A Swingin’ Trio — Production Design

On Kelvin Phillip’s independent romantic drama A Swingin’ Trio, almost two-thirds of the entire movie is shot in a single large location: the living room which open adjoins the dining area and kitchen.

Whenever faced with the challenge of a single location, every how lovely, the Production Designer should use color, texture, furniture, and distribution to create multiple ‘looks’ within that single space.

The first thing I did was  paint the main wall a brick red; this separates the main wall from all the other walls in the same space that are cream colored.  To prevent this wall from just being a flat plane, I opted for two large shield-like sculptures that create a little depth on the wall.

The room also has a beige, natural stone fireplace and wood floors — this gives us a diversity of textures. As the textures are all terrestrial—stone, wood—we stayed with a terrene color palette for this room.

One actor against a field of brick red, another against stone, a third against cream wall—all this allowed us creates zones within this one large area.

Director of Photography Michael Morlan complimented these choices with nuanced lighting that brought further character to the set.

In a large room with long running walls I always recommend creating depth with sculptures more than paintings, if the budget allows for it.

The centerpiece of this set was a large cream three-sectional couch loaned to us by our Make-Up Specialist Devona Ploeger.  It accepted and centered the room beautifully.

These screen caps show some of the producton design that went into this film, and are straight from the Red One.  They have not been color graded.

David Jetre | Creative Director
Sandmerrick, Inc.
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~ by Sandmerrick, Inc. on January 20, 2011.