Empire Of Light Production Designer Mark Tildesley on Art Deco Cinema and the Battle of Hilary’s Insanity – Production Value

“If you want to portray someone in your head who is having a hard time, it’s quite difficult,” says production designer Mark Tildesley. “Having Sam was very helpful [Mendes] around to make it flourish.”

Directed by Sam Mendes rich in light set in a cinema on the south coast of England in the 1980s. Hilary (Olivia Colman) is the theater manager struggling with her mental health when she meets new employee Stephen (Michael Ward) who is trying to escape the racism that runs rampant in the town. Mendes based Hilary’s character on his own mother, who struggled with mental illness.

Most of the film takes place in the cinema, where Hilary and Stephen meet and spend time together. “The cinema itself is called Dreamland,” says Tildesley. “It’s 1930s Art Deco and a pretty big movie theater for a small town, but it was kind of an entertainment world that had a ballroom.” After finding the theater in the seaside town of Margate, Mendes rewrote parts of his script to adapt it. to the location. “In many ways it has more of an Americana feel, with a curved front tower and lots of neon. It’s good because it kind of strayed from the normal look of a British south coast coastal world…it had a bit more ambition and dream to it.

Another important place for Tildesley to thrive was Hilary’s apartment. “Here we see how Hilary’s character unravels and we see the result of her bouts of madness,” he says. He and his team found it difficult to accurately represent the home of a person with intellectual disabilities. “It’s quite difficult. I remember we tried to demolish the apartment, but actually it doesn’t work that way. What happens is they close the curtains, turn off the light, collect the stick by the door, the dishes are not ready, the ironing is not done… it’s actually quite difficult visually. We tried all these things and it indeed looked like there had been a break-in.”

In the end, Tildesley decided they needed Mendes’ input for the final product. After working together, they were able to put the finishing touches on the writing on the walls. “Sam came down and wrote it himself,” says Tildesley. “We gave him time on set to think about what happened and process it, and then he started making some marks on the wall as he remembered things that happened.”

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