On Thursday, 20 November, the E1–2 Hall hosted the round-table discussion entitled Enhanced Reality (On the Adopted and the Original), organised by The Slovenian Designers’ Society (DOS) in cooperation with Cankarjev dom. The second round table is scheduled for spring 2015. The event was moderated by set designer Marko Japelj, who hosted make-up artist AlenkaNahtigal – President of The Society of Slovenian Set and Costume Designers and Make-up Artists (S.K.O.M.), set designer Andrej Stražišar, costume designers Meta Sever and Leo Kulaš as well as set and costume designer Nataša Rogelj. Initially, it needs to be pointed out that for the most part all the interlocutors have intensively engaged in theatre as well as cinema, although they invest varying measure of devotion to one or the other. Every one of them has also worked in advertising, as one has to be versatile in this business, stressed Nahtigal. Only producers can afford to live on film in Slovenia.

The round table was predominantly devoted to reflection of the unfavourable conditions for specialising in one of the cinematic branches, which is far from surprising. According to Nahtigal, people in high political office (even some ministers of culture) do not even differentiate between scenography and a scriptwriting. Times used to be less adverse, above all, more time and attention was dedicated to the formation of a filmmaker. According to Stražišar, a decade ago a film producer could not even solicit funds for a project if the set designer did not have two assistants, which encouraged the growth of scenographic art, the skills that were handed down from one generation of artists to the next. It was also Meta Sever’s professional path that was chequered: she first worked as a wardrobe master and then as an assistant. How dramatically the standards have fallen over the past two decades also in the field of set design, is proven by the fact that there used to be 50% of studio constructions (in cases of historical films the percentage was even higher, up to 80 per cent). In the old days a whole month’s worth of work was devoted to two cinematic takes. By contrast, today there are only five per cent of studio constructions in films, and the time of shooting is gradually being reduced. This does not only apply to cinema – Stražišar recalled the scenography for a play, The Queen of Spades, whose set was painted by twenty-four Academy-trained painters for days on end. When two decades ago certain professions almost entirely disappeared, a lot of invaluable knowledge was lost too, he added. Kulaš nostalgically reminisced about the late 1970s, when students of the Serbian Film Academy went on a free eleven-day trip to Paris in commemoration of the death of Pablo Picasso, a trip that American students, for example, would have to pay dearly.

Nataša Rogelj, who attended the DAMU in Prague and St. Martins School of Arts and Design in London, also spoke about being educated in the 1990s. She furthered her studies in Amsterdam, and worked with Stražišar on The Suburbsby Vinko Möderndorfer, while also making costumes. According to Japelj, today most set and costume designers are freelancers, the only problem is that students get no opportunity for internship – nobody pays assistants any more. The question by a visual communication designer, Danijela Grgić, President of the Expect Council of DOS, how to arouse interest in the young people in set and costume design in view of the lack of means and training, sparked a lively debate. One of the most optimistic contributors to the debate was Alenka Nahtigal, who believes that if someone truly wants to make a film he will eventually succeed – he only has to be persistent. By contrast, other interlocutors stressed the systematic deficiencies that cannot be overcome by individual initiative. 

Andraž Jež

Photo: Iztok Dimc
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