By Design: Interviews with Film Production Designers

By Vincent Lobrutto

Book Overview

In By Design, twenty prominent feature film production designers talk about their careers, their relationships with Hollywood directors, and how they formulated and executed the technical and aesthetic designs of their film projects. The interviews explore production design techniques and the total process of establishing the visual look of a feature film, including the design and creation of sets, finding locations, establishing the color scheme or palette of a film, and supervising the costumes, hairstyles, and makeup. The designers discuss in detail their work on many highly acclaimed and seminal works in the field, including North by Northwest, Chinatown, Barry Lyndon, Reds, Amadeus, Brazil, Blade Runner, and The Last Emperor. The interviewees talk about their relationships with the producer, director of photography, art director, construction crew, set decorator, property master, and costume designer, and how the team helps bring the director's vision to the screen.

The interviews are presented in an order that gives the reader a historical perspective on the development of production design, from the studio era to contemporary productions. LoBrutto includes biographical background and a complete filmography of each subject, plus a glossary of terms that concern the design process. By Design investigates the visual style of films in a pragmatic and detailed manner usually overlooked by conventional film analysis, and will prove especially useful to film students and scholars and all aspiring and experienced producers and directors.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275940314
• ISBN13: 9780275940317
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Content... Poor cover quality.

The info in this book is great. Really insightful info on many of the production designers of your favourite films. My only negative is that the quality of the books cover is extremely poor. It's sitting in front of me now and after one read the paperback cover curls up at 45 degrees when sitting flat on the table. The corners are bent and the binding is buckled. Buy this book for it's content but don't expect it to look nice on the shelf or last a thousand years.

Awesome Book For Filmmakers

I'm getting ready to direct my first feature and this book has been invaluable to help me think about the ins and outs of film design. Seriously huge A-list designers that worked on big movies. Fun to rethink about those films from the designers perspective.

An excellent book!

This book is exceptionally inspiring. It is wonderful to be able to hear the ideas and experiences of these incredible Production Designers. The interviews bring light to the important role these accomplished men and women played in the world of moviemaking. If you are interested in the art of film making this book is the real thing. You will learn a lot. I love this book!

Wonderful Book

For those of us designing for motion picture, this is an indispensible collection of interviews with some of the modern masters of the trade.