Variety: Bold and vibrant. Glitz and glamour. Spectacular locations. Those words have become synonymous with the world of Ryan Murphy. The stories might be vastly different, but audiences across the worlds of TV and film know a Ryan Murphy set when they see one.
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Ryan Murphy films and shows definitely have their own look. In some ways I guess this can be advantageous, creating a brand for oneself can make stills from their film instantly recognizable. Looking at the stills in this article, Ryan Murphy's style of cinematography definitely reminds me of Wes Anderson. He's a perfect example of a film maker with such a defining style. He has the bright colors, the symmetrical frames, and the elaborate models. For Ryan Murphy's shows, his particular aesthetic of glitz and glam works. It's very classic Broadway/Hollywood, so it works very well for the Prom and Hollywood. Many of his properties center around people yearning for fame and glory, and a sort of aspirational but high class aesthetic works. However, I wonder if he ever tried to reach outside of these themes, would his aesthetic would still work? Maybe he could make murder scene glamorous in American Horror Story, but I wonder if a different aesthetic would service Ratched better.
In my humble opinion, maybe Ryan Murphy's production designers want to take a deep breath. Some of his designs work better than others, but especially on projects like The Prom, it feels over the top for no reason other than wanting a quote unquote "aesthetic." That being said, I have not watched Ratched and the production stills I have seen look pretty stunning, especially the color palette, so maybe it is more about the project and period. One thing that really bothered me about The Prom was that the set of the street with all the Broadway theaters was not accurate in the slightest. I know we should be suspending our disbelief and all that, but for a movie that a. is based on a Broadway musical and b. has Broadway pretty baked into the characters and the storyline, I feel like that was a detail they should have done more for.
Ryan Murphy films and shows can be spotted from a mile away. He has such a distinct style that honestly is pretty much the same in everything he comes up with. There is absolutely no doubt that he is a genius in that he knows exactly what he wants and he knows exactly what an audience is going to want to see, I just think that it is almost like a formula in which he makes new things but all of them have the same exact feel. I really think all of his work is very entertaining, I just think a lot of it is geared towards what idea will be able to make the most money which is unfortunate in a way. I do not know how I would feel about working with a director who has a clear image of every scene of everything he directs. There is a design team for a reason that is supposed to be taking his directorial vision and turning it into visual representations. It is weird to me that Ryan has this all in his head and dictates around his creative team like that. Regardless, he is extremely successful and is extremely talented at what he does.
I despise Ryan Murphy. I cannot think of a single Ryan Murphy film or series that I love unironically. I think he is the definition of style over substance. That being said, I do want to partially commend his production designers. Yes, their designs are often far too extravagant in such a way that actually distracts from the piece. But in my opinion, in some cases, if there was more actual substance in the content Ryan Murphy was churning out, it might justify some of the designer’s work. I can acknowledge that a set is pretty without thinking it fits in a story or a specific production. And that is largely how I feel about Ryan Murphy's body of work. He relies on his designers to create a world the audience likes to look at and lets the story, characters, dialogue, and plot holes fall to the backburner. So I guess, keep doing what you're doing designers (I don't blame you).
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