EN — A Arte da Destruição

What is the role of a set?

Michel Foucault, in his work Of Other Spaces, explores the concept of Heterotopias and Other Spaces and how it can contain various meanings or relationships to other spaces and how its complexity may not be apparent at first glance.

The author presents various types of Heterotopia. Among them, we'll focus on two: Illusion - through real objects it manages to create illusions - and Compensation - a place that manages to reproduce the conditions of another. One space that manages to incorporate these two conditions is the set.

Scenery can bring atmosphere and aesthetics to a given medium.
An actor always needs a set, even if it's just a curtain.

But what is its role? A set is not always an illusion, since we have various spaces, such as talent shows, game shows, among others, in which its role can be merely decorative, representing nothing; it only serves to give atmosphere to the action taking place.

This publication explores various scenarios from a movie and a game-show scenario. With unlimited access, we were able to follow the recording of Vicente Alves do Ó's Portuguese for three months and the recording of three episodes for the RTP program The Price is Right in order to try to understand the role of sets.

Understanding Portugueses

by Vicente Alves do Ó

Ukbar Filmes was the first production company to reply to our emails, inviting us to a meeting at their offices in Braço de Prata. We were welcomed by Diana, the production director, who wanted to understand how she could help us.

We explained our project and learned that, with the end of the recording of Rabo de Peixe for Netflix, the production company was going ahead with Portugueses, a musical directed by Vicente Alves de Ó about April 25, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the date. Diana introduced us to the pre-production of the film, including make-up, costume and hair tests, essential for the black and white visual studies of the work. We visited the costume space and learned about the reuse of pieces from other productions, as well as the work needed to recreate the aesthetic of the time.

We received the production schedule and booked a trip to several of the film's sets, which helped us understand how a production manages to maximize resources while reducing costs.

Understanding O Preço Certo

Fremantle, one of the biggest production companies in the world, was willing to support this project. After a meeting via Zoom, we met Vasco Barão, executive producer at Fremantle Portugal, who presented programs such as TaskMaster, A Máscara, Got Talent Portugal and O Preço Certo. He highlighted the growing use of virtual sets, such as in Got Talent Portugal, which save resources and offer flexibility.

We were invited to watch O Preço Certo being recorded at the RTP studios in Chelas. We were able to explore the set in its entirety, having complete freedom to explore every detail. We discovered that the lighting was the essential element, fully integrating with the design and making the environment more dynamic and appealing.

We also visited the lighting walkways, understanding their importance in building and maintaining the set. We watched the recordings of three different episodes and got a close look at how the show works, from the audience to behind the scenes.

Espetáculo!!!!

Thoughts on

Film Set Design

by Marian Wimmer

Set design, in Wimmer's view, is the visual background to the action of a movie, to which the character, in his action, gives energy and determines his function. The key elements of this background are: the space, the architectural layout and the objects that fill it. The theatrical space was static. It was Gordon Craig who made it dynamic, using light design. Cinema uses a dynamic and variable space, but it's not the set design that the viewer deals with here, but its photography. Wimmer draws attention to how the viewer perceives cinematic space, involving the senses, sensitivity, emotions, associations and intellect. Wimmer identifies the eye of the spectator with the eye of the camera. The focal point is the protagonist and their actions in the environment, which contains much more information (of a social and psychological nature) than the background in the theater. As he says, spatial landscapes and actors come together in the movement of the action through harmony or contrast. From this perspective and referring to specific examples, Wimmer analyzes factors such as story, moving image, frame composition, editing and their relationship to set design and space construction. He evokes the metaphor of Aldous Huxley, who describes cinematic drama as a great river full of eddies. It is the cinematic space that forms the basis of its continuity. (Unrevised material; originally published in Kwartalnik Filmowy, 1963, no. 52, pp. 3-15).

Interview to Set Designer
Christine Jones

by Sarah Rebell & Maria Resavage

Eight times a week, something magical happens at the Lyric Theatre on Broadway. I'm not talking about wizards, wands and spells, which, after all, are fantasy, but rather the imaginative and elegant set, full of secrets and illusions, on which the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place. This set is the work of designer Christine Jones, who was nominated for a 2018 Tony Award for her creation. Christine also received the 2015 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Design. Other credits include American Idiot, for which she won the 2010 Tony Award, and the original Broadway production of Spring Awakening. Sarah Rebell, along with Maria Resavage, a 2018 FIT Design graduate and aspiring set designer, recently sat down with Christine, in a room just off the Lyric's spectacularly renovated Victorian Gothic lobby, to talk about Christine's approach to designing the set for the famous and beloved wizarding world, how her children impacted and shared her experience with Harry Potter, her impressions of the changing field of set design for young women just starting out, and much more.

by Joana Salgueiro & Gonçalo Picoito
for Projeto Avançado de Design 24/25
project made with the support of: