"I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," Dorothy says to her dog in 1939's 'The Wizard of Oz' as she walks around, discovering a fantasy set in which, without realizing it, we find ourselves immersed. From the initial sketch to the construction of the sets, production design for film requires careful detail to truly bring visions to life and transport viewers.
In this combination of creativity, research, and collaboration, various production designers have approached us to share their adventures and design processes. The importance of creating a cohesive visual aspect, understanding language and styles, and translating all of this to the screen come together in the following series of 8 interviews we conducted with Annie Beauchamp, Luca Tranchino, Felicity Abbott, Jacinta Leong, Alexandra Schaller, Ina Mayhew, Amy Lee Wheeler, and Stefan Dechant.
Annie Beauchamp: The Visual Aspect
"The designer’s work helps to drive the plot", says Annie Beauchamp. She is a production designer who contacted me unexpectedly after reading an article about the series Black Mirror and the future of architecture - something exciting as she was in charge of the visual aspect for Striking Vipers, the first episode of the fifth season. Even more impressive is her extensive experience working on numerous productions such as Sleeping Beauty, The Yellow Birds, Adoration, Top of the Lake China Girl, LEGO Ninjago, and as an art director in none other than Moulin Rouge.
"During the first reading of the script, a very instinctive process is triggered. I try to remain open to the material, imagining the characters and environments with emotion and subtext. Each script is very different from the other, and this gives me a license to play, invent, and create specific ideas for each one. First, I start thinking about ways of designing and making something out of something that doesn't appear interesting at the surface. I begin with the script then unleash my research skills. I always think about creating settings that generate overtones of what should be felt rather than just seen in the first stages. After that, I create a book of visual references. I’m very organic with this process. Some images are like placeholders, others are meant to suggest feelings or moods, a few consider design themes and color palettes, and finally, some of them are for the director or cinematographer." Read more about her process here.
Luca Tranchino: The Language of Design
"Production design uses the same language as architecture," comments Luca Tranchino, a production designer renowned for his involvement as an art director in Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Hugo, and Prince of Persia. In other words, films that were designed to transport us to magical and historical worlds.
"I think that production design uses architectural environments to express an emotional state, investigating the psychological implications of it. Compared to architecture, production design is more like looking inside our subconscious, at our memories, our dreams and deepest fears, using space, color, texture, graphics and symbols to bring the audience to other worlds and to make them relate to them. In some ways, designing for a movie or for a TV Series, it’s similar to the work of an actor that has to put himself in the role of another person, sometimes from other periods, or other cultures. The production designer has the freedom to use and reinterpret architecture of various styles, periods, or geographies. For each project, there are many different variables and requirements, and the subjects are often very different: from historical, to fantasy, to sci-fi, and so on. For example, for a specific assignment, you might need to express an unpleasant feeling, maybe through an oppressive and labyrinthine corridor, that reminds you of a nightmare, or maybe spaces flooded with water, filthy, nasty. There is no limit; you can build structures that are considered impossible by the laws of physics, or introduce materials that have not been invented yet. Production design is the visualization of an idea, it’s like moving to parallel realities when even the impossible is possible." Read more about his process, here.
Felicity Abbott: Architecture of the Screen
Production designer Felicity Abbott is behind the great staging of The Luminaries, a mini-series that takes place in New Zealand during the 1860s West Coast Gold Rush.
"I view production design as narrative ‘world building’. It interprets the visual ‘poetics’ of space through the exploration of emotion, the subconscious, memory and nostalgia using tone, style, palette and texture. Designing the world of The Luminaries involved the construction of a broad range of architecture representative of 1860’s New Zealand. From English Gothic revival hotels to opium dens, weatherboard cottages to police camps. The design drew together diverse architectural styles to create an emotionally resonant connection to the past; from Chinese settlements constructed from organic materials such as stone, fern and mud to gold mining towns, tent encampments and cliff-top, bark flitch timber huts." Read more about her process, here.
Jacinta Leong: The Futuristic Aesthetic
Jacinta Leong is a production designer who takes pleasure in the creative and collaborative process that comes with designing environments for narratives. Her work in various films looks towards the future, especially in relation to technology in society. She was a production designer for the movie 2067; art director in Alien: Covenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Pacific Rim: Uprising; assistant art director in Star Wars: Episode II-III; and set designer in The Matrix, among others.
"It is interesting how the future is portrayed differently in different movies; Writers, Directors, and Production Designers have different visions of what the future looks like. And that’s the beauty of our creative Art of Filmmaking. Film can tell us how things are, and it can also tell us how things can be. Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III were designed by Gavin Bocquet. His aim was to keep the visual spirit and identity of all the previous Star Wars films, and of course, ensure that Director George Lucas approved everything. This was important for the continuity of what was a significantly established world – or in this case, Galaxy!" Read more about her process, here.
Alexandra Schaller: Science Fiction
After Yang is a science fiction film written, directed, and edited by Kogonada - a South Korean-born American filmmaker known for his video essays on audiovisual content analysis. The main plot of the film follows the story of a family trying to repair their damaged artificial intelligence in a post-apocalyptic world connected by technology and nature. Alexandra Schaller, in charge of production design and the appearance of the sets, imagined a future that translates these considerations: From the family house that recovers the original design by Joseph Eichler of the 1960s, going through the importance of outdoor space and vegetation, to each of the materials that had to be non-disposable, renewable or biodegradable.
"In our early creative conversations, (director) Kogonada and I discussed the visual world of the film that we wanted to create. The movie is intentionally set in an unspecified time and place, but the backdrop of the world is a post-apocalyptic period. The idea was that a great natural calamity has occurred, humanity has undergone some kind of reckoning, and we’re now living in a world with less destruction of the natural environment and more of a symbiosis between humans and nature. One of the central themes of the film is the idea of connection. Connection to others, but I also interpreted it as a meditation on our connection to the world around us, to something greater than ourselves. As this is quite an interior film, both existentially and spatially, we sought every design opportunity to bring the outside world in, in order to reinforce the idea of interconnection." Read more about her process, here.
Ina Mayhew: Building Respect
If you haven't seen Respect, I highly recommend it. The Liesl Tommy-directed biographical film based on the life of American singer Aretha Franklin visually takes us back to the 1960s through a successful set work. Here, Production Designer, Ina Mayhew had the job of creating a series of locations where color palettes undoubtedly evoke more than emotions: Her suburban home from her childhood in Detroit, the sassy jazz clubs of New York City, her luxurious Upper West Side apartment, and finally her ultramodern home in Los Angeles.
"We began our conversations with an approach to the visual style of Aretha’s whole life. At first we thought it should be moody, with muted colors, using photographs of jazz musicians and singers as a reference. We wanted to continue the muted palette of the period, the 50’s & 60’s, for her childhood home and the various houses & apartments she lived in. But after more conversation and after watching a couple of films (A Room With A View was one), we changed our minds. We decided to make something beautiful and began researching upscale homes of black celebrities. Aretha’s father, C.L. Franklin, certainly was that: a celebrated minister on evangelical and civil rights’ biggest stages. We decided to show the wealth in which Aretha grew up. We emphasized the affluent style of her house. I consider one of my strengths as a designer—first trained as a painter—to be the addition of color to frame, to evoke emotion. And this era’s characteristics are my favorite palettes, with subtle rich tones of teals, yellows, oranges, burgundy, and deep blues. The lovely furniture style of mid-century modern pieces creates places where actors can live in their characters." Read more about her process, here.
Amy Lee Wheeler: Iconic Styles
Amy Lee Wheeler is the production designer for "Gordita Chronicles", an HBO series that tells the story of a girl and her family from the Dominican Republic who immigrates to Miami in 1985, after the country's political and economic instability. Upon arrival, the "American dream" brings them an unpleasant surprise after discovering a materialistic city concerned about social status.
"I grew up in the 80s, so it's easy to remember iconic colors and styles but we never wanted the era to be "a joke" so the design had to be grounded in reality. My discussions with showrunners focused on designing realistic environments that never fought with costumes or props but had the heavy textures of the Hialeah Miami neighborhood. We referenced John Hughes movies for tone and acquired an extensive library of vintage reference books and catalogs, but most homes don't look like a magazine spread. We gathered personal photographs from the show creator, Claudia Forestieri’s, childhood and found other Miami households for authenticity." Read more about her process, here.
Stefan Dechant: Abstracted Environments
Stefan Dechant is a production designer with over 25 years of experience in the industry working alongside reputable filmmakers like James Cameron (Avatar), Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland), and Sam Mendes (Jarhead). Recently, Stefan served as the production designer for the upcoming Apple TV+ film 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' directed by Joel Coen. Why did this interest us immediately? Because he had the task of creating 35 Black & White, Abstract Sets.
"At our first meeting, Joel talked about this film not being a naturalistic interpretation of Macbeth. He never wanted to set aside that the original text was created for a theatrical presentation. In doing so he wanted the imagery to be theatrical in nature but still cinematic. The environments needed to be abstracted. He wanted, “Not a castle, but the idea of a castle.” For several months before I started, Joel, Fran, and our cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel, had been working together on what this abstraction might be. During that time they had decided that the film would be shot in black and white and that the aspect ratio would be academy format. They had also worked on developing a collection of reference imagery that ranged from architectural photography and paintings to frame grabs of other films and some of their own photography." Read more about his process, here.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topic: Design Process, proudly presented by Codesign, the first purpose-built iPad app for the concept design stage of the architectural process.
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