Interview with Art Director of Rome (Art Drawing+Creative Concept)

I know Rome is an Oscar.Best director and best cinematographer, and winner of Venice Golden Lion Award..

But what fine arts awards did Rome win?

The 91st Academy Awards

Best Art Director (Nomination)

The 72nd British Film Academy Awards

Best Art Director (Nomination)

The 23rd American Film and Art Association Award

Best historical film category (nomination)

The 17th Washington Film Critics Association Award

Best Art Director (Nomination)

The 31st Chicago Film Critics Association Award

Best Art Director (Nomination)

The 17th San Francisco Film Critics Association Award

Best Art Director (Nomination)

24th American Critics’ Choice Film Award

Best Art Director (Nomination)

The 23rd Golden Satellite Award

Best Art Director (Nomination)

Boy, that’s a lot.

catalogue

First, about black and white tones

Second, home

Outside the home

Jiade garage

Home maid residence

The first floor of home

Jiazhong kitchen

Jiazhongtiantai

Third, the insurgents avenue

Shops on insurgents avenue

Fourth, Baja California Avenue

V slums

VI. Massacre

Seven, the hospital

Hospital location

Eight, manor

Nine, the city cinema

Film creation background

(If you don’t know this, you can’t understand the expression of many art directors below.)

Rome is a film about the director’s own experience, telling the life and crisis of two families (the hostess’s family and the maid’s family) in the process of change in Mexico’s great era.

Tone Processing and Eight Scenes Design of Rome

Art director Eugenio Caballero

summarize

The artistic design of "Rome" originated from my long talk with the director about his own growth experience, including his family, his memory of the city and the changes of the times. I can also add the details of my own understanding in art design, because he and I grew up in the same block.

The director thinks"Rome" art need not follow the script step by step, the first thing to consider is to reflect the fundamental theme of the film.Family, changes in Mexico, political manipulation, and the gap between the rich and the poor in the capital. Many scenes come from the director’s own memories, so the art team decided to try to shoot in the original location in memory, but some buildings were abandoned or changed too much, which needed to be rebuilt. For example, the scene of "home" is to find another real scene to transform, and we are rebuilding the hospital scene. Many streets have changed too much to be restored to 50 years ago, and we need to rebuild them. I think it’s interesting that besides looking for historical and architectural references, we have found many family photos, so that we can enrich the details of the "home" scene.

About creating black and white tones

What we are looking for is a special feeling of black and white, which needs to control the contrast between gray. This kind of black and white is not to attract the feeling of nostalgic silent films with strong contrast, but to create.Modern black-and-white images. In order to create this effect, we will convert different colors into grayscale, and we will test the color gamut set in the film and a lot of black and white filters to see how the colors are filtered under the black and white filters.

For example, the floor tile in the vestibule of the house, even if the original floor tile of the protagonist’s house is bright yellow (the story is the director’s memory of his childhood, and the memory is bright yellow), but for the screen effect, we forcibly set it in green to enhance the gray contrast between furniture and scenery elements.

We also noticed that,The combination of different hue lightness can be converted into the same gray. Based on this, we decided to enhance the actors’ perception in the scene.For example, in the "home" scene, it was originally blue or green walls, but we know that dim beige can also reach the same gray, and the dim beige painting will give the scene a more family atmosphere, so we gave up blue and green, andPaint the walls with beige that can reach the same gray level, creating a strong atmosphere that actors can feel in the scene..

"home" scene

The art team and the director talked for a long time about what the house was like in his memory, such as what was on the table at dinner time or what games they played in the afternoon. He provided some photo references, the original roof of the house with its checkered tiles, and some internal details, but most of them came from Alfonso’s oral description.

It is impossible to shoot in the original house because there have been great changes over the years. finallyWe re-created the whole "home" scene with three different locations.. At one location, we photographed the courtyard and the interior. In the second location, we photographed the exterior of the house and the neighborhood streets. The third venue is the roof. In all these locations, we must transform the real scene and make major changes to the visual appearance of the scene.

Because we areShooting with non-professional actors, so we want to try our best to avoid working in the studio.This requires building or transforming the real scene.

We knew it would take a long time to shoot in the "home" scene, so we applied a series of techniques to help shoot. These modifications created the best conditions for placing cameras and lighting the scene. For example,We created movable walls.The main wall on the second floor moves up and down like a guillotine.The design of lighting and lighting is also included in the early art consideration..

in ourBefore shooting, the "home" scene has been decorated for nearly a year., and has been completed.

From the first day of shooting, we will maintain the scene., to ensure the original location of props and scenery.

Outside the home

live scene

实景改造

Jiade garage

stage photo

Jiade garage

live scene

实景改造

Looking for historical reference

stage photo

Home maid residence

live scene

Film stills

The first floor of home

live scene

stage photo

concept plan

live scene

stage photo

Jiazhong kitchen

live scene

concept plan

stage photo

Jiazhongtiantai

live scene

实景改造

stage photo

Insurgents boulevard

After a thorough study of the history of Insurgents Avenue and a field survey, we think thatIt is completely impossible to shoot on the spot.. The real location changes greatly,So we need to build a new "insurgent avenue".

We found a 200-meter-long abandoned land, where we painted asphalt roads, built sidewalks, shops on both sides of the block (internally decorated, not just facades), street lamps, trees, drains, benches, tram tracks, billboards and light signs, and so on. We have also carefully selected more than 200 cars with various styles and colors. The art team also did the old treatment of the building and added the cracks caused by the years on the sidewalk.

concept plan

live scene

实景改造

完工图

stage photo

Shops on insurgents avenue

stage photo

完工图

Avenue shop details

Baja California boulevard

Baja California Avenue represents the daily life of the middle class in this period, which is significantly different from the commercial street like Insurgents Avenue.

During our investigation, we noticed that both avenues have similar layouts, including lanes and road widths. So,我们的计划是在“起义者大道”的场地上进行修改，而不是再建一个新的大道。我们需要特别装饰新的门面，因为这两条路有不同的用途和感觉：下加利福尼亚反映更多的居住感觉，起义者大道是商业街。这种差异还体现在车型的选择、道具、服装设计以及群众演员的动作上.

设计和寻找车辆是我们美术部门的重要任务，包括公共交通，有轨电车，垃圾和送货卡车和小轿车等。我们选择决定了每一辆车的风格和颜色，使其在黑白两色中形成对比，同时也反映了墨西哥城不同的社会阶层共存的一面。墨西哥没有美国那样的专业车辆道具租赁部门，所以很多车辆需要改装。

concept plan

施工图

完工图

stage photo

历史参考车辆和制作车辆对比

贫民窟

为还原1970年代的贫民窟，我们发现了一大片空地，在其中建造了污水渠，挖了水坑，建造了桥梁。我们还包括设计了街头小贩、临时搭建的殡仪馆和数百根装有电缆的木杆。

live scene

实景改造

stage photo

实景改造

stage photo

实景改造

stage photo

屠杀

屠杀场景是1971年在一次被称为“Los Halcones”的准军事团体的抗议活动中对学生进行的暴力杀戮活动。我们在事件发生的同一地点重新创建了这一事件。我们为警察和示威者重新制作了汽车、标语、制服、武器等等。

Great changes have taken place in the streets where the killings occurred that year.In order to try our best to eliminate those elements with a wrong sense of the times, we narrowed the perspective of the story to furniture stores.This is a building with windows that can see the street where the massacre took place.This building used to be a gym, so we emptied it and turned it into a furniture store. We cover the walls with wooden boards, and design and paint signs on the windows, so as to restore the sense of time through it..

live scene

Real scene change

stage photo

hospital

We wanted to shoot in the original hospital, but almost the whole hospital was demolished after the earthquake in 1985, but one hospital warehouse building remained.This warehouse has the architectural structure and layout of the old hospital, but it has been abandoned for 30 years now., has become a ruin.So we have to clean up this ruined warehouse, then clean it and redecorate it.. We pulled down some walls to give the waiting room, stairs and corridors a wide view. We have also re-created the children’s room and operating room.

live scene

Historical reference

concept plan

stage photo

Real scene processing

stage photo

Real scene processing

stage photo

Hospital location (real scene)

Historical reference

concept plan

stage photo

manor

weSeveral locations were used to present the manor scene.. The outdoor scenes, corridors, rooms with dog heads and indoor scenes of the New Year’s party were all filmed in the manor not far from Mexico City. The service area, stairs and kitchen were photographed in another place.

In the manor scene, servants and rich people are having a party.Our main idea is to strengthen their visual contrast.. To this end, we areThe rich scene used noble furniture and decorated it with animal specimens. The people attending the party drank imported wine in exquisite glassware and a fake silver plastic tree, which was very fashionable at that time. The servant scene is completely different. They drink from clay pots..

The forest clearing and fire scene were shot in the third location. We transformed the topography and added ponds according to the needs of shooting.

The fourth location is an idyllic venue. We plough the land and decorate the middle area of the frame with haystacks.

stage photo

live scene

stage photo

live scene

Real scene processing

stage photo

live scene

concept plan

stage photo

City cinema

Urban movies are cinemas for working class and working class, which are full of the noise and life of the city. What used to be an urban cinema has now become a theater. In the past few decades, the characteristics of movies have long since disappeared.

The scene includes the main entrance of the cinema, the interior of the hall and the street. We changed to a more life-oriented front desk with some products customized in the restoration era. In order to restore this era, we remade the movie posters of that era, replaced 200 old seats, and changed the lighting and curtain styles.

live scene

Historical data

concept plan

stage photo

End ~