CMU School of Drama


Friday, March 05, 2010

How David Rockwell's Oscar Set Makes Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin Funnier [Exclusive]

Fast Company: "At a rehearsal for the opening number of Sunday night's Oscar show at the Kodak Theatre, tiny, plain-clothed dancers pranced over glossy laser-cut laminate in what felt like a sparkly, white-on-white dream sequence. '5-6-7-8!' Seated in the audience, architect David Rockwell was dressed in black jeans, Asics running shoes and a black Academy zip-up, surveying his latest spectacle. 'It's going to be terrifying all over again,' he said, over the syncopated four-counts. 'Which I love.'"

2 comments:

SParker said...

First off, the name of this article was misleading. Aside from the description of making it like a sound stage, there was really no explanation of this. But, I did like how this really went into detail about the elements of the overall design. I liked the design of the Oscars, but I still fail to see how it accomplished his goal of making it "funny". It seemed far too formal for that, and the Swarovski crystals didn't help that cause. I do think it's interesting that they chose to hire Rockwell, since he would know the theatre itself more than anybody else, but I think he could have used that more to his advantage than he did.

Ariel Beach-Westmoreland said...

Personally I thought the Oscar's were atrocious. The set looked like an ugly sixties living room, complete with the flown in lamp wall and circle patterns. It was tacky, awkward and uncomfortable. I felt that they Oscars had sold out. There were so few movies, and they were all nominated in every category. The awards were presented by B-movie actors, and the humor was awkward and unfunny. The music numbers was cut and replaced by a dance group breakdancing to UP. Overall it felt like a waste of my three hours.