The Backstory on Hollywood Movie Backdrops CBS Sunday Morning

Rescuing scenic backdrops from Hollywood’s Golden Age

They’re just paint and canvas, but in Hollywood’s Golden Age, painted backdrops played a vital role in the magic of movies, creating cities, sunsets, or anything else a director could imagine.

Art professor Karen Maness appreciates every brushstroke. „The backdrop is part of extending the world of the set,” she said. „Often times it was just seen outside windows. But sometimes it even included the entire world of a set on a sound stage and creating that environment.”

Take „The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy opens the door into a Technicolor world: „That first view of Oz, of that village, to see that entire space shaped by paintings.”

Maness is co-author of „The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop” – art, she says, that’s often gone unappreciated. Though impressive, it was designed to be „invisible.”

Nonetheless, she said, these backdrop paintings are „some of the largest paintings ever created by exceptionally skilled artists – never recognized, never credited, and part of what makes cinematic history and these films extraordinary.”

Many people may have paintings at home on the wall that family members have done. Lynne Coakley has a bunch – really BIG ones.

Coakley’s great-grandfather was a scenic artist for MGM in the 1930s. Her grandfather and father followed him into the business. Their backdrops (or backings, as they’re called in the industry) gave luster to movies like „The Sound of Music.” They painted recreations of on-location settings that were sometimes just seen through doors and windows on a soundstage.

„Both my grandfather and my father painted this backing, along with seven other ones that were used around the gazebo, at the convent,” Coakley said.

Correspondent John Blackstone asked, „What makes this look so realistic?”

„The textures, the details, the color is all correct. It’s just a really beautifully painted backing,” she replied.

In 1962 her family founded the JC Backings Corporation, to paint and supply backdrops for movies and TV shows. They bought hundreds of backdrops from MGM, 20th Century Fox and Disney.

„A lot of the studios in the ’70s and the ’80s just were getting rid of all of their backdrops,” Coakley said. „They just, you know, didn’t want to have it anymore.”

A prized acquisition: the famous Mt Rushmore backdrop from „North by Northwest.”

„From down here, we can believe we’re looking up at that mountain, at those heads,” said Blackstone.

„You want to climb it?’ Coakley laughed.

Their backdrop from the 1959 movie „Ben Hur” features a vista of ancient Rome – and in 2016 it was seen again in the Coen brothers’ movie, „Hail, Caesar!”

„Backings are happiest being on a stage and being used,” Coakley laughed. „They’re not happy when they’re rolled up in a dark little spot down below in a storage warehouse.”

One backing must be awfully content! It began life in the 1949 film „The Fountainhead”; then, it provided a view of New York City for 11 seasons on „The Jeffersons,” until it wore out and was repainted.

Coakley said it’s already been rented out 30 times, to such shows as „Felicity,” the original „Roseanne,” and „The Practice.”

For Coakley, who is now president of JC Backings, hand-painted backdrops are more than family heirlooms. They still make up about a third of JC Backings’ rentals. But with new technology, Coakley’s company also creates photo and vinyl backdrops that can be dazzling.

„If done well, a painted backdrop and a photographic backdrop should make no difference,” said production designer Tom Walsh. He uses photographic backdrops on the set of the Fox TV series „Deputy,” but still likes things the old way.

Full Story:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rescuing-scenic-backdrops-from-hollywoods-golden-age/
Introduction – Jane Pauley
Correspondent – John Blackstone
Story producer – Reid Orvedahl
Editor – Steven Tyler

Backdrop Recovery Project – https://backdroprecovery.org/
„The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop” by Richard M. Isackes and Karen L. Maness (Regan Arts),- https://www.reganarts.com/books/2016/the-art-of-the-hollywood-backdrop/index.html
Karen Maness, Department of Theatre and Dance, scenic art supervisor at Texas Performing Arts, University of Texas at Austin – https://theatredance.utexas.edu/people/maness-karen
JC Backings, Culver City, Calif. – https://www.jcbackings.com/
Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times – https://www.latimes.com/people/mary-mcnamara
Tom Walsh, Production Designer – https://www.thomasawalsh.net/

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