Oscar set revealed in NYT article

I opened my Sunday New York Times with much surprise. Were my eyes seeing what I thought...? It was not a dream. There was the set for Sunday's 81st Annual Academy Awards ceremony, pictured grandly on the Arts&Leisure cover. Here are the details extracted from the 1,900-word article, which can be read if full here:

This year's set is designed by none other than the architect of the Kodak Theatre itself - the very place designed for the ceremony: David Rockwell. (Note NYT, its theatre, not theater.) Rockwell said he is out to "redefine the show's DNA," trying to tame the beast - "a show on television celebrating the movies in a theater," as writer Patricia Leigh Brown describes it. "It's about celebration," said Rockwell, 52. "We want to make it less a big, pre-taped package and more a live show."

Rockwell designed the set with all this in mind. The set includes a 92,000-Swarovski-crystal curtain, fluted crystal chandeliers, shifting patterns of light on the stage floor, the orchestra out of the pit and onto the stage and a "new, curvaceous thrust" (think small peninsula jutting into the audience). Presenters will have LED screen behind them creating a "visual sensation," as the write describes it:
Screens will also appear in unlikely places. In the presentation on film editing, for example, LED screens will be deployed in a kinetic, architectural way. Nineteen of them, each with a different film image, will “fly dimensionally in space,” Mr. Rockwell said, an experience meant to suggest “being in the mind of someone editing.”
This year's mantra: "More intimacy. Less multiple layers of lamé." Look for a rich, deep blue color scheme.

This set sounds and looks very intriguing. Come Sunday we'll see just how intriguing it really is.

My favorite Oscar set in memory is from 2001's ceremony, which took the theme of science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey." The theme music was used and the set appeared to be a cylinder, with a huge Oscar statuette in the center.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Memoriam: Thank you for the journey, Roger Ebert

Image
Each week, my routine was the same. After watching the latest offering from Hollywood on the big screen, I composed my thoughts and analysis and wrote my review. Then, I read what Roger Ebert thought about the movie. This final step was important to me — week in and week out. If Ebert loved a movie I disliked, why was that? He always provided great commentary and gave me reasons to admire a certain film more or dislike it more. He has always been an important validator for me. It’s like we had a conversation about a movie each week. And now I’m on my own. I was devastated to hear about the loss of Ebert. He taught us all about movies and life. The New York Times called him “ A Critic for the Common Man .” He was the consummate writer, journalist, film critic and human being. Ebert just celebrated his 46th year as film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times . I always admired Ebert’s ability to draw on his life experiences when reviewing a film. The first line of his 2011 mem
Read more

Recent Star cuts represent growing trend

Post details: • Kansas City Star announced job cuts • Graphic designer creates Google Map to track cuts On Tuesday’s front page (6/17), the Kansas City Star staffer Dan Margolies wrote the Missouri-based newspaper is cutting 120 jobs (about 10 percent of its work force) – about 20 to 22 positions are expected to be eliminated in the newsroom. “These cuts are part of the way we must respond as we strategically realign our company for success in this digital age,” said Star Publisher Mark Zieman, who also called the move “a painful but necessary step,” in a memo to employees Monday. Zieman cited reductions in revenue because of increased competition and the current economic downturn as reasons for the cut. The Star is “struggling to replace lost print advertising revenue quickly enough with new online revenue,” the article stated. (Having one of the worst designed newspaper Web sites in the country and one that is hard to navigate, I can see why the Star is having problems online.) Oth
Read more

Week one in Chautauqua

Image
Looking out the window of the tour, I thought to myself, "Where am I? What is this place?" That was last Tuesday afternoon, June 16th. Today, I'm still asking that same question to myself - if only to a smaller extent. I am spending the summer as a design editor at the Chautauqua Institution's daily newspaper, the Chautauquan Daily . I'll be here at this utopia-like place until the end of August. That may answer the first question I asked myself, but there's still the second... Trying to describe the Institution is very hard. Over dinner Tuesday night, Institution president Tom Becker gave us a better idea of the place. It's like chocolate in that it's incomparable to anything else, he said. For me, Chautauqua is like many things: a resort, a summer home or lake house, a small college town, Disney World and, in a sense, Monaco. On Monday, resident archivist and historian Jon Schmitz stopped by the newsroom and helped describe the Institution anecdo
Read more