Production designer Tamara Deverell and set decorator Shane Vieau won the Oscar for Production design on Sunday March 15th for their work on Frankenstein. (Photo credit: Etienne Laurent / The Academy)
-by Beverley Phillips
The Inverness County Centre for the Arts (ICCA) now has an Oscar winner as the board’s co-chair.
Tamara Deverell of Chimney Corner won an Academy Award for her work as production designer for Frankenstein on March 15th. The award is shared with the movie set decorator, Shane Vieau of Dartmouth.
In her acceptance speech, she thanked director and screenwriter Guillermo del Toro for his artistry, her crews, her family, and Mary Shelley, the author of the groundbreaking 1818 novel.
In the backstage interview, Deverell noted the Tim Houston budget cuts to the arts. “I’m living in Nova Scotia right now,” she said, “which is getting arts cuts by our provincial government, which is making it really difficult to support artists like me and Shane, who need to grow, and young people who need to learn. Art is important. It is essential to our human culture and well-being.”
This was Deverell’s first Oscar win, and caps off a successful award season for the production designer. For her work on Frankenstein, she received a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award and an Art Directors Guild award in February, and a Critics Choice award in January.
ICCA co-chair Bob MacLeod said, “On behalf of ICCA, I would like to congratulate Tamara on her Oscar win. It is exciting and wonderful to have someone with such an artistic and prominent background as co-chair on our board. She is a wonderful, spirited, extremely hard-working, down-to-earth, and supportive person, and we look forward to the creativity she will bring to ICCA.”