Production designer Mark Worthington and set decorator Ellen Brill — who have earned three Emmy nominations for their work on the show — had just seven weeks to create the sprawling, labyrinthine Hotel Cortez.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
The 'crazy and kind of strange' hotel built for 'American Horror Story'
Production designer Mark Worthington and set decorator Ellen Brill — who have earned three Emmy nominations for their work on the show — had just seven weeks to create the sprawling, labyrinthine Hotel Cortez.
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For all the problems with American Horror Story as a show, they sure do commit when it comes to design. I love the details that they put into this world, making an eerie alternate reality atmospheric enough to feel real. I am particularly interested in what the designer said about texture. The worlds created on this show are layered and multifaceted, with new surprises around every bend, so it feels right that the world of the show would have enough depth and texture that it would feel like you might be able to fall into it. I am also highly impressed at the ability of the designers to make a world this luxe and lush on such a small budget. While I'm finding that the show itself is lacking in any real interesting plot beyond the gory shock factor, I want to keep watching in order to see this rich world develop onscreen.
I only watched about half of the first episode of the new season of American Horror Story, but it was incredibly beautiful and I was wondering whether it was a hotel or a set the entire time. It was also hard to watch because of the pure blood and gore and genitals everywhere. The production design for this series is incredible, though. It’s everything I want to do with my life! It’s classy yet terrifying and full of gore. I wish that American Horror Story hadn’t been made for a few more years so that I would’ve had the chance to work on it, but by now I’m sure the production team has been solidified. Either way, when I graduate I fully plan on attempting to get connections into that series. I want to get into the horror industry, and mainstream horror is the easiest route into my favored career path.
My initial reaction to seeing the photo in this article is that the color palette of this set is absolutely gorgeous. When I saw that it is a 6 story set, I had to go back and re-read to make sure, and I still hardly believe it. I would love to walk through that set, and I’m also really curious why they decided to build it that way. It seems like it would be cheaper to just build a separate set for each room rather than to more or less really build the hotel. Also, I might be wrong about this, but I’ve always thought that when it came to building sets, TV shows and movies typically would build each room as its own set, if they can’t find a location. This hotel seems like something they could just find and decorate. But, since they built it the way they did, there must be a reason. I wish this article showed photos of the set from the outside. I’m really curious what the whole thing looks like. Based off this article, it seems like they’ve basically built a building.
I personally don’t watch American Horror story, because I really can’t handle scary TV shows, but reading this article makes me wish I could. I used to think that the design/ production aspects for television/ film wouldn’t be as involved as for that of theater, especially today with the possibility of so many computer effects, but I’ve quickly learned that that’s not the case. TV and film design amazes me, because the close-up camera work means that every piece needs to be perfect, yet still feel tactile and real through a screen in order for the watcher to experience the story. I love hearing about designer’s googling/ researching processes, because that’s one of my favorite parts of the design process as a whole, especially for a period set such as this. It’s crazy to me that some of these pristine furniture pieces were reupholstered eBay buys. It always amazes me to see how much time goes into making sets and set pieces so intricately detailed. Every little thing counts in making a production feel as whole and real as possible.
I’ve never actually seen American Horror Story so I don’t have any thing to compare the description of this season’s design to in terms of consistency. But if this article’s description is representative of the show I may have to try it at some point, if only to get a chance to see their design work. Personally I’ve never been as attracted to doing design work for movies and TV shows as I have for live theater. But this article is definitely getting me to start reconsidering that. I would love to get the chance to work on a show that gave me that much freedom as a designer. Not to mention getting to design a six story set sounds like an incredibly fun challenge. The picture of the set the writer included shows just how much detail and work went into this design and it makes me want to try and create a similarly rich world if I ever get the chance.
This article makes me so excited to work behind the scenes of the arts and entertainment. It is so cool to read how some designers and set decorators get their scenic elements. The fact that so much of the lighting fixtures, fabric, furniture, and decorations came from Ebay, Craigslist, etc, makes it so relatable. I've been a part of productions where most of our scenery, because of how vintage it needed to be, was purchased from regular people rather than scenic construction companies. This article also emphasizes how much time is spent first hand by the designer on a piece of scenery. I would love to shadow a scenic decorator and experience what it's like to bring a scene to life with the details of the room.
I believe having a consistent production designer has really helped unify the different seasons of American Horror Story, despite its creation as an anthology series. Though the locales and times of each story have been so diverse, Mark Worthington and his design team have truly fostered a sense of continuity between the realities of the worlds established each season.
I remember reading somewhere that eventually all of the seasons would interconnect and essentially "snap into" a larger arc. This narrative choice will be largely aided - if not made possible - by the show's strong, unified production design. The design team's dedication and attention to the details of a space, especially in terms of how they could influence and inform an actor working in that space, truly lends each season's plot a sense of implausible, yet veritable reality. Even as I quickly browsed the images in the article's slideshow, the enormity of the set makes the level of detail that much more striking.
okay, American horror Story is my guilty pleasure. I have watched every week of this season (and every other season), and even though the plot is messy, the sets and production are always on point. they have always been incredible at creating a decadent yet terrifying horrorscape for their cast of players to act upon. in this season it's the most beautiful and incredible set yet. not only do I love Art Deco, but it's inclusion of late 70's fur shining by Gaga's characters also add to my love of it. I hope this one wins the Emmy. these are honestly my career goals- working on an inventive and creative set.
This is so cool! I do watch the show and every season I notice the clear color palate throughout the design. There’s always such a clear, cohesive aesthetic achieved throughout the show. It’s so interesting to hear the process, and for it to be so basic, for lack of a better word. I mean, I use Pinterest for my art projects, so to hear the Set Decorator for this huge show does the same thing is crazy. I suppose it really is about having an eye, a very clear idea of what it is that you want, and scouring eBay and craigslist until you see something that can be made into something. Something I hadn’t noticed in the show until it was pointed out to me in this article was all the architectural lighting used in the scenes. It really is all about the detail, and it blows my mind that such thoroughly thought out sets began with some google searches.
Although I personally don't watch American Horror story very often, or much at all for that matter, I have seen the show enough to appreciate the thorough work of production designer Mark Worthington and set decorator Ellen Brill. Their work is perhaps the biggest merit to the show because their care and detail in the set decorating works to create the heavily stylized environments that the show format demands and provokes the audience's interest with a new unexplored world being unveiled with each season's installment. It looks like this new season is no exception. I love the burgundy and silver based color palette Worthington developed to create the Art Deco jewel-toned Los Angeles hotel the show takes place in this season. Although television and films have a much higher budget than theater ever does I think its interesting to hear how production designers of all areas of entertainment rely heavily on the same practices of eBay and Craigslist hunting, and utilize tools like Pinterest to plan out their ideas. As someone who's interested in going into production design its nice to know I'm on the right track. Although I'm not a huge fan of the show, I'm excited to catch a glimpse of it here and there this season, where I can appreciate the skilled production design that I believe propels it forward.
Like Amanda, I think the strongest part of its design is actually its consistency. That is not to say that each design is the same, only that we are able to look to the same man for each in unifying each of the seasons. There is nothing worse than a series without a unified design. I mean nothing worse. Can we change the subject to Harry Potter for a few seconds? This story is supposed to be about love, friendship, and bravery. The first two movies reflected these themes absolutely beautifully, and with the change of director, switched almost immediately to "this is an action movie! Let's make cool action-y things happen in really low light and everyone can wear dark clothes and forego their schoolwork." The disconnect between the first two movies and the last six is very disappointing and, to me, completely ruins the unity of the series. With something like American Horror Story, which is already disconnected from itself, it is absolutely crucial that the design runs from start to finish with the same intention. When the series is brought together and connects in the "arc" everyone talks about, everything I think will make a lot more sense.
As the Art Deco period and television sets never cease to fascinate me a, I found this article extremely interesting. With as polished and as cohesive as the finished set looks, you would never have guessed that every individual piece, from the light fixtures to the paint on the wall, has a back-story and a history to make it what it has become today. What I find most impressive is the overall unity the set has--it looks like each pieces was constructed just for the set, and nothing else. I believe it takes an extremely talented designer to look beyond the physical state of an object and see the possibilities that lie beneath the surface. For such a well known and thriving series such as “American Horror Story,” one would assume that no limits would be set on the budget for the decadent interior, but no matter where you are, budgets are tight and that’s just another reality of the entertainment industry.
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