Set Design in Film

The paper explores Tati's use of new film media in 'Playtime' in ways that reveal more fundamental modes of social, mimetic and situational mediation as performed in the film by architects, and architect-like characters, and by the architectural settings which Jacques Tati devised.

Thinking on contemporary Sicily, as visual and so- cial palimpsest of it historical composition, makes the idea of a stage concept in a possible match with social archeology concerning late XX century and the big betrayed social and cultural projects’ utopia. Cinema and linked stage design, is used as narration instrument in the relationship be- tween human being and landscape and justifies aestethic study, drama’s media depth and didac- tic purpose.
Background is the contemporary Pirandello’s myth filmed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani and scr- renplaied with Tonino Guerra in Kàos (1984). In particular “Colloquio con la Madre”, pure invention episode adapted from Luigi Pirandello’s novel.
In the Taviani’s movie, an aged Pirandello travels alone by train to Girgenti, his born land. The journey has not a real reason, perhaps not totally sensed, till memories of his mother get personi- fied in her self.
The stage is immersed in a research like a ground- work, in thin and difficult balances between the history weight and contraddictory arises on the issue about fields to grow and worker world. The city of Militello in Val di Catania, open sky mine of sicilian architectonics genius, it’s the place where the screenplay is visually designed.
In this journey into the labyrinth-city’s viscera made by memories, the visual costruction corresponds to a discovery, or re-discovery of the city, working as a modulation of detail, memories, streets and square’s views.
A world, Sicily, where nothing is real surreal: a Sic- ily that is summation of what has been and what it is. About realism all concernes, about Pirendello’s realism or on a Verga’s verism evolution, toward a philosophical avangarde way: Metaverismo, or metaphisical verism, or rather a not satisfied reality, but depth in search the essence through abstration, exasperation and de-structuration.
Finally, this thesis tries to deepen and insist on the experimental use of Cinema, or rather Cinema as reflection place, creative workshop for society, on daily dramaturgy and on never ending questions born from historical and architectonic composition of our cities and the identity of humans who continue to live.

The discipline of "Film Studies" sometimes has implied the influence of cultural studies on study of cinema and, with that, a leaning against overdetermined close readings. Some set and costume design practices, similarly, aim for art of being invisible, to do its job without being a distraction to the narrative or performances. For certain works in the horror genre that have had strong fan followings, this chapter argues for a balance between the merits of cultural studies approaches with fan studies approaches that include fan behavior of overdetermined close readings as well as set and costume design practices in which showcasing the craft is part of a particular intentionality. This chapter uses horror cinema as a case study, and specifically three films inspired by the serial killer, Ed Gein, whose representation involves horrific framing of his house and furnishings (the sets and costumes). Looking at Hitchcock's Psycho, Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Demme's Silence of the Lambs, this chapter examines the role of set and costume design within an overdetermined dialog between filmmakers and fans.

Se propone la implementación de la Psicología del color, como el basamento teórico
encargado de estudiar la incidencia del cromatismo en las emociones humanas, para cohesionar
las propuestas estéticas de los departamentos de Fotografía y Arte durante el proceso de
producción del cortometraje El Milagro de Lili (2017), engranando con la etapa de
postproducción durante el Etalonaje Digital.

NB - only the first half of the book here. From stolen pearls to a glove left at the scene of the crime, an excess of red lipstick or the postmodern gangster silhouette, If Looks Could Kill explores the compelling links between cinema, fashion, crime and violence. Tackling themes such as disguise, the expression of desire, juvenile delinquency and the corruption of beauty, this volume features a string of underworld characters (and their prosecutors) whose highly effective styling and sartorial gestures helped define cinematic genres from detective to thriller, gangster, film noir and horror.

Edited by Marketa Uhlirova, Co-founder, Director and Curator of London’s Fashion in Film Festival, If Looks Could Kill features an extensive line-up of new essays on fashion and crime in cinema by acclaimed writers including Tom Gunning, Elizabeth Wilson, Caroline Evans, Roger K. Burton and Charlie T. Porter.

Production play addresses the constructed and productive fantasies between film producers and fans. “Play” has occupied a place in various theoretical discourses, but the key areas of overlap refer to experiences of bracketed time and space, where both absorption and creativity can form with lowered limitations. For fans of beloved films, play is the mechanism behind repeated viewings, for scouring the visual plane for “clues” to meaningful readings, and for bolstering the fantasy of connecting with the “original” production and producers, cast, and crew.

This book explores cinema costume as a form of opulent visual spectacle. It focuses on dozens of lavishly styled films made during three distinct historical ‘episodes’ in European and American cinema – early film of the turn of the 20th century, popular exotic spectaculars of the 1910s and ’20s, and underground queer cinema with its core activity in the 1960s – in order to examine how and why they often foregrounded dress as the star of the show. Looking at the medium of film in parallel with wider cultures of urban popular spectacle and entertainment, especially fashion, dance and the theatre, the contributors to this book explore how dynamic displays of costume and splendour have helped visualise certain key concerns of modernity, such as movement, time, transience and gender identity. Above all, the essays highlight the immense transformative potential of costume and fashion in the moving image and beyond. The volume is illustrated with over 300 film stills, frame enlargements and other archival images.

With essays by: Mireille Beaulieu, Tag Gronberg, Nick Rees-Roberts, Joan Tumblety.

This dossier is dedicated to Marcel L’Herbier, a seminal figure in twentieth-century cinema who, although very prolific, remains little known outside France. It grows out of the 4th Fashion in Film Festival, a film season which celebrated L’Herbier’s unique position in French cinema – and cinema more generally – as a driving force behind many significant artistic collaborations, with an emphasis on the extraordinarily fruitful years between 1918-1932.

In this research I have asked; what do we see when we see a virtual set - do we see pixels in a two dimensional picture, or three dimensional environments?  As a starting point I assume that every virtual set deludes our senses, or in other words creates an illusion. In this sense the virtual set continues the tradition of production design illusion technologies, however it is not necessarily similar to those kinds of illusion as realized with traditional illusion techniques, such as trompe l’oeil painting.  This assumption has been important in my research and has led to the question of how the virtual set differs from earlier illusions. Furthermore, it asks how the virtual set meets the challenges that every production design has to conquer in order to be able to create a world of cinema. 
My research is conducted in the light of two virtual set productions: L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Kroma Productions 2004) and Luonnotar (Kroma Productions 2011). Both of these productions have been shot entirely in a bluescreen studio with virtual sets. Practical examples from these productions are used as information, to show how the virtual set creates believable fictional environments. These productions have also been the test bed for artistic ‘making and matching’, as they form a research result part of their own, for instance when the experiences gained in the making of L’Enfant were utilized in the making of Luonnotar.  As such, my research is an example of a case study, in which practice-based knowledge is utilized.
The theoretical framework of my thesis is formulated by cognitive and ecological psychology, especially the work of ecological psychologist James J. Gibson. His idea of ecological vision comprising an ambient optic array forms a basis of my research. This approach emphasizes the perception of surfaces in the environment. According to Gibson, we don’t live in space - instead we live in an environment consisting of substances and a medium. The medium is a gaseous atmosphere and surfaces separate the substances from this medium.  In addition to Gibson’s work, a variety of film research is emphasized, especially film researcher Richard Allen’s categories of illusion, which are applied within the research.
The central outcome of the research is that the virtual set is identified as a moving illusion, i.e. something alive. This is in contrast to previous illusion technologies, which were only able to create an impression of the three dimensional environment as still images (trompe l’oeil). Thus, a novel concept of the animate optic array is established to depict the kind of mobile illusion actualized by the virtual set. ‘Animate’ stands in opposition to Gibson’s concept of ‘frozen’. An animate optic array emphasizes that the virtual set is a vision of a digital picture that is ‘non-frozen’ and thus subject to constant change. Animate optic array also recognizes the nature of the virtual set as being formed by synthetic, moving surfaces.
The virtual set also puts in place a whole new series of rules for the fictional universe. Within the research, I have pointed out that the experience of production design is analogical to the experience of the real world.  An understanding of such design needs to be based on the perceptual and cognitive processes of everyday life. However, the digital universe doesn’t behave like our everyday world; instead, it promotes unusual experiences. For instance, we can fluently transit from microcosmos to macrocosmos within single shot - spaces becomes navigable. Another example of this new logic is liquid scenery and in the digital universe, scenery surfaces can undergo transformations in an unlimited way.
I have further proposed that production design can also be interpreted through Gibson’s concept of affordance. As an example; a chair can have an affordance in the real world, it can be perceived as ‘sit-on-able’. Likewise in the production design context; the character is positioned in relationship to his environment which in turn is designed to meet the requirements of the story and its events. So, the design provides the chair for character on which to ‘sit’ and based on the character’s active behavior needs, the scenic elements can also be perceived  as meaningful.
The research has provided much needed material in a field where there has little prior research. The use of two of my own productions has provided enlightening examples, on which to solidly base the research. The research results echo the tendencies in current film industry of digital effects and shows that there is much room for further exploration in the area of production design research.  Ecological theory might well provide a valuable means to approach the subject and particularly, Gibson’s theoretical approach to the environment provides a good base from which to examine the theory of production design.
Key terms: virtual set, digital effects, production design, ecological psychology, illusion.

The position of the film industry in Germany was hardly noticeable before the First World War. Max Skladanowsky, Oskar Messtor, Asta Nielson and Paul Davidson were among the few notable people to establish the film industry in Germany. A large number of film studios were thus established during that time. The socio- economic structure of Germany suffered a heavy loss after the First World War. There was poverty, unemployment and lot many insecurities surrounding all over the country. Slowly the process of German Expressionism evolved the painters broke their attachments from nature and started to depict the horrors of wars, the true happening in our daily life. The German Expressionist movement had its impact on filmmaking. The Expressionist directors like Robert Wiene, Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Paul Leni, Paul Wegener, Karl Freund, Henrik Galeen and Karlheinz Martin were some of the most prominent personalities who adopted the style in a convenient manner. A lot of abstract ideas came to the mind of these people which had a consequent impact on their over- emphasized and haunting lighting techniques, distorted set design and stylized camera work to portray the specific outcome of terror, fright and agony.

Today, our society is changing with constant speed raising the question of how we understand and design our world, our vision of it. Landscape, as a synthesis between architecture and urbanism , asks for new theoretical and practical research due to new design tendency. Charles Waldheim, professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University, identifies two typologies concerning this issue (Landscape video – transcription, experience, narration, 2011). The first one refers to a synoptic system (conditioned by GIS applications and orthophotoplan) and the second one to scenography, sensitive and subjective representation (rendering images, collages and photo/video montages).
This paper explores the sensitive perspective in landscape studies, how landscape is depicted in cinema as a cultural shared vision of a certain matter. It synthetizes a theoretical framework about landscape engaging in set design, the landscape ambiance and the dramatic, documentary and sub-textual roles of landscape.

"Robert Neuman’s latest book is a masterful deep-dive into the hows and whys of Disneyland’s creation.  The themed “lands” and rides in the Magic Kingdom owe a huge debt, long ignored or overlooked, to directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, Michael Curtiz, lesser lights like W. S. Van Dyke, and flag-waving fare favored by movie moguls like Louis B. Mayer and Darryl F. Zanuck.  Disney’s “fabulous playground,” as Walt once called it, tapped into storylines and cinematic clichés in motion pictures seen by millions of Americans in the pre- and postwar years, and (equally important) adopted many of the skills and production techniques used to make them. Disneyland’s subliminal ties to canonical film genres, combined with the imaginative genius and showmanship of the park’s master builder, are what made it the enchanting experience it was in the beginning, and remains still today." 
 Garry Apgar, Trinity College, author of A Mickey Mouse Reader and Mickey Mouse: Emblem of the American Spirit.

"Neuman's study offers Disney scholars an invaluable missing link between the fantasylands of Disney and those of the Hollywood studios of the Golden Age.  Accessibly written and diligently researched, this is a valuable contribution to the field, which will be of importance to students and enthusiasts of both Disney and Hollywood film. 
        Deborah Philips, University of Brighton, author of Fairground Attractions: A Geneology of the Plelasure Ground.

Handelt es sich bei einem Szenenbild eigentlich um Architektur? Oder müsste man es eher den illusionistischen Künsten zurechnen, der Malerei und der Zeichnung, dem Kulissenbau, den Panoramen und schließlich dem Film selbst, zu welchem die Szenenbilder integral gehören und zu dessen Raumwirkung sie maßgeblich beitragen? Filmische Szenenbilder weisen fraglos Eigenschaften auf, die man im herkömmlichen Sinn als architektonisch bezeichnen könnte. Die digitalen Bildwelten ausgenommen, handelt es sich bei einem Filmset zunächst einmal um etwas tatsächlich Gebautes, um eine konkrete Konstruktion, die wie ein Bauwerk in der wirklichen Welt bestimmten statischen und materiellen Anforderungen gehorchen muss. Im Ausmaß, in dem die Handlung den Raum in Anspruch nimmt, muss diese Filmarchitektur, muss das ganze Production Design des Weiteren auch funktional sein: Türen und Fenster müssen sich öffnen lassen, Räume muss man durchqueren, Tische, Lampen oder Schränke wie in Wirklichkeit benutzen können. Wenn schließlich ein Schauspieler die Szenerie betritt und sich darin bewegt, wird die Filmarchitektur-so abstrakt oder fantastisch sie auch sein mag-in das Bezugssystem des menschlichen Maßstabs gesetzt: Das so genannte "Szenenbild", lässt sich folgern, ist eben mehr als ein bloßes Bild, es schafft vielmehr einen dreidimensionalen Raum, in welchem die Szenen des Films sich abspielen. Aber selbst wenn Szenenbilder wie wirkliche Architekturen konstruiert sind (was streng genommen natürlich nicht zutrifft, da es sich in den meisten Fällen bloß um Fragmente eines suggerierten Ganzen handelt, deren Robustheit zudem nur vorgetäuscht ist), so gehören sie, was ihre Rezeption betrifft, doch ins Reich der Illusion. Wir können eine Filmarchitektur weder physisch durchschreiten noch tatsächlich berühren oder benutzen, da der Ort, wo sie in Erscheinung tritt, nicht die wirkliche Welt, sondern die Leinwand ist. Kurz: Was auf dem Filmset als Raum gebaut wurde, wird im Kino wieder zum Bild. Zwischen Architektur und Illusion Wollte man die Tätigkeit des Production Designers also in einer weiter gefassten Architekturgeschichte verorten, so wäre sie wohl am ehesten jener schillernden Seitenlinie zuzuordnen, auf welcher die Maler-Architekten, die Utopisten und Erfinder anzutreffen sind: Architekten, deren Entwürfe und Visionen gerade nicht im gebautem Zustand, sondern in medialer Form-als Bilder, Pläne oder Skizzen-am meisten Wirkung entfalteten.

Westworld (2016 - ) is a television series designed around an entirely curated and controllable holiday destination. This exclusive theme park is directed for the
obscenely wealthy, in an alternative future. There, guests can live out their fantasies, no matter how violent, on hyper-real robots called hosts who live in programmed
loops. However; things start to go ‘wrong’ when these hosts start to become conscious and realize what has been happening to them. The show explores their
journey and experiences, alongside the humans in the park and artfully delves into the notion of consciousness, free will and what it means to be human.
The dual Westworld sets exist within the world of Season 2, Episode 4: The Riddle of the Sphinx. They are the setting of a particular narrative in the episode involving the Park founder and his attempted journey to immortality and eventual death. The space exists as one location in the show and as two in reality; one for the interior and one for the exterior. It needs to fulfil two contradictory storytelling requirements,
exploring the private, domestic story of the unbeknownst, occupant’s monotonous
life; while simultaneously dominating the space with notions of pervasive surveillance needed in a controlled experiment in the park’s behind the scenes laboratories.
I will primarily analyze this space through the lenses of programming and heterotopia. Defining heterotopia, simply, as programming that has expanded to refer to multiple different ideas, moments or spatial hierarchies simultaneously that exist within a network of contradiction and inverted relationships. The discussion will be focused on the simultaneous uses of the set’s inverted panopticon form. Design principals and core ideas that will be relevant for analysis are: Typology
and Form, Program or circulation to use, Repetition, Symbolism, Narratives and Storylines, Public vs. Private and Transparency, Hierarchy, and lighting.

In film imagery, urban spaces show up not only as spatial settings of a story, but also as projected ideas and forms that aim to recreate and capture the spirit of cultures, societies and epochs. Some cinematic cities have even managed to transcend fiction to become part of modern collective memory. The volume looks behind and beyond intended archaeological accuracy, symbolic fantasy, primitivism, exoticism and Hollywood-esque monumentality. It pays particular attention to the depiction of cities as faces of ancient civilizations, but also as containers of moral ideas and cultural fashions deeply rooted in the contemporary zeitgeist and in continuously revisited traditions.

This paper confronts, initially, the personal library of the French neurologist, Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) -- known especially for his work on ‘hysteria’ -- which after 150 years became a patrimonial one. By tracing its journeys, we discover that over the course of time it has been considered by some to be ‘an inhabited library,’ and by others, ‘a deserted library,’ ‘a dead library,’ and ‘an avatar.’ The library reached a point when it became disembodied, with the books (organs) castrated from the original bookcase, furniture or, boiserie (the body) that its founder and former owner designed especially for them. Today, this bookcase, now a Body without Organs, is ‘uninhabited’ and displayed in a deserted room, whereas the book collection has been relocated to another library, and is also about to enter a virtual body after the completion of its digization. But what will become of the furniture? Each column that defines the sixteen sections of the library has a wooden, carved head on its top, portraying a range of physiological expressive emotions, from the most fearful to the most dramatic and ludicrous, mirroring the surprisingly asymmetric, grotesque faces that characterize the hysteric family. It seems as though Charcot’s sketches jumped out of his notebooks to take shape as Rococo-style wood ornamentations on the bookcase’s façade. Given that hysteria was a somewhat pre-linguistic, silent, somatic language, a form of corporeal ‘poetics’ (Breton and Aragon), a ‘language of gestures’ (Didi-Huberman), and with Charcot establishing an alphabet of passions through the categorisation of its phases, I propose that the boiserie, despite its lack of books, is by the same token something that is meant to be read. My investigation results to a reimagining of the bookcase by turning it into a shrine and a film set.

Read the full article online: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/X5CBX9JIFUMVaMsm64mb/full

An emergency meeting held at UNSC, Human Rights chief said that " Ethnic Cleansing " is taking place. Over the past two weeks an estimated 3,70,000 refugees have poured across the Bangladeshi border to take shelter in squalid refugee camps. Refugees and human rights groups say that the Burmese military and local vigilantes are systematically targeting civilians in a campaign of terror characterised by house burnings, mass shootings, beheading and gang rape.

Extract in lieu of abstract:

Despite Hodgen’s objections to it, the blending of the Gothic with Science Fiction is quite well recognised in literary SF, the most famous early example being the prevalence of ‘imaginative’ fiction at the forefront of romanticism (Roberts, 2006. 42-50; Bratlinger, 1980), a trend coinciding with the publication of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus (Aldiss, 1973. 18).  Despite there being earlier examples of work that could be considered SF, the most significant of which is Margret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (1666), the idea that SF developed from the Gothic, or from Frankenstein, can be historically contested.  In formalist terms (Botting, 2005. 111-126) the ‘issue is not so much whether SF grows out of the Gothic (. . .), but rather how responsive SF texts would be to an interpretation informed by Gothic practices’ (Seed, 2005. 3).  In a book about Gothic film, this would seem to be a very good place to start when constructing a definition of SF film.  Eventually, of course, ‘the conjunction of two hybrid genres composed from diverse literary and mythical precursors breeds monstrosities’ (Botting, 2005. 111), especially as the task of identifying either is itself monstrous.  The definition this chapter posits is itself contestable, but it offers a language derived from Darko Suvin and Vivian Sobchack that can be used to examine the Gothic elements of science fiction films which, when they manifest, appear often as one of two aspects: either visually in the production design, or thematicaly within the dramatic narrative.  To explore how the Gothic elements of ‘transcendental … religion and magic’ (Sobchack, 1998. 63) work in Science Fiction, this chapter will first examine and define the presence of visual Gothic conceits in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and then look at how Gothic themes appear in the visuals and dramatic narratives of Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009) and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015).

In this article, I deploy a chronotopic analysis of early 1930s woman's films to flesh out semiotic and phenomenological representations of American modernity through the figure of the modern woman. I emphasize how concrete ilm spaces—the private spaces of modern apartments and the public and work spaces of hotels, office buildings, and department stores—function as expressions of the modern woman chronotope in both semiotic—as producers and conveyors of meaning—and phenomenological senses—permiting a certain way of being. his will serve to show how a progressive vision of American modernity was articulated through the figure of the modern woman in early 1930s Hollywood films, and that as a chronotope, the modern woman was intimately linked with a hopeful conception of American democracy.

Français: L'auteure procède à une analyse chronotopique de la femme dans les films du début des années 1930 afin d'en extraire les représentations sémiotiques et phénoménologiques de la modernité américaine à travers le personnage de la femme moderne. Elle met en relief la façon dont les espaces filmiques concrets — c'est-à-dire les espaces privés d'appartements modernes, et les espaces publics et les espaces de travail des hôtels, des immeubles de bureaux et des grands magasins — servent à exprimer le chronotope de la femme moderne sur les plans à la fois sémiotique — à titre de producteurs et de vecteurs de sens — et phénoménologique — à titre de cadre se prêtant à une certaine manière d'être. Les résultats de cette analyse illustrent comment s'est articulée une vision évolutive de la modernité américaine au moyen de la représentation de la femme moderne dans les films hollywoodiens du début des années 1930, et ils confirment qu'à titre de chronotope, la femme moderne s'est trouvée intimement liée à une conception optimiste de la démocratie américaine. Mots clés : années 1930, Bakhtin, cinéma classique hollywoodien, modernité américaine, représentation filmique de la femme, scénographies.

Psychological thrillers or horror movies often rely upon a battle within a confined space, be it a crumbling urban building, a suburban home, or a rural retreat. Tension is derived from the sense of desperation to traverse the boundaries of the space and escape into the ‘outside’. However, placing this confined space into an isolated open space like the sea creates an extra level of tension, considerably removing the chances of either escape, or help from external agencies.

This paper will examine the visual representation of space within Dead Calm (1989) and The Ferryman (2007), both productions set on yachts that are far from dry land. The former is an Australian thriller, starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, whilst The Ferryman is a New Zealand demonic possession film, starring Kerry Fox and John Rhys-Davies that engages with mythological beliefs. Despite the different approaches to horror within the two films, they occupy similar positions in their dependence on isolation; the tension in these films occurs at the junction between the agoraphobia provoked by the vastness of such open water, and the claustrophobia caused by the close confines within and upon the boats. Both films are also notable for their use of doubling, featuring both a ‘good’ boat and its darker twin, as well as a reliance upon legend and metaphor; in The Ferryman, the aim of the antagonist is to cheat Charon, the ferryman of Greek myth, while the visuals of Dead Calm turn the ‘bad’ yacht into an Underworld into which Sam Neill must descend to save his wife.
This paper will consider the use of space as a narrative and stylistic device, with the struggle to control space becoming the means to disavow the isolation of the sea.

This talk focuses on Kubrick‘s iconic hotel room set design in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or, as Ralf Fischer coins it, Louis-Seize room in the film’s fourth act and its impact on interiors and visual aesthetics in current computer games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) or Echo (2017). The latter as well as Portal 2 (2011) also expand topics like non-Euclidean paradoxes and trans- or post-humanism beyond the semiotics and visual aesthetics of environmental storytelling into modularity and variability of game worlds and thus into algorithms as well as game mechanics.

Films are full of surfaces we see and hear, and which inform our comprehension of space and the bodies that move through it. The detail of these surfaces might be drawn attention to through narrative or emotive importance or elided in their inconspicuousness. Surfaces are functional, as the filmic world, like our own, is constituted of a variety of objects and spaces. They are also affective, providing the tangible parameters of an intangible object, giving depth and materiality to cinema. Through detailed examples, this paper will seek to explore the form and meaning of surface in film, through consideration of texture. In visual art, texture is used to describe the tactile quality of surface and its function, the way it works to relate content and affect. The character of material chosen is functional both in the creation of substance and meaning. The material properties of surface in a film, communicated both visually and aurally, indicate the constitution of a space (is it hard, rough, smooth or soft?) and therefore indicate the qualities of a fictional world (is it precarious or treacherous, luxurious or comforting?). By attending to and trying to describe the fine detail, the consistency of a surface as it is perceived, we can be more precise about the nature or quality of the film world. For example, shiny and smooth, though very similar, evoke different consistencies: shiny can be hard, brittle or reflective, while smooth can be matt, soft or elastic; shininess can be a result of light on a surface, while sound can smooth over. Texture for film, therefore, channels concern with affect through concrete description, foregrounding the importance of arguments about film that are grounded in the text, in its consistency.

This essay is the second in a three-part series about ideology and space on AMC's lauded television show "Mad Men." See the attached link to "Flow"'s website, where the article was published, for embedded videos intended to be viewed alongside reading the essay.