As viewers, you’ll focus on the actors who speak the words when you see a character walking back and forth in a Manhattan courtyard in the pouring rain, or when you see them go from a row of flower pots to the other side of the store. However, off the stage, but working hard and quietly with the script, is a cast that never uttered a single line of dialogue: the greenery.
Living set dressing is an essential tool in a film maker’s toolbox, whether in the humid jungles they built and swept around in a huge soundstage or the single, slightly neglected snake plant in the corner of a sitcom office. It is a lot more than a corner-filler, it sets time, place, mood, and genre. But the logistics of putting nature on a film set are much more complicated than venturing to the local nursery. To make these fictional worlds feel like they have people living in them, a delicate dance of design, horticulture and lightning quick logistics is required.
The Silent Storytellers: How Greenery Builds a World
In production design there are hardly any plants which are used merely to decorate. They serve as either “structural” or “psychological” components which tie a fictional world to reality. Imagine a political thriller with a lot at stake. Palms in the sleek, sterile offices of the corporate bad guys may be as sharp as a blade or as carefully manicured as a bonsai tree, visual clues that represent wealth, control and a total lack of warmth.
On the other hand, a whimsal indie comedy in a bohemian apartment will likely be overflowing with cascading Pothos and overgrown ferns and funky succulents, and will feel alive, chaotic, and very warm and welcoming. Think about how natural elements are used to express subtext in filmmaking:
- The Status Symbol: The undamaged and well-grown fiddle-leaf fig in the penthouse apartment communicates to the audience that the homeowner has the money to keep up a luxury home, and the employees to keep it looking immaculate.
- The Narrative Passage of Time: See a garden shift from green to brown in the span of a movie, and you will see the emotional disintegration or long isolation of the characters.
- Character Interiority: A dusty, yellowing peace lily on a detective’s desk tells us—without a single word of dialogue—that this character spends far too much time following leads down dark alleys and not enough time taking care of his or her own home.
Yet sustaining the narrative illusion is a degree of control which nature does not naturally provide. Plants wilt, drop leaves, grow to a heavy spotlight and respond poorly to the oppressive heat on a production block. The set decorating department and specially trained greenspersons – crew members tasked with the responsibility of every leaf, branch, and blade of grass that appears on camera – are the people responsible for handling this living and unpredictable element.
The Rental Revolution: Why Productions Don’t Buy Their Plants
A production’s first impulse when they need an ornate and elaborate Victorian greenhouse, or a thick woodland with an abundance of trees for a woodland chase sequence, is almost always to not buy the plants. Rather, the entertainment business is primarily a rental business. Set decorators and art directors have been using specialized plant providers to provide plants for decades.
In the rapid world of film and television, there are a number of important practical, economical and artistic reasons why renting beats owning:
- Light-Speed Turnarounds Between Scenes:
The pace of film schedules is breakneck and unforgiving. A stage that is set up on Tuesday morning with a large, tropical landscape may have to be dismantled, carted away, and transported by Thursday afternoon to be reconstructed into a concrete subway platform. Renting enables set decorators to receive hundreds of plants in a state of perfection, only to have them swept away in a few hours, according to the frenetic pace of today’s shooting schedules.
- Continuity of shots is guaranteed across reshoots.
The measure of “continuity” is the bane of any film set. In July, a scene might require an unexpected reshoot or pick-up shots in the middle of winter 6 months later. The problem is if a production owned a special flowering bush and the bush died or the flowers fell off during the same year or multiple years, it becomes a technical challenge to match the original footage. When a species is used in the scene behind the host, the rental houses have huge inventories of that species or look-a-like plant which is maintained in a huge climate-controlled facility so that the identical or very similar species is available for the scene months later.
- Camera-Ready Conditioning
Studio spaces are known for being very unfriendly to living organisms. Plants can go bad very quickly on a stage due to the intense heat emitted from high-wattage light fixtures, the drying effects of industrial air conditioning and no natural light. Specialty rental houses stock their equipment for these rough-and-tumble studio conditions, and when the director yells “Action,” the plants should be looking lush, vibrant, and perfectly healthy.
- No Burdens on Long-Term Care or Disposal.
After a film has finished shooting, the temporary production company is dissolved and the cast and crew go on to their next assignment. If a crew had bought 3 dozen mature ficus trees for a 6 week shoot, they would have the problem of keeping the trees watered, fed and stored for an unlimited period of time, or if left to throw away, they would be costly and wasteful too.
- A More Sustainable Alternative
The movie industry has long been plagued by waste and the movie rental is a very sustainable and re-usable solution to the one-and-done purchase. Rented greenery is not thrown away at the end of the shoot, but rather returned to a dedicated greenhouse where it is tended and rejuvenated for use in another commercial, other television shoot or feature film.
The Complex Complex Logistics of Urban Greenery
This combination of nature and industry gets even more complex when a production heads out of sprawling, open backlots and into vertical, dense urban settings.
For instance, New York City. The area is one of the most productive areas in the world, however the narrow streets, historic buildings and strict parking regulations make it a unique challenge for set decorators. Getting fifty huge 12 foot palms to an historic brownstone in Brooklyn or a soundstage in Long Island City isn’t easy, and requires a certain level of skill and local knowledge to accomplish. Crews have to work around small loading windows on the street, squeeze onto tight freight elevators and deal with an ever-changing east coast climate, making sure that tropical plants don’t freeze in the winter during loading.
These little miracles are made possible, in large part, by local infrastructure and regional specialized businesses, all of which are tapped by set decorators. For instance, when a production needs to instantly transform a stark soundstage into a lush corporate atrium, they might turn to a specialized vendor like Cambridge, a prominent example of a company that provides plant rental in New York City for film and television productions. The horticultural needs of the plants are unique, these guys know it, as is the uncompromising demands of a production call sheet, which is why they do the heavy lifting so the creative team can focus on the frame.
In the world of film, there are no invisible hands.
The next time you get wrapped up in an absorbing drama or settle into a familiar comforting setting of your favourite sitcom, notice the people not in the foreground. From the side, see the ivy growing over the aged brick wall, the beautiful orchids on the late night talk show table, or the thick shrubbery in the background of a tense outdoor situation.
The answer to all these living elements lies in the careful artistic planning, complex urban logistics and highly efficient rental system that brings fresh air to the man-made world of the screen. It is a unique form of art because it is completely invisible — the artificial, temporary, highly-contrived illusion of a movie set is a complete success.
