What to do when faced with the task of figuring the production design for not only the film you are making, but the film within the film you are making? “Kiss of the Spider Woman” production designer Scott Chambliss prefers to take a holistic approach.

“The habit I developed early on is I read the story, and as I think about the environments, my first question is, what is it about the world here that is making these characters behave in the manner that they are and why?,” said the Emmy winner during IndieWire’s recent craft roundtable discussion on production design.

“Think about any kind of space, whether it’s something simple and domestic, or it’s the big scheme of the big world, whether it’s futuristic, historic, whatever. The world is so specific and it’s most directly reflected in what the characters are doing and experiencing. To me, I look at that and I understand that the characters are acting from pure emotion, and that makes me reflect back on the world itself, and that’s my entry into it,” said Chambliss. 

In this case, there is the world of Valentín and Molina (played by Diego Luna and Tonatiuh,) sharing a prison cell, longing for the day they are free. And then, there is their mental escape to the world of Ingrid Luna as both Aurora and the Spider Woman in the fictional Hollywood musical “The Kiss of the Spider Woman” (that’s technically three parts for Jennifer Lopez, and an additional part each for the cellmates turned co-stars.)

“By the time the design is accomplished and the sets are there, if they are going to be there and the actor walks in, there’s an inevitability to all of it, and they can be in there and understand why they’re doing what they’re doing,” said Chambliss, who in this case was in extra useful hand in letting the actors know which world they are entering. “It sounds ridiculously metaphoric, but it’s also true.”

Speaking more on how he distinguished between the world Molina and Valentín live in, and the world they mentally escape to, the production designer said, “The musicals are complete flights of fancy and they’re bright, colorful, and with the prison drama that’s operatic and it’s melodramatic emotional pitch. So hopefully we got a balance there. And that’s, in both cases, being authentic to the period was very important.”

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