ICG Magazine Review: The Art of the Hollywood backdrop

BY PAULINE ROGERS 

“A young man’s hand plunges a metal scoop into a square tin of vibrant ultramarine blue powder and transfers the finely ground color into a five-gallon bucket. The long metal paddle of the paint mixer slowly rotates, changing a foul-smelling liquid, the binder, and the toxic powder into a magical elixir. These vivid colors are spread over an immense white surface of sized cotton muslin, resulting in a transformation from an empty void into an ocean of great scale, depth and radiant light. Rich in its character and mood, this is a narrative still life to be seen and at the same time to go unnoticed by its intended audience – quite a challenge given that this painting is thirty feet tall and one hundred feet wide.” 

If the above quote by Production Designer, Apprentice Scenic Artist Thomas A. Walsh (ADG/USA) doesn’t make readers want to immediately delve into the passionate work of the backdrop artist – well, they’ve got little romance in their souls. For me, this quote sets the perfect mood for this homage to The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop, written by Richard M. Isackes (Professor, Design and Technology, The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance) and Karen L. Maness (principal instructor of scenic art and figurative painting, The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance, and scenic art supervisor at Texas Performing Arts). 

Filled with never-before-seen exquisite backdrops – everything from classic black and white films like 1929’s The Petrified Forest to The Wizard of Oz (one of the first Technicolor films) to 2004’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and so much more – the book is elegantly written and illustrated. It does justice to those quiet heroes (and heroines) who “paint” the world for audiences. 

These heroes include one of Hollywood’s most influential backdrop artists, Ben Carré, who is quoted from his unpublished manuscript, Reminiscences of My Years as a Motion Picture Art Director, as saying “… after the nickelodeon had shown the film where I had animated the backing with the waterfall, after we were outside, I asked my friends, ‘What do you think of my cascade?’ They led me back inside again to see what they had looked at without seeing. Even Lucien (Androit), who had shot the film, had accepted my trick picture for the real thing.” 

Artist George Gibson is another who winks at his own anonymity. Talking about The Shoes of the Fisherman, he recalls the film’s premiere, at which he “overheard the scandalized clergymen” behind him say, “‘I thought they were not going to allow them to film inside the chapel.’” 

This comprehensive volume also explores the differences in set backdrops for theater and movies, such as how theater backings are never confused with real places, and how the backdrop artist is challenged to create a cinematic backing to be viewed from only one vantage point, the eye of the camera. Few readers probably know that “because films were initially shot in black and white, cinematographers banished colored paint and replaced it with a palette that consisted of nothing but shades of gray,” the authors write. According to Isackes and Maness, “they assumed that the camera would not be able to interpret shifts in value correctly if the scenery was painted chromatically. For example, in the Gaumont Studio in Paris, all painting was done with ten values of paint mixed-up in two-gallon buckets.” 

Or that when Technicolor came in, the added lighting was not only hard on the actors, there were definitive challenges in color. It’s said that the art department took over a week to decide on the exact shade of yellow for the yellow-brick road in The Wizard of Oz. 

The writers also explore the collaboration between the production designer and the art director, including how interdependent they are. Production Designer Norm Newberry points out that “the backing company people know more about how the camera will see the backing than anybody, and if you rely on them, all you have to do is tell them, ‘Well, this is what I think is going to happen.’ And then they will suggest to you the best way to do the backing.” 

This wonderful book reveals a lot about Hollywood magic, such as how to have actors flying out the window over the city of London with the audience seeing the tops of the buildings for Steven Spielberg’s Hook. Or for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, where Production had so much confidence in the production design and backdrop artists that the complex look was all created in-camera, rather than with VFX in post. 

After you learn the history of the backdrop and meet a select group of artists who paved the way, the writers bring you up to date. They admit the future is uncertain, given the propensity for CGI. They even refer to the classic conversation between Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke) in the 1967 Oscar-winning film The Graduate, where the veteran advises the newbie with a single word: “plastics.” Although that omni-present material has invaded the world of backdrops, Isackes and Maness write that it will “never supplant materials such as wood, stone or metal for the very simple reason that each of these materials has certain intrinsic qualities that cannot be replicated in plastic.” 

“The same is true for virtual environments in film,” Isackes and Maness assert. “They will not replace real, tangible scenic environments because, no matter how expertly they are developed, they cannot replicate the authenticity of shooting a scene in-camera, where the camera records the entire image without having to add the background later.” 

Traveling through the enjoyable (and very informative) The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop is a journey through the history of motion pictures, the scenic artists that carved out paths when the art was unheard of, and how the magic was achieved for at least one of your favorite iconic films. Celebrate, as Isackes and Maness say, how “[their] authenticity is as important for the filmmaker’s practice as it is for the eventual movie audience’s visual experience.”