Laurence Bennett

0:22I mean, great films like The Artist, how was this one presented to you? Were you a little hesitant when you said, a silent film? I was not hesitant in the slightest. I loved it from the get-go. Oh yeah, I mean, I got it completely. One of my agents called me and he said, you know, I've got this odd little project I came across. I don't know if it's something that would interest you. It's a little different. I said, well, what's it like? He goes, well, it's a French production. Great. It's black and white, better. And he said, and it's a silent movie. And I said, get me this way. No, I absolutely saw what Michelle was going for. It's a real beautiful distillation of a visual storytelling. How does your job as a production designer change for black and white? And black and white, you know, not having chroma and hue for separation between things and frame. You need to rely really a lot more on stronger

1:08tone contrast. Every design job of any sort really needs constraints. Because without constraints, you don't know how to focus your attention during the interview. So the more specific and meaningful the constraints, the more interesting it becomes. And there's something very specific and very meaningful about saying, and by the way, you can't use any color. That's be black and white and gray. So for me, it was, in the end, getting into it, was that actually very liberating. Interesting. For people who don't know, and I feel very ignorant saying this, but I'm asking you just for it. Because I don't think a lot of people do know what a production designer does on set. They know what a director does. They obviously know what the actors do. But do you want to explain your role? You know, it's difficult to put it in that job. But as one of the visual authors of the film,

1:56along with the cinematographer and the director, I'm really responsible for the entire look of the picture. With interfacing with costumes and hair and makeup, basically the designer picks all of the films locations, designs all of the scenery, works picking all the decor of the decoration and the props, printed stuff, graphics, and everything really that appears in the frame. You mentioned locations in there. There's one fantastic scene in the stairwell. Yeah. And this is where is that? Where did you find that? It's the library building in downtown Los Angeles. Do you know from the moment you saw it, we need to use this? No, the requirements of the scene were pretty easily understood. But where to find that staircase and how to have it mesh with the other elements of the studio world, we're not really easy.

2:42You know, obviously we wanted to, Michelle wanted a setting where we could show, we could symbolize George Descent and Pat Descent. You know, it's tricky. But obviously it's one of the architectural gems of Los Angeles, of that period. And they're only handfuls. So, you know, it was one of the obvious places to go on. It was hard to find things that were still especially for the outdoor scenes. The beginning of the scene, there's a Bugatti that I hear is almost impossible to find somewhere in between like 500,000 and 3.5 million dollars to this 1920s car. It is a replica, okay. You can find the real one, yeah. It's a kid car, and not a particular vehicle. Right, not really. Well, but it looks fantastic in the film. You know what? It looks great in the picture. We finessed a little bit, made it work for us. Yeah. Did you have to paint differently

3:28for black and white and gray scale? We did. I mean, in prep, Michelle and Guillaume, and I did, I mean, we did extensive camera tests. Both for hair and makeup and camera stock, all those things. But also I tested a lot of different paint techniques. And I ended up deciding that, because there's so much film within a film, there's this split world, decided that to help find some sort of slight way of differentiating them. Just as George and Pappy's makeup is different between the naturalistic world and the film world, they actually wore a makeup that's closer to the film makeup of the period when they're shooting their films, or they're in their films. That's smart? That leads us into five questions. We do five quick questions, one more answer.

4:13Your favorite silent-era film. Wow, it changes all the time. Two of the greatest movies ever made are modern times in city lights. I like modern times. I don't know city lights. It's heartbreaking. And, but my current favorite is, I just shared with my wife, our hospitality by Buster Keaton, which is a real gem. But, I mean, you know, there's so much good work. Leonard McCartney, production designer you look up to. Wow, Darren Smosh. Film your most proud of. That's a tough column. I'm obviously enormously proud of the artist.

5:01I think in a completely different way in the Valley of Ella. Not a lovely film as well. Very different film. Very different film. And in one word, the artist. Heart. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Thank you.