Oscar 2014 - Production Design & Set Decoration

It's hard to find conclusive clips for this area, so I've tried to go for B-Rolls. Which are not actually intended for showing what gets into production design/set decoration, but in any case they give a sufficiently varied perspective taken while shooting the movie. More important, they do it without the post-processing = VFX, editing, etc, so you can relatively clearly see what was "on the set". Unfortunately, B-Rolls are not available for every nomination, but let's see what we got ...

"American Hustle" takes us to a early '80s New Jersey. Stopping in restaurants, hotels, an airport landing track and others. Nice, and surprisingly varied for the movie topic, but still a bit average among the nominees.

"Gravity" might be good on the technical side, but the nomination for production design & set decoration is a bit for free. Ok, let's accept it for production design, but set decoration ... really ? At some point I remember I've seen a clip showing how Sandra Bullock's helmet floating inside the space pod, was added over a scene. I don't know how much is CGI, and how much is real stuff in the next clip, but I couldn't find another one to show more of an interior.

"The Great Gatsby" is a re-adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. I ignored this movie for a while, since I remember that the older version starring Redford bored me a lot when I've seen it = long, long ago. What's ok in Baz Luhrmann's movie, is that it manages to keep your attention on a romance story which after all is quite simplistic. And much of "the catchy factor" is represented by the visuals, mostly the impact of the environment = a very colored and flamboyant New York of the 20's. I think this is quite predictable as Oscar winner, despite the fact that's the only of the nominees here that's not present in many other sections.

"Her" is a romance between a guy and ... his operating system. A movie that I wanted to skip. As somebody working in IT research for who the idea itself, objectively, is somewhere between "freaking weird" - "highly dangerous", I already can set a reason. Subjectively, I guess I would have some others too ... I did see the movie after all because it simply has too many nominations this year to totally ignore it. I'll keep my focus on the topic. For other stuff, there is time ... The movie is set somewhere in a near future when the technology will presumably permit stories like this one. The film is probably the nicest surprize I've ever had for production design/set decoration from a production that doesn't have many opportunities to offer you much = relatively contemporary as story time, and without exotic locations. The environment in the movie adds a lot to a feeling of .. I don't know how to name it .. existential claustrophobia in "open spaces". Because, if you take separately the space in which the action develops, it's apparently a very relaxing environment. Not for the main character though, but that's in the story = not now ...

"12 Years a Slave" ends the nominees list. If "Gravity" wouldn't have been here, I could put this one at the bottom. Even so it's not far from there. We have indeed a time piece, in which everything has to be in place (and it is) as it was in the XIXth century. However, nothing out of common or that wasn't seen before.