Looking through photographs of the Coronation Street set it always amazes me how busy they are nowadays with pictures and ornaments and the general bric-a-brac of everyday living in modern times.
Here's a picture of Elsie Tanner's back parlour from the early days of Corrie with hardly a prop in sight.
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7 comments:
So true, Sunny Jim! There sure are a lot of tchotchkes in the Corrie homes today. That old set looks so calm in comparison. But then, without them, we wouldn't have Spot the Corrie prop on our blog!
I think it all started with Hilda's geese.
I find I'm quite happily distracted looking in the background at all the fun, pretty, unique and colourful items to be found in the character's homes; maybe its good sometimes to not be paying attention completely.
The scenery and back-drops of the earlier years are quite theatrical in style, and emphasis was quite rightly placed on the actor's portrayal of their characters.
I think also in reality, the decorating style of people on the back streets of Manchester 15 years after the War was typically plain.
agree with anon 16:52, the old set looks like a theatre set, designed for a particular style of acting, and maybe tv cameras from the 60s - does anyone know more about old shooting styles than i do?
but it was also meant to signify lower class means. i can't tell if the new, cluttered sets are supposed to reflect the conspicuous consumption that goes on across classes now, or whether the designers have stopped bothering to check if such and such a character could afford the objects and furnishings that show up in the associated homes.
it would be fun to have a spin-off, shopping with your favourites, or sommat like that. where do they get this stuff anyway - from stalls, from a vendor in the precinct, from neighbour's bins (there used to be storylines like that when Eddie was a binman), or from online catalogues?
Anonymous 18:31, I've always wondered too, if a character would be able to afford some of this really cute stuff and also where might they have bought it from,since we seldom if ever, see characters actually shopping off the street!
I do believe the sets are meant to reflect the way such people today would decorate, just as the early show reflected life as it was then, before such houses were snapped up by a range of working classes.
You never hear today, of characters getting things from Emily's charity shop!
Yes, Anon 19:09, the charity shop... those were the days!
The Anons are absolutely right about the theatrical set-up of the scenes and presumably the cameras shooting to suit the action. The only time you see that now is on some of the live episodes. As much as I dislike East Enders, their live episode was great for the very reason that it looked like a stage play. The camera stayed focussed on the actors as they spoke and the tension grew. I watched with my other half and we were both gripped.
What I notice about the sets these days is that people's home décor are very similar, and this is probably authentic. The characters dress in a similar way (apart from Julie)and some of their dialogue could be transferred to another character. There used to be more differentiation between characters in how they dressed, spoke and furnished their homes. In real life, this is quite reasonable but in drama, it's quite boring.
Um, in the days of black and white Corrie, nobody was watching on a 52" 1080p screen. If you filled the sets with stuff back then, it would have been harder to see the action.
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