On Show

Aoife McIntyre

BA [Hons] Design for Stage + Screen Production Design

In the four years I have spent studying production design, I have gained an understanding of the importance of world-building to the storytelling business. Scenography is never merely just a backdrop to the character action – while it helps to inform the audience of time and place, giving an important sense of context, it can also play the role of an independent narrator. In my work, I look for ways to create a believable world in which fits seamlessly within its narrative and becomes an essential part of the viewer's experience.

**Space 1: The Main Ward** *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* is largely set in an all-male ward in Oregon State hospital in the early 1960s. While I looked at many aspects of a psychiatric hospital over the course of this project, the main ward and its adjacent rooms were my primary focus. One of the most interesting, and challenging things about this project was the choice to design hospital spaces, which in real life have always needed to place safety and patient care at the forefront. At the outset of this project, I was worried this would become a very limiting challenge, having to stick to certain rules in order for it to be a believable space for the audience. However, in the process of researching for and designing these spaces, I found that a hospital posed unique challenges when only seen through the lens of a camera, and I found that many of the ordinarily unnoticeable details of hospital interiors played the biggest part in creating sets that looked convincing as a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

Through the course of designing and laying out the space, it became clear to me that the Main Ward would have to be designed and built as one large composite set for filming on. The benefits of building the ward as a composite set largely outweigh any cons; it allows for more of the spaces within it to be built as fully closed sets, giving the camera access to a 360° view of each area, giving a director more to work with. With all of its hallways and the open-plan day room, it also made sense to connect each of the spaces to allow for tracking shots and wides between two spaces. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

The day room, which is set within the men's ward, is where the patients participate in Nurse Ratched's group therapy meetings, as well as being used as a recreational space where the patients can be closely monitored by the staff. Many key moments of character development occur within the day room, be it through the group therapy meetings (or "picking parties" as McMurphy nicknames them), or the patients' conversations with each other over card games. The lack of privacy in the day room and the patient's surveillance were two of the atmospheric elements I wanted to explore most here. Being an open-plan space, the decor from the rest of the ward carries on into the day room giving it that same juxtaposition of time and place. However, the placement of furniture was important in creating a lethargic and overly-still atmosphere in this space - particularly when McMurphy is first escorted onto the ward. Before his arrival, the days pass by slowly and uneventfully for the rest of the patients, in a neverending cycle of medication, group therapy, and card games. Their routines have been ingrained into every aspect of the ward, including the tables and chairs, and I believe it's important to establish an image of this at the start of the film, so we can later see just how much McMurphy starts to stir things up. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

**Space 2: The Washroom** This was certainly a space that allowed me to play around a lot with the dynamic between the patients and the staff, and their relationship to the camera. The Washroom is somewhere that in any other circumstance should be a private space. However, in the case of a live-in psychiatric ward, the patients must be watched at almost all times by the aides, and many of the older and physically impaired patients require help - or restraints - when washing and shaving. I wanted to design and utilize a space that denied these men their dignity and put the audience in a near-voyeuristic point of view. The space is long and cramped, almost claustrophobically so - as if the farther into the room you get, the harder it might be to escape. I tried to convey through the washroom the idea that these men, the patients of the ward, have none of the dignity and agency that a grown man should. The conditions of life on the ward mean independence and privacy are virtually non-existent. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

**Space 3: The Tub Room** Previously used as a storage space for tables during group therapy meetings in the day room, the old hydrotherapy room is transformed into a second recreational space for the patients after McMurphy complains about the loud music played constantly in the day room. For me, the Tub Room was always an interesting space to explore as it was a place that could no longer be used for its original function - as most methods of hydrotherapy were largely disused by the 1960s. As the space is re-appropriated by the Acutes as a second Day Room, its purpose changes entirely. Both the atmosphere is different from that of a treatment space and the behavior of the patients in it. The Tub Room did require a lot of research on medical equipment, and the layout of the set has been heavily influenced by the layouts and plumbing systems seen in much of my research material on hydrotherapy in the early 20th Century. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

**Space 4: Dr. Spivey's Office** As one of the few semi-private spaces to be found on the ward, the resident psychiatrist's office needed to have a contrasting atmosphere in some way to the rest of the ward. As a space where patients have one-on-one meetings with the doctor, I wanted it to feel slightly more intimate, especially when McMurphy has his first meeting with Dr. Spivey. As one of the few spaces we see McMurphy being treated and spoken to like a grown man by a member of staff, the office gave me the chance to change up the dynamic between a patient and a staff member. The office also turns out to be where Billy Bibbit, the youngest patient of the ward, is found having met a tragic end. Two wildly contrasting dramatic moments are set within Spivey's office, meaning that the set requires range in how it can be used and filmed to give the audience two totally different emotional experiences. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

**Space 5: The Shock Shop -** The electro-convulsive therapy room - or the "shock shop" as it's referred to in the novel - is where one of the most memorable scenes in *Cuckoo's Nest* takes place. After a period of slowly chipping away at the Big Nurse's steel facade, McMurphy finally gives her a reason for punishment when he gets into a brawl with the aides. He is sent up to the Disturbed Ward, along with Bromden and Cheswick, to receive electroconvulsive therapy. By the early 1960s treatments like shock therapy and lobotomy were being phased out of psychiatric treatment plans, as doctors began to realize they often did more harm than good and were replaced with increasingly effective methods like talk therapy and psychiatric medications. In this scene, where McMurphy undergoes shock therapy, I wanted to create a feeling of powerlessness and fear through the use of lighting and negative space. In storyboarding this scene, I decided to hide McMurphy's face as he begins to receive the shocks for two reasons; I didn't want to solely rely on body horror or gruesome expressions to instill a sense of fear into this scene, and doing this also dehumanizes Mcmurphy in his first fall from grace over the course of the film. The cool tones in this set also create a highly sanitized image, the Shock Shop is cold and unwelcoming and the home of fear for many of the patients in the hospital. *3D model and renders created in AutoCAD*

Major Project 2021

Re-designing Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for film.
I think that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest never really fades from relevancy. It’s a timeless story for how it addresses the idea of rediscovering the value in life. The discussion around power and individual freedoms so strongly present in Cuckoo’s Nest can feel increasingly relevant in today's constantly connected world. The motivation behind choosing this text for the final project of my degree was largely in how this story reflects the mental prisons we sometimes create for ourselves.
In terms of what I wanted to technically achieve with this project, I focused largely on previsualizing the film through 3D AutoCAD renders and storyboarding. While many different mediums available, I think AutoCAD and other 3D modeling software can be exciting in the possibilities it holds, simulating lighting and textures that can look surprisingly true to life when done right. This medium allowed me control over an incredible amount of detail in the spaces I was designing for this project.

Aoife McIntyre - Resumé (2021) PDF Aoife McIntyre - BA Thesis (2021) PDF

BA Thesis 2021

Renegade Costume; How elements of blue-collar and military uniforms from the early 20th century became signifiers of oppositional masculinity in American cinema from 1951 to 1955.

The images of “rebel cool” popularized by American stars Marlon Brando and James Dean in cinema in the fifties utilized items of clothing that had until then been primarily worn by blue-collar workers from the 1870s to the end of the Second World War. This clothing now commonly associated with the figure of the American rebel played an important role in major political and economic events of the thirties and forties – maintaining the image of American masculinity and indicating the favorable and necessary traits that embodied manhood. From Levi’s patented “waist overalls” and lumberjack dress seen on working-class men during the Great Depression, to the white t-shirts, various aviation jackets and combat boots worn by U.S. soldiers in WWII, American masculinity became visually tied to the clothes worn by blue-collar professionals as well as the muscular male form that was needed and valued in these jobs. In this way, representations of manhood in America were strongly influenced by the most commonly held jobs, and political attitudes of the time. In the conservative climate of Cold War America, these images of strong working bodies in rough textiles were no longer desirable and the grey flannel suit became the accepted signifier of masculinity, embracing conformity in the growing white-collar workforce. The social rejection of blue-collar and military clothing as expressions of masculinity and the embracement of a more metropolitan image created a sense of disillusionment to the mass of WWII veterans, triggering the creation of multiple films centered on male delinquency in the struggle to adjust to post-war American society. These films utilized blue-collar workwear to symbolize the social marooning of men who existed as outdated masculine figures; costuming could be used to mark male characters as dissenters in this fashion.

Aoife McIntyre - Resumé (2021) PDF Aoife McIntyre - BA Thesis (2021) PDF

Production Design

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