North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock 1959) Is a great example of good set making. From the elegant and modern house of the villain, to the brutal fight scene on the authentically built faces on Mount Rushmore, the authentic and elaborate sets make this movie believable.
The "Vandamm house" is an example of professional set designers building sets that not only fit with the plotline, but also fit with the times. at the time, Frank Loydd Wright was a very popular architect, and Hitchcock wanted the Vandamm house to reflect that sort of style, Vandamm being a rich "art" collecter, it seems that his character would have a house just like this. North By Northwest is a film in which almost all of the characters live very wealthy and luxurious lives, so the Vandamm house fits right in with the elegant lifestyle that he, and almost all the other characters live. In order to capture this luxurious mood, Hitchcock really wanted to have a Frank Loydd Wright house as his set, although a huge challenge was presented with this goal, the emmense cost of such a house. So Hitchcock got his set designers (Robert Boyle, William A. Horning, Merril Pye, and Frank McKelvey) to create a Frank-Loydd-Wright-ish style house. This took a long time and they faced many challenges presented by this modern, even abstract architecture. Although only a select few parts of the house were actually built, mainly consisting of indoor rooms like the living room and the bedroom and a few upclose outdoors shots like the garage and the porch. The house you see from the distance was entirely face, no, they didnt actually build a huge house just for the movie. The architectual problems that they faced were mainly in the outdoor shots. The big problem that they had to deal with was the support, if the steel beams were strong enough to carry its load and if the angle they are at is undesireable. The crew even took a few shortcuts to lessen the expense; most of the supposed limestone was actually made out of plaster, and a lot of the windows were actually bare, there was no glass involved. Most of the far away shots you see are mostly just paintings, like the shot when Thornhill first approaches the elaborate house, there is just a painting digitally added to the scene of the house.
another very elaborate setting is on Mount Ruchmore. You can tell that the set designers had trouble with this one. They had to make an exact, upclose replica of certain parts of faces on Mount Rushmore, but they did a brillient job, they even put indents into the plaster to make it look like the places where the dinomite was actually placed in order to make the real thing, and the details on the faces are phenominal and very authentic looking. It actually is very interessting to see what Mount Rushmore looks like up close like that, and you can assume that what you see in the movie is as close as you are going to get to seeing the real thing.
The set designers in North By Northwest had some troublesome tasks in creating certain scenes. Not only did they have to paint and design the Vandamm house, they also had to make certain parts of the house themselves and incorperate rooms that fit to the design. They also had to create a lifesize, authentic replica of certain portions of the Mount Rushmore faces. They did a fantastic job though, after viewing this film, you could sware that there was a huge modern house on top of Mount Rushmore, and that people actually climbed on the faces and fought to the death on Washington's face.
The "Vandamm house" is an example of professional set designers building sets that not only fit with the plotline, but also fit with the times. at the time, Frank Loydd Wright was a very popular architect, and Hitchcock wanted the Vandamm house to reflect that sort of style, Vandamm being a rich "art" collecter, it seems that his character would have a house just like this. North By Northwest is a film in which almost all of the characters live very wealthy and luxurious lives, so the Vandamm house fits right in with the elegant lifestyle that he, and almost all the other characters live. In order to capture this luxurious mood, Hitchcock really wanted to have a Frank Loydd Wright house as his set, although a huge challenge was presented with this goal, the emmense cost of such a house. So Hitchcock got his set designers (Robert Boyle, William A. Horning, Merril Pye, and Frank McKelvey) to create a Frank-Loydd-Wright-ish style house. This took a long time and they faced many challenges presented by this modern, even abstract architecture. Although only a select few parts of the house were actually built, mainly consisting of indoor rooms like the living room and the bedroom and a few upclose outdoors shots like the garage and the porch. The house you see from the distance was entirely face, no, they didnt actually build a huge house just for the movie. The architectual problems that they faced were mainly in the outdoor shots. The big problem that they had to deal with was the support, if the steel beams were strong enough to carry its load and if the angle they are at is undesireable. The crew even took a few shortcuts to lessen the expense; most of the supposed limestone was actually made out of plaster, and a lot of the windows were actually bare, there was no glass involved. Most of the far away shots you see are mostly just paintings, like the shot when Thornhill first approaches the elaborate house, there is just a painting digitally added to the scene of the house.
another very elaborate setting is on Mount Ruchmore. You can tell that the set designers had trouble with this one. They had to make an exact, upclose replica of certain parts of faces on Mount Rushmore, but they did a brillient job, they even put indents into the plaster to make it look like the places where the dinomite was actually placed in order to make the real thing, and the details on the faces are phenominal and very authentic looking. It actually is very interessting to see what Mount Rushmore looks like up close like that, and you can assume that what you see in the movie is as close as you are going to get to seeing the real thing.
The set designers in North By Northwest had some troublesome tasks in creating certain scenes. Not only did they have to paint and design the Vandamm house, they also had to make certain parts of the house themselves and incorperate rooms that fit to the design. They also had to create a lifesize, authentic replica of certain portions of the Mount Rushmore faces. They did a fantastic job though, after viewing this film, you could sware that there was a huge modern house on top of Mount Rushmore, and that people actually climbed on the faces and fought to the death on Washington's face.
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