Production Design Sketches

1998 - 2026 Production Design Sketches

PRODUCTION DESIGN / Jan Kadlec / PD text No.3

A production designer is absolutely vital to achieving and maintaining the visual quality of a film. Most European set designers are recruited from the ranks of architecture graduates. However, a production designer is more than just a set designer. The role is a mix of artist, producer, set designer, and chiefly that of a visionary. Production design is about creating visions based on education and talent. That production designers are often recruited from the ranks of architects, artists, costume designers, or anyone who has an artistic worldview. However, is simply recruiting these individuals enough? In today’s approach, it’s the answer is unfortunately yes. Production design is a vision born from theory that is not based on the mathematic, physical, or chemical sciences. It’s based on intellect and a broad education. However, in today’s world any one can claim to have these “theories,” allowing any individual to claim to be an artist, production designer, or even a politician. In order to move forward, it’s necessary to leave this theorizing to those with the proper training. A production designer in one of the three key creative professions (the key creative triumvirate in making a film are the scriptwriter, director, and production designer) and it would thus deserve its own university curriculum and not just simple recruitment. Other professions such as cinematography, editing, costume design, and music also have their own very important positions, but they are not part of creating the film from the beginning of the process. Their work is based on the vision created beforehand, and then they add their own considerable talent, but they are not part of the main creative process. This is the situation, and furthermore many local and European bodies that decide about financing are of the same mind. This unfortunately reflects a lack of knowledge about the creative process. It would be a mistake to condemn these people because their ignorance is not their fault. As was said, European film is based on historical context. In the past, the main artist and visionary was the director. If we compare the use of individual professions in the UK and US with Europe, we can see massive differences. The Anglo-American studio industry includes a myriad of professions that are not represented in the European context where a small team is headed by the director and then the cinematographer. The results of current film production unfortunately reflect these conditions. Film is chiefly a visual art form, but today it’s lost in a forest of dialogue that lacks high-quality visuals. A film is the sum total of many images and each of these must be able to represent the message; it’s a gallery of scenes complemented by sound that emphasises specific emotions. Most high-quality films thoroughly consider every image and scene, and it’s rare to see coincidences or needlessly repeated cliches. A film based on these shows the absence of art and it’s merely a chaotic way of ripping off other work, much as if advertising or architecture were based on Pinterest. That is mostly true in European filmmaking, which now recycles instead of its traditional role of presenting visionary artistic works. As this is the sad state of play, the role of a production designer and the entire art department are absolutely necessary in European filmmaking to maintain the visual quality, as well as its content. Experience has proven that any sort of film, even those that appear to be simple, require a coordinator of the film’s visual appearance. Simplicity is often more complicated than just a pastiche. A scene taking place in today’s world cannot be simply transposed to the screen. Every individual sees reality a bit differently, and so each story is understood differently. The same bus stop or sidewalk can create different emotional reactions in different people: A scene of happiness and contentment at the bus stop will look differently than a dramatic moment taking place during or even before a tense moment at the stop. If film is to remain a visual art, the art department and everything associated with it cannot be separated from the creation of the film. The art department is one of the most important parts of the film.

“PD” PRODUCTION DESIGN eng. / Jan Kadlec / PD text No.4 ENG.

What is production design, anyway? Does anybody know?

Jimmy Kimmel, host, Academy Awards 2017.

Peg McClellan used this question to open her 2020 book PRODUCTION DESIGN. As this question was placed rather recently, and the answer does not seem to be common knowledge, this is an opportunity to open a discussion about how we plan to tell the story of the world of Production Design (PD).

Maybe there are some ideas about how the visual form of a film is created and who is a production designer?

It’s not just an art director or set designer.

The Production Design exhibition and publication is how we plan to show what a production designer does and how the visual form of a film is created.

The title of production designer was first used by producer David O. Selznick as a special moniker for William Cameron Menzies, the art director on Gone with the Wind (1939). This made Menzies more than just a simple art director. He became the author of the film’s visual appearance, and created a wealth of illustrations, blueprints, storyboards, and costumes for the film. He authored all the nuances we see today, including designing the sets and selecting props.

When this film (partially thanks to Menzies’ extraordinary contribution), was nominated for Best Film, Selznick asked for the creation of a new category that would go beyond the role of an art director. That was the birth of production design, which the Academy then defined as the award for the individual that is responsible for the film’s concept and its production, which is then approved by the producer. The title production designer must therefore be earned, and it simply cannot be taught at this point.

“I’m not sure you can teach production design because you have to know too much.”

Jim Bissell (Mission Impossible, Good Night, Good Luck, Monuments Men)

A production designer is a mix of an artist, architect, theoretician, historian, and a producer. It’s therefore imprecise to say people graduate to this post from positions such costume designer, set designer, and so on. To be a production design, a person must be much more than just a recruit from one of these professions.

The creation of a film’s visual appearance requires an artist to think conceptually using a foundation in the fine arts, architecture, and general history as well as at least some knowledge of philosophy and psychology. The work should be viewed wholistically, seeking out the fundamental moments and its chief message. The production designer must find these moments and visually support them, fortifying them with visual storytelling. Films are visual culture and thus work with forms and colours. Everything is a reference to something that helps us understand the composition of the story.

It’s always what’s right for the story: What’s the ESSENTIAL thing. It will not always be a size. It can be line, form, colour – How any of these effects the sets emotionally. Menzies knew the premise. He knew where he was going.” – John DeCuir, Sr. (Cleopatra, Hello Dolly, The King and I)

Almost every detail shown has a precise reason for being there. Chance is not a good foundation for making the visuals of a film. Everything displayed, the architecture, environment, props, customers, etc., is not a chance moment, but a long-developed world that is there to nonverbally described the given emotion or experience and in short, tell the story.

“Hitchcock believed that we need to make distinct environments for each character, such as one character always drives a red car, or another character lives in a brick apartment building, so always use brick when that character is seen. It helps the audience.” - Henry Bumstead (Production Designer / The Sting, To Kill a Mockingbird, Vertigo)

A film is the summation of many images and each one must be able to represent the corresponding message. It’s a gallery of expressions that is accompanied by audio that underlines the specific emotion. High-quality films usually have all their imagery well-conceived with nothing is left to chance. This haphazard way of filmmaking shows a lack of artistic quality and a certain level of copying.

We need to create a backstory for each character, so that every surface tells a story… The audience will sense all the backstory! You just have to feel it. – Wynn Thomas (Hidden Figures, A Beautiful Mind, Inside Man, Do the Right Thing)

This is why some characters need a secondary story to better understand them. Although the story shows the person as they are “now,” we need to know all the context that brought them to this point. What did the character experience, why do they live a certain way, and why do they act a certain way? That is also extremely necessary to describe their character and environment. Without this analysis of each character and their environs, the visuals of the film cannot be created.

Henry Bumstead recalled his presentation of the first set design he created from his own ideas: “The script called for an apartment. So I drew a floorplan and built it using stucco accessories, lots of opulent cladding, and the walls were covered with shelving and books. It was the apartment of my dreams. Then my supervisor, Hans Drier (a very educated man), looked at my set. He quietly examined each design and then said: ‘It’s clear the character is well read and lives an affluent lifestyle. What is his job?’ I answered: “The script says he’s a plumber.” The supervisor left without a word.

Chance is not a good foundation for determining how a film will look, otherwise the work will be uncoordinated. And a film is too expensive to experiment or try to capture chance moments.

The production designer completes the triumvirate of cinematic professions that fundamentally shape the story along with the scriptwriter and the director. Other professions, such as the cinematographer, editor, costume designer (if the production designer doesn’t design the costume themselves), and music director are dependent on the vision created by these three artists working together.

In some cases, the production designer’s work is confused with recycling historical realities combined with artistic effects that we most often attribute to the director. There is no need to argue whether the director can or cannot be the film’s sole author because that may be the case in individual cases. However, this centralization in the role of a single artist is partially to blame for the lack of education about other roles that are represented as a single person or a group of authors.

Production design is not just slight adjustments to individual locations according to the director’s vision. A production designer is omnipresent, taking part in all meetings from the beginning to the end of filming. A production designer can fundamentally change the film’s colour palette, alter the sound design, or colouring. Basically, the PD can change what they want as long as the changes support the film’s guiding themes and respect the budget.

There must be a story to tell. You don’t design a set. You design a picture first, then you design a set. – Dick Sylber (The Graduate, Baby Doll, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Dick Tracy)

It is a mistake to begin work on a film by formulating nuances. The basis for creating the film’s visuals is never based on details, which are usually decided later. First, it is necessary to understand the narrative world and then begin to create the PD’s artistic contribution to the work. The visual form of the film is not a relief of reality. That reality is only created by the PD. Emotions tell a story, and the story forms the reality. Our reality is only an idea of a reality. It is a settlement within our conceptions of reality. This allows the PD to create a vision of the future that as an idea becomes a reality. Our past can also inform our ideas when it is well based on existing agreed-to truths. History is only an agreement about the story being told that gives us a wholistic idea about its appearance. Today, most historians are involved in removing the massive sediment of misconceptions about the past that has accumulated over the years. The past, as conceived by chroniclers and historians as the authors of these stories, could be used to serve political and other interests. The numerical world of markets and information can influence understanding in a similar way based on the emotion coming from the information. The world is emotion in an idea formulated about reality.

No new technology can change the conceptual view of determining a film’s visual appearance as the tools the PD uses make no difference to the process.

“Production design is the total control of the visual aspects of cinematic presentation in totality. Whatever is happening visually on the screen, that’s production design. Production design is indefinable: The position knows no bounds. Computers will never replace us because they cannot VISUALIZE or CONCEPTUALIZE. – Rick Carter (Star Wars, Lincoln, Forrest Gump, Avatar)

Production design is art and vision that is not based on technological development. Technological progress can only virtually increase the size of the screen of a given scene. This does not mean we are talking about a larger work than those that appear on the small screen. Fine art is based on the concept, not the size, which is only a tool to emphasize an emotion in the context of human scale. An emotion is relative to the size of the space we inhabit. Regardless, size is an effective and often-used tool in art and architecture.

Size is a measurement of the space in which we exist.

Art is the head! The tools don’t matter. The ideas are what count. – Nelson Coates (Flight, Runaway Jury, 50 Shades Darker, Flight, Kiss the Girls)

The exhibition about production design and the book published to mark the occasion should inform and educate the general public as well as better define this work for cinema experts.

What is production design, anyway? Does anybody know?