Designing for films (1949)

advance, because they make them look too decorative to be true or else they look like so many pancakes hung up on the wall ; but when the job is nearly finished I ask for a hole to be made as I think I will 'have a window put in": but when this hole has been cut I say I have changed my mind and will they plaster it up as best they can ; and the result is always more like what the real job would have been. Sometimes after the brick sheets have been put up one can have sections of it greased over with tallow, then have the whole surface thinly plastered; when it is dry, a smart rap with a hammer will bring down this plaster over the greased sections, giving a very good rotten wall surface. In the September 1932 issue of Close-Up, Erno Metzner, the Hungarian art director who has made so many lovely sets in his time, tells in a very interesting article how with plaster he achieved some of the lovely effects for Pabst's Atlantis. Describing one set he says: 'The big granite blocks in the sets for Atlantis looked in the studio and, as I hoped also in the picture, exactly like very old granite blocks the surface of which in the course of the centuries had obtained a greasy polish. This granite, of course, is made of plaster — that marvellously applicable material of the studio. For this purpose a mass of plaster of light grey colour was prepared, and into it some bigger and smaller lumps of already hardened, differently coloured plaster were mixed. Thus one obtained a pail full of light grey liquid plaster in which, mixed into it at random, light-pink, light-green, white and black lumps swam. Out of this material the stone blocks and columns were shaped. After the mass had become hardened, the surface was scraped off and then polished. On the new surface produced by the scraping knife the various lumps of plaster appeared and imitated exactly the well-known characteristics of the real stone. The irregular distribution, the irregularity of the pattern could never have been brought about by consciously applied painting or any other deliberately applied means. The surface was then treated with wax and had an extraordinary effect of reality. Their smooth surface stands in agreeable contrast to the rough casting of the arches which rest upon the stones, and stands out satisfactorily against the soft stuffs and carpets with which the rooms were equipped. 'New materials for cinema buildings helped me also to obtain some new effects. Slender columns were clad with a stuff which had been spun of hair-thin glass threads. The manufacturing of this material is very difficult, for the glass threads penetrate easily into the skin and cause abscesses. The artisans had to wear gloves. But with no other material has this effect yet been achieved: they are like the most beautiful alabaster columns and reflect the innumerable lights of the studio. Silver powder cast in gelatine achieves the effect of a mirror flexible in every direction; varnished paper can be taken for real pigskin, if used accordingly. The sets of Atlantis were entirely built for the effects of the material, without using any ornament. Every film which suggests new problems demands new materials to obtain new effects and by that promotes the technique of film production.' This last paragraph of Metzner's is, of course, very important. As soon as the excitement of a film goes, one ceases to recognize that there are 'new problems' and a studio can soon get that humdrum conservative approach towards productions. All the ways and means that are put forward in this book are only to save you time with old experiments and inspire you to invent new ones. Some of the plastic materials and compounds now being developed will one day surpass the old methods of the plaster shop. Until then this great craft, with its many traditions, will still remain one of the art director's main assets. 92