The Oscars 2023 stage design references art deco and the aesthetic of cinema halls

Heralding the spectacle of the 95^th Academy Awards ceremony, at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre on March 12, British designer Misty Buckley and art director Alana Billingsley, celebrated spaces that support cinema. This year's winners included Everything Everyhwere All at Once, Avatar: The Way of Water, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Whale, among a host of others. As the first Oscar stage design spearheaded by a pair of women designers, the duo’s vision was centred on the aesthetic sensibilities and iconography of traditional cinema halls, movie theatres, and social salons. The set design employed a visual language grounded in the bold allure and opulence of art deco, tinged with contemporary design influences. Composed of a medley of bronze and brass highlights, with a digital component, Buckley and Billingsley’s vision for the Oscars 2023 set yielded an immersive experience that was representative of the very artistic medium it sought to glorify.

As a production designer, Buckley has worked on a number of high-profile creative ventures before this, having fashioned landmark events such as Coldplay’s Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show, Stormzy’s headline performance at the Glastonbury Festival, the BRIT Awards, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. As for Billingsley, her résumé includes art direction on previous iterations of the Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards, and the Oscars, themselves. Carrying over their combined expertise as seasoned veterans in the arena of production design, for live television events, the pair’s concept eschewed many conventions associated with Oscar stages.

For starters, the arrays of Swarovski crystals that often decorate the scenography at the Oscars were discarded in favour of a more stripped-down look harkening back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Warmer tones infused a welcoming charm to the atmosphere inside the Dolby Theatre, adding a personal touch to the scene. Next, the seating layout, inside the venue, was reverted to a more theatre-style configuration, with rows of seats instead of the more gala-style arrangement, which became the norm owing to social distancing protocols following the pandemic. All this served to enhance the feeling of the set being more than just a scene concocted for the event, but rather a veritable ode to a shared love for cinema, that is universal among those who attend and view the Oscars, each year.

Cementing this was the ensemble of high-resolution LED screens that recreated the ambience of a movie theatre, where all eyes were forced to focus on the main feature presentation. Adding a digital design angle to the stage, the screens simultaneously played the role of backdrops as well as blank canvases for the nominee clips and other graphic design elements, incorporated as part of the showcase. Show stopping geometric design elements such as oversized lamps, spreading wings, and a host of other art deco-inspired ornamentation brought this section of the set alive, morphing in accordance with each segment of the evening.

Googie-style towers and signage reminiscent of mid-century cinema halls in the United States, were placed on either side of the main stage, contributing to the eclectic and novel blend of aesthetics, on show this year. Every detail of the set was essentially an abstraction of the traditional architectural image of a movie theatre, incorporating callbacks to the many avatars it has appeared in, over the years. At one of the most talked-about recent Oscars ceremonies, with many deserving first-time winners, the stage hosting the upper echelons of Hollywood’s elite, hit like a wave of nostalgia, to remind all gathered there of the spark that first led them to the world of show business.