Lmst

We are _far_ from Heng Dian World Studios! I was in my early teens 1986 so I can say that this wasn't an uncommon tv setting in the West either. Yes, you were disappointed at the obvious studio setting, but you were also aware of the limitations to special effects. From that POV they're doing a good job here - look how carefully the market stalls are stocked!

#JourneyToTheWest1986 #SetDesign #shenmo #CDrama

Studio setup of a market street in a non-descript Chinese town in an undefined historical era. People in hanfu are walking between the stalls where sallat, writing stuff, and other things are sold.

The set designer truly aimed for the candelabras to out-candelsbra them all 😍

If you're harvesting DIY ideas you should either use wicker lamps or put the candleholders further apart, though. Set this close the candles melt each other, and you end up with a candle wax fireworks show. I've cleaned up after one when an architect had A Vision for the church where I worked.

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #DIY #CDrama #Xianxia

Fan Yue, Bai Shuo, and Tian Yao standing in a room with two three meter tall candelabras in the shape of ornameted trees. The candles, or maybe wicker lamps, are hidden in semi-transparent cups placed along the tree branches, roughly 20cm apart.

I can't help but imagining the set designer going
"FwoooOOOM! Bwoshshsh!NggnnneeeeooooOOOM!"
while making the first sketches for the wall behind Bai Shuo. Maybe they didn't, but sometimes you just draw better with sound effects.

Also, my little colour deprived heart is so happy right now!

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #drawing #Xianxia #CDrama

Bai Shuo standing in front of the throne in Bright Moon Palace. The floor before her is a sea of swirling shapes in blue, turquoise and red. The wall behind her is decorated with a gigantic stylished flower pattern, that explodes from behind the throne in yellow and orange.

When C-drama says "We have trippy at home!" it's high quality trippy that would make the 60s _and_ the 80s cry tears of joy.

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #xianxia #CDrama

An otherworldly landscape where the ground is bright white, the feathery bushes are bubblegum pink, and the sky is pinkish blue. Houses are growing out of the ground like sad heffalumps, and lotus leaves are rising from a pond of smoke.

Someone, somewhere in the production team, apparently said

"You know what would make this drama 1000% better? _Goats_!"

And then found a place where they could feature them prominently. I think this is the 4th scene I see them in.

They're not wrong though. These two are excellent at being goats.

#MoonlightMystique #goats #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

In the background Bai Shuo, Chong Yao, and Fu Ling are gearing up for an emotional scene. In the foreground two happy goats in a small pen are staring at the camera.

We're currently in the Boddhi village, and we have the same homely earthy tones as in Chong Yao's home. The _placement_ of the items, oth, screams that it's artificial. The ceiling's too high up, there's just a bit too much room between the desk and the shelves around it, and the floor is too flat and clean. Given production isn't above foreshadowing via items in the background, I think it's intentional that it looks like they're in a studio.

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Bai Shuo writing a letter while Fan Yue looks at her.They're in a room where the walls look like painted stone and the floor look like the floor in a school hall. While the furniture is either built out of unpainted wood or wild wood it still looks randomly placed in roughly the right places.

This is Chong Yao's home. Note how agressively real it is compared to the Technicolour 80s feverdreams of the demon palaces. Here everything is muted brown, and since we're in the kitchen we can see the grain bags, the steamers, and even traces of flour on the old baking table. Neither absurd chrystal lamps nor flamboyant carpet patterns in this place, but it gived a sense of home.

#MoonlightMystique #EnvironmentalStorytelling #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Chong Yao talking to his shifu in the kitchen of his old home. Shelves along the wall holds different grain bags and kitchen ware. Bamboo steamers stands both there and at a work bench beside the baking table. Other kitchen utensils are stored at a ceiling rack above the heads of the characters. Everything is lovingly worn.

Some of the sets (Fan Yue's and Cheng Ye's palaces among them) are delightfully artificial! The mattelassé patterns are the classical wave mountains* etc, but the overall colour palette is 200% nightclub of the 80s! It's as if the set designers tore their hair over their budget and then realised 'but paint is cheap! Let's go wild!'

(*not the real term - I'll dutifully add fabric patterns to my long list of Things I Need To Learn)

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #CDrama #Xianxia

Bai Shuo laying unconscious in a dark purple and turquoise bed with a shiny purple and turquoise duvet that's vaguely iridescent. The floor behind the bed is black with with random streaks of purple and bubblegum pink.

The set designers* are at it again! Limited but clearly separated colours; red, black, yellow, blue, and white. Chong Yao's blue hanfu stands out and draws the attention, while the curtain of strings adds a balancing field of white that both is and isn't there. Brilliant!

(*I hope there's a team cooperating, since C-drama production pace is just as insane as for Western shows.)

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #CDrama #Xianxia

A part of the demon complex. Heavily carved red thick walls enclose a walkway outside the ornate golden door's of Fu Ling's quarters. Chong Yao is pacing outside them, but behind a curtain of long white strings swaying in the wind.

On one hand those green glowing windows fits the vibe of a demon king. OTH, since they're peppered over sets through the entire drama my gut reaction is

"Look! Production forgot to greenscreen something there!"

Every. Single. Time...

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Cang Shang standing against a wall of green glowing lattice windows, where the green is exactly the same colour used in greenscreens for trick shots.

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Ooooooooh! Set design! I have a feeling production's been skimping - the clothes changes happen less frequently than usual, and sets feel a bit "bare", as if they skipped the last layer of detailing to save time. But even on a beer budget the set designers have champagne ambitions, and have come up with several stunning environments. Also, I'm a sucker for the red-blue-yellow combo they use here.

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Tien Huo and Fan Yue walk through a room with rust red antlered chandeliers. Round, cream yellow lanterns hang from the blue walls.

I'm not sure if it's intentional, but some sets are built like ye olde cardboard theaters for kids. Here we have three (or four if you like) 2d sections layered to make up a 3d space. The 1st one is the ceiling screen in the foreground that both frames the scene, and puts emphasis on how small the actors are. The 2nd one is the line the actors move along, the 3rd the wall behind them, and the 4rth the corridor hinted at through the indoor windows

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Mu Jiu jumping up from his stool in his room as Tian Huo walks straight towards him. The screen in the foreground is carved with decorative clouds, and the wall behind the actors opens in the middle to display a storage unit with a flower vase. Moreover the wall have lattice work silk screen windows that lets in green light from the corridor.

Are we sure they don't make handbags of holding? I mean, really _really_ sure? Because I want one. And a ticket to Heng Dian World Studios. And I promise I won't go near this set!

Pinky promise!

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #xianxia #CDrama

It's hard to describe the set in full, because everything is decorated and carved, from the pillars with character medallions and enamel flowers, to the lanterns with their lattice screens and flower tips, to the ceiling screens with lace like panels with brushed turquoise colour. Master Tian stands on a podium with carved blooming trees behind her back, looking like she's about to deliver a speech that will change the millenium.

So, demons have excellent taste in style*, but no sense for furnishing? Almost everything here feels randomly placed. The table is askew in a sea of empty floor, there's an altar(?) not against the wall - against two flimsy curtains, and why is there an ankle height brazier straddling the most logical pathway past the table? There's more logic to other sets, but I'm suspecting uncritical use of AI here.

(*all in and more, More, _More!_ of it)

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Bird's eye view of the male lead sitting at a table with four stools on a carpet. The ankle height braziers stands two meters away, behind his henchpersons. Another brazier has been placed smack on a carpet behind the male lead, close to a candle holder and a bonsai that stands in the middle of the floor. Other furniture are randomly strewn about, and the mass of just empty floor enhances the feeling of sterile interior design cluelessness.

Speaking of going All In! There's no holding back in the styling of this demon lair! I want to shake the set designer's hand!

I'm also fighting the urge to give every item an IKEA name, because it would take me the entire night to come up with the right vibe for them. Maaaybe the carpet could be called RÖDLÖK*, but that doesn't quite catch the what-the-heckishness of true IKEA boinks.

(*red onion)

#MoonlightMystique #SetDesign #xianxia #CDrama

A demon lair clad in red and black. The black carpet has a swirling red pattern that might be phoenixes or dragons - it's hard to tell. The black wall panels has red tree like carvings, and to topp it off the hall is lined with dark red piedestals holding glowing chrystals. An ominous mist is floating above the floor in the background.

Judging by the reflections on the sheets and pillow, production actually forked up for fabric with woven patterns (in this case they both look like matelassé). That's rare; most dramas save money by using prints, even for common motifs like these. Given how they've skimped left and right it's a surprising splurge. But, who knows, maybe they found something sufficiently colour matched at the rental and didn't mind the off-level quality?

#AMomentButForever #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Yuanzhong, in turquoise clothes, resting in a bed with turquoise sheets and pillow. The pillow fabric is woven in a very common chrysanthemum pattern, and the bed sheet have a symetrical ovals surrounded by a corresponding net pattern woven into it.

Yup, this production takes colours seriously. Note that the _only_ thing red* and green on this set is the deity picture, making it stand out like a black sheep on snow.

(*save for the lables on the booze crocks that they couldn't change)

#AMomentButForever #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

The owner of the inn dressed in shades of purple scolding her employee dressed in blue. The set is brown with blue details, save for a picture of a deity in pink riding a red, yellow, and green phoenix.

I'm fascinated by the set designer's nack for creating rooms that feels like a home! This is not exactly my taste, but the weathering on the pieces, the colour combinations and the light makes you feel like it's a lived in house - you can even feel a slight vibe of residential school. This puts the weird and cold milleus at the beginning in another light; there was a point to them.

And yes, I'm stealing ideas like crazy.

#AMomentButForever #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

Tsnghua and Yuanzhong drinking wine in a room with framed silk windows. The floor is brown, whereas the low cupboards along the wall is in a lighter brown shade - both things have been worn smooth through ages of use. The light from the windows is falling on a calligraphy scroll hung behind a houseplant, and a yellow and white silk screen on feet pushed to the side.

This is rare! I guess this is Tanghua's room, and it's cosy; warm wooden tones, a bed with fluffy covers (but in a _manly_ way, of course), and those wall hangings really seal the deal! Normally interiors in C-dramas verge on grandness, sometimes to the point that they look impractical. But this room is perfectly liveable - I'd even stay there if I was allowed to bring a thicker matress.

Also: IKEA hack at one o' clock.

#AMomentButForever #SetDesign #Xianxia #CDrama

#setdesign

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