When production designers Alana Billingsley and Misty Buckley started collaborating on their architectural plans for the main stage of the 95th Annual Academy Awards, they brainstormed a slew of ideas. One may even say they considered everything everywhere all at once.
“We really explored all different ways to experience cinema and theaters and design,” Billingsley, a three-time Emmy winner who’s worked on seven Oscars, tells Architectural Digest. “When people spend their lives making films and walk into this room, what is it that we want them to feel? We observed every detail that would be important to them.”
The gorgeous result: A unique design at the Dolby Theatre inspired by classic movie houses, theaters, and social salons mixed with distinctly modern touches. “It was really important for us to bring out this interesting environment of a vibrant gathering space and that the barrier was blurred between all these creators,” says Buckley, an Emmy winner for her design of the 2021 Grammys. Adds Billingsley, “It’s a completely immersive relationship to celebrate the artists. ”
Indeed, host Jimmy Kimmel didn’t deliver his monologue from the typical ornate backdrop. All those Swarovski crystals that sparkled in past ceremonies were gone. Instead, the stage was adorned with warm materials such as bronzes and brass with champagne silvers and textures. “It’s not your typical red and gold and glitz and glamour,” says Billingsley. Notes Buckley, “It’s not just one big canvas. There's a definite personality in every shard with transformative qualities.” That included high-resolution LED screens, which provided crisp and contemporary images from the year’s highlighted films as well as other iconic cinematic references. “It’s like a fantasy movie theater but there is a real sense of history to it,” she says.
History was made tonight as well: Billingsley and Buckley—both seasoned live-event pros who previously joined forces on a Kacey Musgraves TV special, among other projects—are the first female design team to take on the daunting assignment. “We didn’t really think about it,” Buckley says. “Our strength really is that our egos don’t play into our jobs. We just collaborate well because we always put creativity at the center. We’ll come up with something quite beyond the imagination and make it a reality. And we’re very much driven by the story we’re telling in our design.”
To that end, the pair did a deep research dive to establish their chosen motif. Billingsley says she kept the 2004 coffee-table book The Last Remaining Seats: Movie Palaces of Tinseltown “on my desk the entire time.” Though only a few venues are still functioning (such as Avalon Hollywood), “they were built in the heyday of the Golden Age and were these grand novelty recreational spaces.” With their vision firmly in place, construction began in mid-December using materials sourced from shops that regularly serve the live television industry. (Video providers at Sonova helped integrate technology into the structures.)
The designers are proud of their hard work. “We were able to just totally shut out the world and focus and give everyone a real sense of place rather than a bunch of disconnected pieces,” Buckley says. “The set has a soul,” seconds Billingsley.
