SONJA KLAUS / SET DECORATING EXPLAINED

With movie nerds on the look out for even the smallest of anachronisms and even ordinary viewers increasingly savvy, it is essential to make film sets perfect.

Klaus has been decorating major film sets for more than a decade and made her breakthrough with Ridley Scott’s massive hit Gladiator (main photo) in 2000. Since then she has become a Scott regular, handing the set decorating jobs for A Good Year, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster (photo this page) and, currently, Body of Lies, about journalist chasing an Al Qaeda leader in Jordan.

To escape the heat of Middle East battles she ventured home to the winter chill at London’s Covent Garden to turn the Piazza into a white wonderland and share a few insights into her career.

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Klaus says: Gladiator is the favourite of the films I have done so far, not least of all because it was my first film with Ridley.

He works in a very fluid way, organic and spontaneous, which is challenging but also very attractive for a set decorator like me.

His boundless energy and enthusiasm never cease to amaze me! And I am constantly learning from him-

Film making is a collaboration and both Ridley and his Production Designer, Arthur Max, are extremely generous in allowing me to be innovative and bring my own unique vision to their films.

On Gladiator, the design challenges we faced every day were immense and yielded fascinating results so it is difficult to choose any single set that I was most pleased with.

There is one, however, that I particularly enjoyed doing, even though I had the least amount of time to prepare it and limited funds.

This was Commodus's chambers, which had to be the exceptionally elaborate to start, and then be transformed into Commodus's office and then transformed yet again in the Throne room.

I might also mention one of the sets from Kingdom of Heaven that I most enjoyed dressing. This was the King's chambers for the chess scene in the Alcazar palace in Seville. It was extremely important to get the all details right and to be sympathetic to the existing architecture.

Working in historic buildings is always tricky as everything needs to be free standing, which can be very difficult for many props, like large billowing drapes (one of Ridley’s favourite decorative touches).

All films require extensive research, but period pieces are especially complicated. Gladiator was set in the Roman period and nearly all of the furniture, statutary, vehicles, drapes and hand props were manufactured.

I usually run a department divided into several sections i.e. draughting, prop making (which includes model makers/sculptors/leather workers/basket weavers/metal workers/blacksmiths/Potters/glassblowers/cabinet makers/wheelwrights etc), drapes,animals,carts,prop dressers, greens men, florists and home conomists.

Of course, the department is much smaller on films where there less need to manufacture to such an extent, like American Gangster.

For the scene on the main street in Bangkok, I simply employed a local sign maker to create the large neon signs we needed to give the street a 1970s look.

Our latest film, Body of Lies, was a difficult challenge. Research was necessarily restricted to printed matter and the internet rather than site visits. Access to the war zones of Iraq was not an option.

We shot in Morocco, and it was an excellent location as it offered the diversity of landscape and architecture we needed.

It also helped to have the backing of the Moroccan army for various military vehicles and fighter planes.

At one point we had to recreate the terror of an Iraqi check point on one of the busiest streets in downtown Rabat? Simple: we just parked a few large tanks in the middle of it!

Revised January 3, 2008.

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Klaus also decorated the piazza in Covent Garden, central London, and added:

Designing the Christmas decorations for Covent Garden is a very different matter from working on films.

The sets for films are transitory, creating a scene a director want the audience to see for a few minutes. But the decorations at Covent Garden are always on display open to constant inspection.

And there are limitations when working in a public space which can hamper design decisions. I felt it was like designing for Theatre In The Round and adding areas to be discovered during the journey around the space.

But it has been a fabulous job. The architecture and the history of the site are tremendous.

I did employ some of the familiar filmmaking crafts, such as prop manufacturing of bespoke pieces, including the resin crystals for the chandeliers, and weaving techniques to accent the architectural features with sculpted woven branches at the tops of all the external columns.

I was asked to create an atmosphere that was traditional, impressive and magical and I looked mostly at the shape and architecture of the building to give me inspiration but also was stirred by memories and wintery photos of Christmases past.

I used lots of natural products in the decorations such as unstripped willow, roots, bark, seed pods, and drift wood.

Filed December 21, 2007.