Setting The Sc
Hollywood production designer Rachel Kamerman builds
the ultirnte dollhouse for "But I'm a Cheerleader."
LINDA BACHRACK
Special to the Jewish News
achel
Kamerman
11 describes her-
self as "design
obsessed." The Southfield
native, now a Hollywood
production designer, built
her own dollhouse when
she was in the sixth grade.
"I designed and decorated
the entire house, down to
the stainless steel counter-
tops fashioned from the
top of a Nestle's Quik can-
ister," she says.
By the time she reached
Southfield High School,
Kamerman, 38, was "Miss
Industrial Arts." She took advantage of all the school's offerings in
art, architecture, film and photography.
"When I got to Michigan State's interior design program, I had
a mini-epiphany," she says. "I discovered I wanted a career com-
bining architecture, design and film."
After a stint as a senior designer for one of New York's top-ranked
hotel and restaurant design firms, Kamerman returned home to
Detroit, working as a project designer for Jon Greenberg &
Associates, Peterhansrea and the Handleman Company, before start-
ing her own design firm. But in April 1994, she headed to the West
Coast with dreams of Hollywood and set design.
The dream came true. Katnerman's most recent project was pro-
duction designer for But IM a Cheerleader, the sexual disorientation
comedy that opened last week at Royal Oak's Main Art Theater.
"One of the things I love about designing for film is the pur-
poseful imperfection," she says. "Whereas the goal of good interior
design is a gorgeous room, on a movie set, ugly can be good
Imperfections give the set character and depth. Quirky is cool.' i"
Such was her experience with Cheerleader. The film, starring
Natasha Lyonne and directed by Jamie Babbit, illustrates Babbit's
interest in the hyper-real. It explores characters that are in some
ways marginal, and places them in worlds that are brightly colored
and rich. The result is a disarming sense of seeing "reality" while
watching a story that verges on the absurd.
The satire chronicles the life of a teenager whose straight-laced
parents send her to a homosexual rehab center when they suspect
lesbian tendencies. The center's five-step program is designed to
deprogram gay kids and set them back on "the right path."
Characters include Joel (Joel Michaely), who claims his trau-
matic bris led to his homosexuality; the actor wears his own
yarmulke throughout the film. (After the movie wrapped,
,
Top le-ft: On a
break from the
Hollywood fast lane,
Rachel Kamerman
relaxes at her mom's_
Southfield home.
Top right: "But IM
a Cheerleader"
director Jamie
Babbit surveys
the hyper-real
pink and blue set.
Above right: Natasha
Lyonne, right, learns
the female art of
vacuuming against
Kamerman:s
candy-coated set.
Right: Kamerman
ound the perfect
Lucite desk for
this "transparent"
scene in
the movie.