To understand why white void Hollywood studios are so appealing to latest film makers, let us first see how they employ it in their productions. The white void Hollywood cyc wall is simply a featureless expanse of white. The studios simply erect a sweeping wall that’s totally featureless. The room is then painted in a pure white color. Once this is done, it gives the illusion the subjects ( actors ) are seen as standing in an empty white space.
The room is so featureless that it would be very unlikely to inform from any photographs or photographs taken with the cyc in the background that there are any walls in any way. You cannot see the walls, the floors, the ceiling, or any other proof of space and dimension. The actors seem to be hanging in nothingness. A great white void Hollywood studio blends all the walls, the floor and the ceiling into one seamless space in such a way that the dimensions of space are lost when filmed or photographed.
This is the reason the white void Hollywood studio room is known as a white cyc, as it is indeed a void. It lacks any concept of dimension and placement when shot in a film. Why would a director prefer to shoot a scene in a white void Hollywood studio? What is the desire of loosing the dimensions of setting? The white cyc studio comes in hardy when the director wants to realize the film effects discussed in the following paragraphs. There are occasions when the director will want to express a transition from one realm to another such as when going from a dream to fact. The dream is digitally instituted of the white screen, and when that dream is over, the stage can then shift back from the white wall. This is one of the best techniques of expressing dreams rather than shooting in a monochrome mode.
Likewise, a director may need to shove the plot with a flashback scene. That suggests he or she has to craft a way of removing the viewer from their current space and time to a past event as imagined by the actor. The simplest way to shift the viewer is by removing the normal misce-en-scene and carrying the viewer through the white cyc where the flashback is acted out ( past ) and back again to the ordinary misce-en-scene ( present ). It works superbly and no spectator will be confused about the plot’s forwards and backwards movement.
Another great example we are able to highlight in the use of white void Hollywood studios is the so called ‘imprisonment settings’ in film making circles. Imprisonment settings are the settings in which a director may want to shoot an interrogation, or a subject in any kind of detained environment ( prison, mental establishment, etc ). This is simply achieved with the white cyc studios since the white void has no exits, no windows and no definition of dimensions so freedom is seen as absent.
