Great visual storytelling is possible on a minimal budget, but you have to spend a lot of energy thinking and planning. In Understanding Design in Film Production, author Barbara Freedman Doyle demonstrates how to use production design, cinematography, lighting, and locations to create an effective and compelling visual story, even on the tightest of budgets. Featuring in-depth interviews with production designers, set decorators, construction coordinators, cinematographers, costumers, and location managers talking about the techniques of their craft, it provides you with a feel for what everyone on the visual team does, how they think and plan, and how best to utilize the knowledge and skills they offer. This book guides you through how to find, secure, and manage the best locations, how to create and dress a set, and how to make old look new and new look old—all on a tight budget. With insights from experts at the top of their field, sharing how they plan for the real-world application of large-scale ideas, you’ll be able to see ways to apply their techniques to your own smaller-scale productions. Understanding Design in Film Production is a practical, hands-on guide for any aspiring filmmaker who wants to understand the basic principles of visual design in order to create exceptional looking films.

Production Design: Visual Design for Film and Television is a hands-on guide to the craft of Production Design and Art Direction. Author Peg McClellan gives an insider’s view of the experiences and challenges of working as a Production Designer in film and television. The book covers three major areas, starting with an overview and the basics of job responsibilities, the artistic approach and the background which every Production Designer needs to be familiar with, and progressing to the mechanics of the role with a day-to-day breakdown of the job itself. McClellan takes you through script analysis, team collaborations, the hierarchy of a production, hiring a team, the business elements, locations, studio facilities, handling change, and everything in between. With case studies, insights from successful Production Designers, and inspiration in the form of over 200 colour photos and illustrations from storyboards to sets, this is the ideal book for students seeking a career in production design, and professionals looking to further their design knowledge.

While the viewer's eyes are trained on the actors, the production design sets the mood for the film. The design also subtly comments on the action and the characters, moves the plot forward and adds to its symbolic content. The production design of 23 films of the 1980s and 1990s is analyzed here. The films are divided into five areas: realistic films set in the present day, stylized films (including horror) set in the present day, period films, period films that move through several decades, and science fiction and fantasy films. Among the movies analyzed are The Silence of the Lambs, She's Gotta Have It, The Fisher King, Ragtime, Barton Fink, Goodfellas, and Alien. The quality of the designs is assessed by a careful reading of the mise-en-scene. Often the designers' own words are used to describe the effects and the process involved in achieving them.

John Box had one of the most continuously productive design careers in British cinema, winning a record for Academy Awards and four BAFTAs. After learning his craft in the 1950s, he shot to fame with Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Directors from David Lean and Carol Reed to Norman Jewison and Michael Mann have valued his experience, as he brought `a vocabulary of life' to bear on the new challenges posed by each film. Whether creating Chaina in Wales for The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), revolutionary Russia in Spain for Dr. Zhivago (1965), or Dickensian London for Oliver! (1968), imagining the mythic past in First Knight (1995) or the future in Rollerball (1975). Box shaped screen worlds across five decades, helping to establish the traditions of British production design which continue today. His greatest wish was that his career should encourage others by example. Based on interviews with John Box and the co-operation of some of his key collaborators, this lavishly colour-illustrated book focuses on solutions to design problems and provides a unique insight into the production designer's role in the collaborative business of filmmaking. --Book Jacket.

Film production is a highly creative and collaborative industry, full of multi-skilled artists and craftsmen. The fast-moving pace of technology makes it hard to keep abreast of current practices in production design. However, the ethos and skills behind filmmaking remain the same. In The Art of Illusion, renowned Art Director Terry Ackland-Snow shares his passion and knowledge of traditional film design from over fifty years of industry experience, using real-life case studies from some of the UK's most iconic films, including Batman, Labyrinth, the James Bond franchise and The Deep. Featuring over 100 original sketches, as well as rare behind-the-scenes photographs, storyboards and artwork, this book is exquisitely illustrated throughout, demonstrating the skills and techniques of film design with stunning intricacy. This is an essential guide for anyone aspiring to a career in production design, and will be of great value to all movie enthusiasts who are interested in the art of creating a film set. Superbly illustrated with 238 illustrations featuring over 100 original sketches, as well as rare behind-the scenes photographs.

"This book uses familiar films and television series to portray the complex process leading to the design of film sets. It goes into detail over the pros and cons of filming "on location" or in the studio, takes a look at the problems of historical and contemporary settings and clears up the linguistic muddle of names for particular jobs that has grown up as a result of different film production developments in Europe and America. This illustrated volume is a must for everyone involved in film and also for everyone interested in the art film." "Swiss designers Heidi and Toni Ludi have designed countless film sets since studying art in London and Munich, including such famous examples as The Magic Mountain, Edith's Diary, Wings of Desire, The Bear, Lindenstrasse and Die zweite Heimat. Both are actively committed to their profession; they pass their experience on to the younger generation in frequent lectures and seminars, in Toni Ludi's case since 1989 as professor at the Fachhochschule Rosenheim."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Theories of film have traditionally dealt with either narrative or industrial issues, with the consequence that the physical content of the graphic frame has often been ignored or relegated to the sidelines. By contrast, C. S. Tashiro foregrounds the visual aspect of cinema in this book, drawing on his experiences as a designer and filmmaker, as well as on contemporary theory, to show how production design can support or contradict narrative structure, or exist in an entirely parallel realm of meaning. Tashiro looks at cinematic production design from a broadly interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing art and architecture theory, audience reception, narrative theory, and phenomenology, to arrive at a more encompassing definition of the process. He builds his argument around studies of several prominent history films, since design is central to historical representation, and explores the most pertinent issues raised by the topic, particularly commodity consumption. In his conclusion, he also offers possible solutions to some of the social problems raised by design.