Rui Francisco: "Scenography is a marathon with the speed of 100 meters"

Rui Francisco, an architect who has been dedicated to set design for several decades and has been at SP Television for 15 years, is committed to constant renovation, "with a network", in a process of constant credibility.

Faced with the need to make dozens of decisions every day, in a fight against time, scenography for television fiction is, for Rui Francisco, "a marathon with the speed of 100 meters."

With a long experience that started in the 80s with architect José Manuel Castanheira, Rui Francisco was at the beginning of TVI, where he worked for five years, then at Expo 98, as João Brites' assistant, but working closely with technical director Hubert Dombrecht, from whom he learnt a different vision of set design.

Linked to the group Teatro - O Bando, Rui Francisco divides his scenography activity with the theater, whose processes are also used in fiction.

In the creative process, the relationship with the director is essential, after getting to know the script. Rui Francisco avoids working with replicas, choosing instead typological models. "The ideal, in the end, is to be able to build what we want and not what we draw", he adds. A set design job for a TV fiction, a telenovela or a series, includes, on average, 13 to 14 sets, occupying 2 thousand square meters.

Nowadays, with the experience acquired and the stabilization of processes at SP, it is easier to overcome time pressures, "increasingly difficult", where complicity is fundamental. "The goal of any scenography work is credibility. The spectator has to believe that what he is seeing could be real", he says.

Remembering works that gave him special pleasure, like the series NAKED CITY, or the telenovelas SALTY SEA and HEART AND SOUL, as well as the current THE SECRET, Rui Francisco points out that it's always the next job that motivates him.

Experience, professionalism and creativity define, without a doubt, Rui Francisco.