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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2012 - 12:10 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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I spent a very historically-interesting evening at Mount Rushmore last night.
Not the "real" Mount Rushmore, of course, but the one created by MGM for
Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST in 1959.
In honor of the Hollywood Motion Picture Art Director's Guild 75th Anniversary,
a company called JC Backings presented an open house to invited guests for a
salon-style viewing of nearly 25 selected scenic backings used in old and new
film productions.
These "backings" are the giant hand-painted muslin scenic images that can be seen
in films outside office and home windows and doorways, and extending the vistas of
soundstage forests, deserts, sci-fi planets, etc. to assist in creating a photographic
world that doesn't otherwise exist. Up close, the paintings seem quite impressionistic---
almost pointillistic---but when you step back 15 or 20 feet, they are photo-realistic,
like actual color photographs. Of course they have to be, unless some sort
of special creative effect is required---a use as a musical backdrop, for example.
The venue in which this was held is as historical as the many backings shown.
It is the huge 10 story Scenic Paint Department at the old MGM Studios in Culver
City---now Sony Entertainment---where all of these paintings were created.
It's often called "the paint frame" by insiders and it is speculated that it is the last
of its size and type in the United States. The building is very tall and quite large in
open space---perhaps 50 x 150 feet. The painting area, at about the fourth
floor level (which is called the second floor because there ARE only two), is divided
into 2 very wide corridors, running to the full height of the upper building, and parallel
to huge frosted window sections which allow ideal light to filter into the building.
On each side of each of these two corridors are electrically-operated battens which can
lift or lower each attached backing (some of which can reach 40x100 feet in size) up or
down to allow the artist (artists) to paint in any area of the backing simply by standing
in front of it. The upper part of the backing can be painted because the backing can
be lowered through a narrow slot in this floor, and the backing can be raised to the full
height of the building to allow for painting of the bottom part of the backing. It's all
quite efficient and ingenious---and relatively uncomplex---to accomplish a job which
previously had to be done by the laborious process of climbing up-and-down scaffoldings
to paint on the backings which were hung, in raw form, on the actual soundstages where
their filming took place.
The building was constructed around 1940 and has been in constant use since. JC Backings
is a company which purchased the remaining MGM stock of backings, and purchased backings from other studios including Fox and Universal. They also hold a lease on the Scenic Building on the lot and create and supply new backings for the various studios under contract, as well as renting the old backings out. Their photo books of backings available for rent are a historical time capsule of images you remember from films you remember---if you are old enough!
While many, many backings from the past are now gone, due to wear or to having been painted over, many still exist---particularly from the mid-40s-1950s onward---and several of these were on display beyond the NORTH BY NORTHWEST "Mount Rushmore". I saw the "office corridor" backing Donald O'Connor "walks up" in his "Make 'em Laugh" number in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, an ancient Roman cityscape backing from BEN-HUR, a western backing from the Fox/John Wayne film NORTH TO ALASKA---and I had my picture taken in front of the riverside terrace backing for THE SOUND OF MUSIC! Some of the backings have ID numbers attached, but no film ID is known, but, since they seemed to be familiar to me, and I'm going to work with JC Backings to identify some of their older properties which they've been unable to sort out. I immediately saw things which looked like they might have come from YOUNG BESS (a beautiful 30x40 hand-painted tapestry which looked like real needlepoint up close), BARBARY COAST GENT (from the early 1940s), and WATUSI (or DRUMS OF AFRICA), from the late 1950s.
Because of my love of MGM, this evening was a very special moment in time for me---to be able to see just a small bit of the early history of the MGM "machine" still in use and to stand on the spot where some of that MGM magic was created.
Unfortunately it was also a reminder that, although these backings still exist, and more will be created in the next few years, the process is still doomed by CGI (although less expensive than CGI) and other digital processes which will make it obsolete.
The evening was another rare window into an era and area of creativity that is fast declining and will be forgotten and whose skills and techniques will be eventually lost to time.
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Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It has always been one of my dreams to see some of those vistas in person. Wow!
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anchored artistry behind the consummate craftsmanship
