Rosemary Brandenburg '74: Finding 'My Life's Calling' in Hollywood

5/7/2018

Rosemary Brandenburg '74 attended NCS for only three years before leaving after 10th grade, but in that short time, she had already developed what would be a lifelong connection to the theater. An impulse to sign up for drama club in Middle School began a lifelong friendship with Ted Walch, then the St. Albans drama teacher, and others working on productions at Trapier Theater. Brandenburg discussed her memories of NCS and her path to Hollywood, where she has decorated the sets of more than 30 movies, in a phone interview this winter. Following are excerpts:

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Brandenburg: I spent 8th, 9th, and 10th grade at NCS. My favorite part of NCS was going over to Trapier and being involved with that side of it. I was a bit of a misfit, awkward socially—especially at NCS. The theater was where I could have a role and fit in and feel like I knew what I was supposed to do socially, so it worked better for kids like me.

There was a sign-up sheet [for the drama club] in the big activity room downstairs. And I remember it like it was yesterday: I was like, "Oh! Drama club! That sounds fun. I can do tech work." I was kind of a tomboy in a way, and so I enjoyed making things and that kind of stuff.

NCS Magazine: So did they put you to work building sets right away?

Brandenburg: Oh, sure. You run in there, and they have you trying out working on the tech crew or props or lights or building sets. I ended up working on the production itself. I don't remember the exact trajectory, but I ended up either running lights or dances as stage manager. Things like that. And it took off from there. At that time, Ted Walch was chairman of the department, and he's still a friend of mine.

You build relationships. You get to know each other through school, through you doing things, as opposed to just hanging out. So they were deeper friendships. We were a posse. It was really fun. And it gave me a sense of belonging. Even when I left the school and went to Georgetown Day, which was better suited for my personality, I stayed friends with all those guys.

And I just kept going with them, because Ted Walch started Shakespeare and Co., a summer program [at Trapier], and we all worked on the summer productions, too.

Ted had gone to Kenyon College, was an alumnus, and I said, "We should look at Kenyon as a possibility." And I ended up going there. And then he started the Kenyon Festival Theater at Kenyon College. I was one of his stage managers there and got my first union card there. It's a legacy that's very entwined in my beginning.

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NCS Magazine: Tell me how set decoration became a possibility for you.

Brandenburg: It all goes back to National Cathedral. One of the professional set designers who worked with the Trapier summer theater was Hugh Lester. I knew him from there, and later, at Kenyon Festival Theater when he came out to work again with Ted Walch. After I graduated from college, I came back to D.C. to work in theater, and Hugh invited me to do a [public] TV series with him called Powerhouse. He was the designer, and I was the assistant art director, basically.

That was like the first time I was ever on a film or TV set, and it was kind of a light bulb went off, because as much as I love theater, you can't make a living. So it was suddenly, "Oh I see. This is actually where you can actually make some dough. You can basically not have to work in a restaurant at the same time."

I ended up doing one more year in D.C., then I moved to L.A. with a bunch of pals. The first full film I did was Desert Hearts, with a very fine production designer named Jeannine Oppewall. Then one thing led to another. Those were non-union days, and I clawed my way a little further and finally got in to the union when I did La Bamba. It kind of moved on from there. I mean, it was all fairly difficult and challenging and learning my way along. I didn't get a graduate degree, so this was all just learning on the job.

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NCS Magazine: What's involved with being a set decorator?

Brandenburg: I'm part of a team that takes care of the set dressing elements, which are usually the mobile elements within a setting. It's the stuff of life — you might say the material history, the things that give character to the environment and then, in turn, obviously reflect the characters. the audience can get the subliminal messages from the visuals.

Set decorators, with the exception of, say, a spaceship blowing up or something like that, we tend to touch every frame of a film. We provide an environment for the story to unfold in.

It's a collaborative art, above and beyond all. What drew me to it in the beginning were social reasons, really, and because I loved to have fun making things. But it ended up being my life's calling to work with a group and pursue an art that's not like being in a room and writing a book or painting or sculpting.

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NCS Magazine: La Bamba was set in the '50s, and Desert Hearts was a modern-day story, so you're sort of dropping yourself into very different environments. Is there a process you tend to go through about figuring out the right decorations for a given scene, for a given project?

Brandenburg: There's a lot to work through, starting with the script. Some design material has been probably assembled before you get there. And then, what are the visual scenes being discussed? In a film, you have anywhere from tens to hundreds of settings, so it's an organizational process of figuring out the range of looks.

Primary research is my favorite thing—just getting into it and figuring out, what have human beings done in this situation before, because that's kind of what we do. We're reflecting the human experience back to the audience, right? So that's what we're trying to figure out. What is the human experience and how would it manifest in the environment?

My friend Jeanine Oppewall always says, "How can you keep the main thing the main thing," because you can get distracted really easily. There's thousands and thousands of options and possibilities, millions maybe, so you have to figure out, what are the important details that make a difference. Because anytime, even if you're making a still-life painting, you're still selecting from what you're seeing in order to create an image that conveys what you're trying to say.

I know that's kind of conceptual, but there's no other way to answer the question.

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