Shona Heath and James Price
I thought I wanted to be an artist so when I got to art college I said, Oh cool, I’m going to be an artist and go to university. Then they advised me I should do something like applied arts. So I went to uni and did contemporary furniture. And it sort of evolved and at some point in the process production design opened up and I was like, That’s cool. I can do a day’s work and get paid for it. It was very blue collar in a way. Unlike other kinds of endeavors, like making furniture that you’ve got to then sell. I didn’t really have the stomach for that. And I’ve always liked storytelling and environments. I’ve never been into theater because I’ve always enjoyed creating a complete environment as opposed to “sets”, per se. That’s why I’m always obsessed with composite sets and immersive sets. I’d much rather do that than just create a stand-alone set and then go to somewhere else. It’s all about the environment and they can tell the story within that.
AS: What do you both like about production design?
SH: Being in control of what you’re seeing, the whole visuals. It can be anything you want. On Poor Things I thought more people would intervene, but everybody just eventually left us alone to do it. Studios didn’t get involved. It was so out there that nobody knew were to begin, to either reign it in or make it different or whatever. It’s such a big job that nobody really wants to get involved in it!
AS: How about Emma Stone or the creative producers, did they ever walk through the sets and want anything changed?
JP: No. When you’re working with a proper independent filmmaker like Yorgos no one’s going to tell him to change something. It’s the same with my experience with Durkin [Sean, director of The Nest and The Iron Claw]. Yorgos certainly had things he wanted changed and that’s his prerogative. Somebody else to want changes is just unacceptable on a movie where the creative control is with that director, that filmmaker. That’s what’s great. I don’t think Shona and I, either of us, would get employed by a filmmaker that wants to tell us how their film should look. We’re too opinionated to be hired by someone who wants a yes person.
AS: And James how would describe what you like about the job of production design?
JP: It’s visual control, isn’t it? I like it when they stage a scene and have shot it from an angle that’s exactly as I’ve imagined, and you’re not even there. You’re like, Yeah, that’s how I wanted that scene to work.
Also there’s something cathartic about it. It’s one of the few creative disciplines where you can conceive it and see it live and then see its death. You conceive the set, it’s built, it’s shot on, and then it goes back to being what it was before, an empty stage or an empty field. I find that quite nice. And then it just lives on because it’s captured on film. It’s interesting that way.
SH: I don’t like the destruction bit. It’d be nice to be able to say, Oh, yeah, all the furniture went to a strange art school and all the curtains went to some childrens’ home. I’d like to know it all went and gave someone pleasure somewhere.
JP: It would be nice to do a piece of architecture one day that lasted.
SH: There’d be a lot of people wanting to buy the Baxter house, it was a beautiful house. Beautiful but dangerous! Someone definitely would have died in it if it stood up for much longer!
JP: It would have needed some modifications!