Lars Thorwald block is 125 West 9th Street, New York, but this is fake address. Alfred Hitchcock based the fake set on a real courtyard between 125 Christopher Street (Lars Thorwald block) and 248 West 10th Street, New York (L. B. Jefferies block).
Greg
Blade Runner - futurism and film-noir at it's best
Ed Wood - Tim Burton's biopic - is all about how Wood used cheap sets and techniques, and see Edward Wood's movies - Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Russ Meyer is known for his low budget sexploitation movies of the 60s. I know William Castle made horror movies - not sure if they were 'fake' looking but he pushed the crazy gimmicks and effects. I remember an over the top axe scene in Strait-Jacket, starring Joan Crawford.
There's Hitchcock's Spellbound, where Gregory Peck dreams in a Salvador Dali painted set - fabulous.
In the 1980s I saw The Wind 1928 at a cinema with piano accompaniment - the film had amazing montages of swirling winds and a wild white horse to portray the crazy effect the wind in the prairie desert has on the lead - Lillian Gish.
Then there is Ken Adams' work on the James Bond films. His sets were not only fake but fantastic as well.
name='creativetincap']Hello everyone!! I�m a student researching the topic on films that use set design- that are blatantly �fake�. Think stylised or films that do not hide the fact that they are shot on sets. I would be very grateful if you can pick a movie from the list or (if you have a favourite movie that is not mentioned) please free to talk about it and give your reasons as to why you like it so much. Likewise, if there�s a film on here that the design of which you do not like. I would love to hear about this also.
The List as follows (these were chosen from various "top 100s" from various magazines books and are in no particular order.)
Edward Scissorshands
Metropolis
Moulin Rouge
Sin City
Nosferatu
Singing in the Rain
Sleepy Hollow
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
The Elephant Man
The Wizard of Oz
Looking to hear from you guys!
Of that list I would say "The Elephant Man" is an example of a film that mainly uses real locations to create a seemingly unreal world, I think the black and white photography helps but I don't think there was a lot of set building in that film. Likewise "Edward Scissorhands" to some extent because the suburb he find himself living in with his adopted family is a real place in a real town and not a fake set, the residents agreed to have their houses repainted pastel colours for filming then back to their original colour afterwards. I'd be more interested in looking at films which are at the opposite spectrum from your inquiry, ie films that we have assumed to be filmed in real locations and places but are in fact totally constructed worlds in a realistic and convincing way. Kubricks "The Shining" is a good example of that. And what about "Black Narcissus" A totally studio bound film which is both surreal and convincing.
Alien had the entire ship made for filming and the planet sets were designed to look very differently.
Aliens included sequences shot entirely using miniature sets, most notably the scene where the vehicle is escaping the complex where Newt was found.
Alien3's end sequence with Ripley diving into the firepit is extraordinarily fake looking.
Alien Resurrection was again set aboard a fake ship.
Does Team America World Police count? It used famous world locations such as the Eiffel Tower to great effect.
Independence Day saw a fake White House blown to pieces.
Waterworld was filmed on a studio designed pond which allows cameramen to create the illusion of there being nothing but water.
Labyrinth with David Bowie and a load of Muppets
Will Ferrell's Elf and Dudley Moore's Santa Claus The Movie
My favourite of all time is the sequence in Batman The Movie with Adam West wrestling a shark whilst dangling from a rope ladder. Pure delight!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_B_n-Rbros"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_B_n-Rbros[/ame]
Orson Welles' Macbeth ....
Universal's Frankenstein and Wolf Man films ...
Funny Face and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes have obvious sets for the songs.
Pillow Talk used the split screen to bring in glossy magazine styling.
Digressing a bit, I'm sure I've seen the Rope room with all the windows in other films...
And there's the stylish New York apartment in The Tender Trap that's often been recycled - anyone remember where?
Ryans Daughter, Dr. Zhivago, and a few others of Lean's films
The appalling (or wonderful) opening scene of Hirchcocks The Lady Vanishes. The toy taxi being pulled (probably)by a piece of cotton thread is a masterpiece.
Strange But True: The original poster, 'creativeincap' () has not returned since finishing that opening post. Rather a shame, don't you think, as he's missed some excellent examples - mostly celebrated genius Alfred Hitchcock, embarassingly
I enjoyed doing that capture from Marnie, my first from a Hitchcock film I think, and would like to do more 'Fake Sets' if I have the time.
Really it is an imperfect question as the whole Business is partly based on illusion to entertain. There is only one that fits the criteria that is the one mentioned by the boss of this forum: Dogville and very entertaining too.
i'd have 'fake sets' over CGI anyday! at least there's depth to a set!
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