When people watch movies they usually remember the action scenes, the love scenes and different characters if the actors were at the top of their game when the film was shot. Some audience members will frequently recall who the director was and occasionally who wrote it. Every once in a while they remember the film’s look and they might even comment on how everything was just perfect. That last part is what Rashi Jain does; she is a production designer. Her job is to create the visual look of the film, which enhances the story and incidentally, gives the actors a more realistic setting for their characters’ dialogue and actions.
Being the Production Designer on a film means that Rashi is responsible for the overall look and feel of each shot and that doesn’t just mean decorating the set on a studio lot. She has to design the whole movie visually well before the director says, “Action!” That means thinking, imagining, going through colors for different moods for different scenes and then drawing each set piece to match the shooting script, scene by scene. She doesn’t just come onto a set and say let’s paint that wall yellow to match the table. By the time she reaches the actual shooting location, whether it is interior or exterior, much of her sets are built and ready to go. She has already done her homework and then she makes sure that her vision is carried out properly.
She has to know the script more intimately and thoroughly than the actors and just as in-depth as the director and cinematographer, both of whom she usually works closely with to formulate a shared vision. Her job is so encompassing that without her the actors might as well be saying their lines on an empty, dark stage in some small town where no one is interested anyway. Great Production Design can either stand out for its uniqueness, beauty and realness or it can stand out by not standing out. The latter is when production design is at its most perfect – when no one notices it. Both of them signal great and award-winning work by very talented Production designers, of which Rashi Jain is certainly one.
The movie La La Land’s Production designer Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, won an Academy Award for Production Design. Black Panther’s Production Designer Production Designer Hannah Beachler won her Oscar for the same thing and Catherin Martin won several Oscars for her work on Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby. There are other award-winning women Production Designers but we just wanted to mention a few. Rashi Jain will undoubtedly be handed one of those golden statuettes for her work in the not too distant future .
