The studio · capability · scenic carpentry

The carpentry.

The Morbidelli N100 by SCM and the plasterers' benches: load-bearing wooden frames, CNC milling, working doors — the technical heart of our workshops.

The capability

What we do.

Scenic carpentry is one of the oldest capabilities of our craft. It is the load-bearing structure of nearly every scenography we build — invisible in the photo, but without which the finished piece does not stand.

Behind a fibreglass column, behind a faux stone façade, behind a large oversize prop, there is almost always a wooden frame cut, milled and assembled in our workshops. It is this frame that gives the load-bearing geometry, the resistance to transport, the strength to carry the weight of the surface materials on top.

We work with marine plywood, OSB, poplar plywood and raw fir depending on the destination: a film set requires lightness and quick dismantling, a theme-park attraction requires multi-year resistance to weather and crowds. The choice of wood is the project's first technical decision.

The archive photos from 9 November 2021 document an average workshop day: workbenches, cutting equipment, raw timber ready for milling. A typical day of carpentry — nothing spectacular, but the piece that makes everything else work.

Since 2018 our workshops have a Morbidelli N100 CNC machining centre by SCM — a numerical-control router for wood. It cuts, mills and drills plywood, MDF and laminated panels from 3D vector files. What would take two days at the bench by hand, the Morbidelli does in three hours. What remains is assembly, finishing, and on-set adaptation — the real craft of the workshop.

Carpentry workbench with cutting equipment and timber pieces in progress — **Workbench.** Cutting equipment in position

Raw timber stacked in our workshops ready for processing: plywood boards, fir planks, poplar plywood — **Raw timber.** Marine plywood, fir, poplar plywood

Carpentry workshop view: pieces in progress, sawdust on the floor, electric cutting equipment — **Carpentry workshop.** Sawdust on the floor

Load-bearing wooden structure for a theme-park scenography under assembly: frames, crossbeams, raw timber boards — **Load-bearing structure.** Wooden frame for theme-park scenography under assembly

Documentation

More photos
of our work.

Detail of plywood assembly for scenography, screws, brackets, scaffold under construction — Assembly detail

Custom-cut timber pieces ready to be assembled into a sculpted scenography — Custom-cut timber

Milling bench in the carpentry workshop with panel being worked — Milling bench

Workshop yard view with wooden structures ready for transport to set — Yard — structures ready for transport

Marine plywood panel being processed for a theme-park scenography — Marine plywood panel

Overview of the carpentry workshop with multiple work stations active — Workshop overview

The Morbidelli N100 CNC machining centre by SCM in our carpentry workshops — numerical control router for cutting wood panels from vector files — <strong>Morbidelli N100 SCM.</strong> CNC machining centre for wood

Behind the scenes

How we work.

Wood selection

Film sets: lightweight, demountable marine plywood. Permanent theme parks: treated poplar plywood. Load-bearing oversize props: raw fir for the most stressed sections. The choice is the project's first technical decision.

Modular assembly

Film scenographies are always modular: large pieces cannot fit inside a soundstage or onto a transport truck. Our job is to divide the structure into transportable modules, prepare precise joints, and label the interfaces for on-site assembly.

Real doors

When a scenography has a door that actually opens — the Mater-piece cottage for Cars Road Trip, the Leonardo abbey, the doors of the GF VIP Cave — it is carpentry that builds it. Hinges, frames, real locks hidden behind the scenographic finish.

4 woods

the technical palette — marine plywood, OSB, poplar plywood, raw fir

Modular

all scenographies are divided into transportable, numbered modules

Heart

the invisible structure without which nothing stands

See it at work

In these projects.

carpentry is a capability that recurs across our projects. You can see it applied in these works: