{"id":4714,"date":"2011-09-02T09:30:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T13:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2011-09-11T07:44:34","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T11:44:34","slug":"caught-on-film-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2011\/09\/caught-on-film-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CAUGHT ON FILM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>PRODUCTION DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT: Mark Ricker<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>by Margot C. Lester<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nLike many kids, Mark Ricker dreamt of working in the movies when he grew up. But unlike most of us, the Burlington native made it a reality. Ricker is the production designer behind the sets of <em>The Help<\/em>, which debuted last month. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The production designer creates the overall look and feel of a film, working with the director and cinematographer to select or create locations and settings, right down to the paint on the walls and the knickknacks on the mantle. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love being part of that core group that figures out the best way to tell a story through cinema,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explains Ricker, who graduated from UNC with an English degree 1990. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Southern roots<\/strong><br \/>\nRicker was drawn to <em>The Help<\/em> because it was a chance to work with an old friend, writer\/director Tate Taylor, on his big-studio directorial debut.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4716\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"CaughtOnFilm\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4716\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1-360x239.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/CaughtOnFilm1-120x80.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Burlington native and UNC grad Mark Ricker designed the sets for The Help. Rena DeAngelo, set decorator, helped bring his vision to reality.  Photo by Dale Robinette\/DreamWorks<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tate and I were production assistants for the J. Crew company almost 20 years ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ricker remembers. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go out and buy chocolate-chip cookies and try to find puppies to use for catalog shoots. I was involved before any studio was. It was kind of fantastic having the director be a good old friend because I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to go through assistants and people like that to get access to him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>As a Southerner, Ricker brought to the project \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a respect for the South, a real attention to detail and a concern for not stereotyping that world,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. His understanding of the South helped him recreate the time and place without relying on clich\u00c3\u00a9s.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The architecture and sensibilities of the film ran from pre-Antebellum \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a term \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to ranch houses built in the late \u00e2\u20ac\u212250s,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he explains. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was fun to figure out how different they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d all be and to put the history in all of them. It was like a huge scavenger hunt to fill the sets.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He and set decorator Rena DeAngelo scrounged around antique malls and flea markets in Greenwood, Miss., which was chosen to represent 1960s Jackson, where the book is set. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There also was a wealth of stuff we got from the community. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where shooting <em>in<\/em> the place really makes a difference. When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re shooting New York for Paris, like we did in <em>Julie &#038; Julia<\/em>, those specific details are harder to replicate. I had to go to flea markets in Paris and ship stuff home.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Though loath to choose one set as his favorite, Ricker allows he does have a fondness for the home of Elizabeth Leefolt.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just nailed it. It had that perfect bland 1960s sensibility when we finished,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ricker laughs. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The crew walked in on the very first day and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOh my God. This is the house I grew up in.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Sometimes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to layer up a bunch of stuff. But with her house, I was very precise.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Ricker relies on a lot of archival documents \u00e2\u20ac\u201c photos, articles, etc. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to create sets. There was more than enough of that for the homes of the white women in the film. But it was more difficult to research and design the homes of the black women. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had to really get into researching African-American homes of the time and had a time finding the right photographs of interiors from the period. We had to figure out what details made sense, the level of wealth the maids would have had and how they would have spent money, in terms of home decoration. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very specific thing we do, and getting it right is important.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The backstory<br \/>\n<\/strong>Ricker did theater at Williams High School, where he learned set design. While at Carolina, he landed his first film gig on 1988\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s smash hit <em>Bull Durham<\/em>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was in location casting, but I discovered the art department on that film and the light bulb went off. I knew that was where I was meant to be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>After graduating in 1990, he moved to New York and worked on several projects \u00e2\u20ac\u201c commercials, industrials, TV and small films. In a bid to improve his career trajectory, he enrolled at New York University\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree in set design in 1995. The gambit worked, and his role \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as well as the scope of the projects \u00e2\u20ac\u201c grew. <\/p>\n<p>Ricker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taking some time off before his next project. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s looking forward to a chance to work again with Taylor, or cinematographer Steven Goldblatt (who shot <em>The Help<\/em> and <em>Julie &#038; Julia<\/em>). Or maybe a chance to return to the Old North State, where his mother, Susan, father, Ed, and sister, Elizabeth, still live.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got everything. I grew up equidistant from the beach and mountains and spent a lot of time at both,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he remembers. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Many projects have tempted me to come back, though it hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite worked out. But you never know.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRODUCTION DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT: Mark Ricker by Margot C. Lester Like many kids, Mark Ricker dreamt of working in the movies when he grew up. But unlike most of us, the Burlington native made it a reality. Ricker is the production designer behind the sets of The Help, which debuted last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4779,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions\/4779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}