It’s an indie film at its core. A film that no studio exec at any major studio would greenlight. Baker spent his career in the trenches of low-budget films with an unwavering vision to present films that spotlight marginalized people while never pandering or preaching. At once, it is a modern film with adult themes and subject matter juxtaposed with Lubitschian comedy that hearkens back to the early days of Hollywood.
Conclave has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design. One of the most celebrated films of 2024, it grossed over 100 million at the worldwide box office, rare for a drama to perform so well in current years. Directed by Academy Award Winner Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front) and based on the 2016 book by Robert Harris.
The Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) presented the 29th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards in a ceremony hosted by actress and comedian Rachael Harris. For the Excellence in Production Design in a Feature Film awards categories, Craig Lathrop won the Period Feature Film award for “Nosferatu,” Nathan Crowley took home the Fantasy Feature Film award for “Wicked” and Suzie Davies won the Contemporary Feature Film award for “Conclave.”
I loved the Casa Santa Marta. Its function was very useful. We didn’t have a lot of space and not much money. It had the longest corridor we could afford. Only one room, but it’s on trucks flat, so they squeeze in and out to create slightly different environments depending on whose room we’re in. I love how well it worked on camera. There’s not much ornamentation on it, it’s pretty simple but the simplicity really worked. The balance between the ornate, beautiful balustrades of the church and then this brutal underground bunker, a hermetically sealed prison was perfect.
My favorite scene is when Lawrence goes to confront Cardinal Adeyemi about his past and tells him he’s not going to be Pope. In the script, they pray together and then we see Adeyemi making a vote knowing that he’s finished, but we decided to fold them into one another so that the scene ends with Adeyemi asking Lawrence to pray. I just remember looking at this frame of Lawrence saying yes from another room, and I thought that looked like somebody’s point of view.
Red is a very important color in the Catholic Church, to begin with. Edward and I looked at the shade of red the church is using now and thought it wouldn’t work for the film. This was actually our starting point to say, let’s change the color. Let’s also change the fabric to a heavier, woolen fabric, in a red that embraces you. A color can create a distance and the color can draw you in. Red is the color of blood. It’s for love. It’s for fire. It is a very powerful and meaningful color.
The Costume Designers Guild (CDG) have announced their winners representing the best in Costume Design for 2024. Here are this year’s winners IN BOLD.
The SDSA Awards for Film are annual awards presented to Set Decorators and
Production Designers to honor outstanding achievement in the
art of Set Decoration in Feature Films.
The night scene on the staircase where the three cardinals discuss doing tactical voting. I really like that scene. It feels like the essence of the film, which is on the one hand these are religious men and on the other hand it’s kind of like a secular election. There’s a sort of paranoid aspect to it as well. They’re quite nervous the whole time.
The Costume Designers Guild on Friday unveiled nominations for the 27th CDGAs.
