And the Oscar goes to...
The Academy has spoken. On Thursday, January 22nd, actors Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman announced the nominees for the 98th annual Academy Awards. While most of the internet is clamoring about Sinners' record-breaking 16 nods or Wicked: For Good's surprise snubs, we can't stop thinking about the candidates for Best Production Design. Because, let's face it: As professional homebodies, it's kind of our thing.
In a world where artificial intelligence and computer-generated imagery are prevalent, production design might seem like no big deal. A mere backdrop that yields to fabulous costumes and a juicy plot. And if something doesn't look just right, can't it always be edited in post-production? Not for these nominees. With an acute attention to detail and serious architectural chops, these production teams go to great lengths to create an atmosphere that's historical, realistic, or sometimes fantastical. If you think tackling that DIY project in your home is challenging, just think about what it must take to, say, recreate William Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
The nominations are in, but who will win? While we won't know who will walk away with a statue until March 15, we ranked all five contenders and shared who we think should win top honors.
When tasked with reimagining the 1950s for Marty Supreme, production designer Jack Fisk doubled down on the details. “You like to start somewhere, and you think that if it’s closer to authenticity, it might help the actors understand their character,” he told Variety. “We start with the most accurate representation we can find, and then we alter it to work for the film.”
Case in point: Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club, where Marty honed his ping pong craft. Fisk read The Money Player, which largely inspired the movie, worked to track down blueprints of the real-life locale, and even recreated the spot's landscape murals. Fisk brought that same attention to detail when dreaming up the film's shoe store as well as the big Tokyo tournament.
As for existing locations? Marty Supreme was also filmed at the Plaza Hotel, the Indonesian Embassy, and Woolworth Mansion in New York City.
At first glance, One Battle After Another's sets look like something we'd see in the wild—but that's kind of the point. From creating the eerie opulence of the Christmas Adventurer's Club's lair to finding a pastoral Spanish mission in California to act as the film's convent, production designer Florencia Martin brought some movie magic to the everyday.
Martin also built the Sensei's apartment, which was lined up with the existing trap door that led to the neighboring bag store. "Paul [Thomas Anderson] wanted for Sensei to live in this community with his family, and he had this idea that the walls would be open, so you could pass through each apartment," she told the Motion Picture Association. "Since we built it, I was able to make it look like exposed framing, and as if the floorboards had been ripped out, because we installed everything from the ground up."
However, the most impressive feature is Bob's escape hatch, a 60-foot, hand-hewn tunnel that looks like the film's protagonist built it over time.
As the most nominated movie in Academy Awards history, it's not too surprising that Sinners has incredible production design. Production designer Hannah Bleacher and locations manager Elston Howard worked together to find the perfect spot to create the juke joint nightclub.
“We needed a location that was isolated, with the territorial aspects of water and thick with trees to match the film’s tone,” Howard said in a press statement. Once the team locked in a former golf course in Braithwaite, Louisiana, they built a massive, free-standing metal structure. To create the appearance of a run-down, 100-year-old saw mill, carpenters and scenic artists torched, sanded, stained, painted, and even chemically distressed fresh-cut wood.
Most of the movie takes place in the juke joint, but the production team didn't discount the rest of the sets. The downtown area Smoke visits at the beginning of the film comprises a dozen small businesses that construction coordinator Erik Van Haaren's crew built for the movie.
"To be or not to be?" isn't the biggest question Hamnet poses. Rather, it's how did production designer Fiona Crombie recreate William Shakespeare's famed Globe Theater? Well, with lots of research, of course.
Though a modern iteration of the famous theater sits along the Thames River today, it's not the same structure that was originally built in 1599. For the uninitiated, the theater burned down 14 years after it was built, then was rebuilt, and then demolished circa 1644.
"Like all the sets in the film, we just interpreted it for our story,” Crombie tells ELLE Decor.
While all five contenders deserve praise, we think Frankenstein is the most likely to walk away with an Oscar come March. Why? Guillermo del Toro’s iteration really excelled in both location scouting and original designs. Production designer Tamara Deverell scouted several grandiose, gothic homes in England and Scotland to serve as Frankenstein's villa.
When it came time to create Frankenstein's lab—where the famous Creature would be born—she reportedly pulled pieces from Wallace Tower in Scotland as well as St. Stephen’s Church in Edinburgh. She even went to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in London to get inspiration for period-appropriate pieces.
Much of the inspiration for Frankenstein was grounded in real-life inspiration; however, Deverell was able to flex her creative muscle with the dilapidated water tower-turned-Frankenstein's laboratory, which was built as a miniature in order for the camera to capture the dramatic surrounding landscape. Oh, and did we mention the production team actually built the Horisont ship and surrounding icebergs on a Netflix studio lot in Toronto? Casual.
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