Yet another from Focal Press’s excellent series of books on film Art, Production Design – Film Craft interviews some of the best production designers working in the film industry today.

Listed below are the 16 production designers interviewed and their list of films featured in the book :

– Ken Adam (Madness of King George, Dr Strangelove, Dr No, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice)

– Jim Bissell (300, ET, Good Night and Good Luck, Jumanji)

– Rick Carter (Avatar, Back to the Future II, The Goonies, Jurassic Park (1-3), War Horse)

– William Chang (2046, Chungking Express, Happy Together, My Blueberry Nights)

– Stuart Craig (The Mission, The Elephant Man, The English Patient, Gandhi, Harry Potter)

– Nathan Crowley (Lake House, Public Enemies, Dark Knight Trilogy, The Prestige, John Carter)

– Dante Ferretti (HUGO, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gangs of New York, The Aviator)

– Jack Fisk (Days of Heaven, Badlands, The New World, There Will be Blood, The Tree of Life)

– Antxon Gomez (The Skin I Live In, Bad Education, Che, Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Live Flesh)

– Sarah Greenwood (Hanna, Atonement, Sherlock Holmes (x2), Anna Karenina)

– Alex McDowell (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Terminal, Minority Report, Fight Club)

– John Myhre (Chicago, Elizabeth, Memoirs of a Geisha)

– Eve Stewart (The Damned United, The King’s Speech, Naked, Topsy Turvy)

– Yohei Taneda (Kill Bill (1 & 2), The Flowers of War, The Magic Hour)

– Dean Tavoularis (Apocalypse Now, Bonnie and Clyde, Carnage, The Godfather (I and II)

Legacy – (William Cameron Menzies, Richard Sylbert, John Box, Fernando Scarfiotti, Cedric Gibbons)

The interviews are detailed and in-depth, with plenty of case studies and the many production stills and photographs prevent the read from getting dry, and also allow easy identification of films should you want to check them out.

After cinematography, production design is my next favourite discipline in filmmaking. To create realistic or fantastical worlds using one’s creativity and aesthetic sense must be incredibly fulfilling and exciting for an artist working in film.

(above) William Chang Suk-ping, who is something of a filmmaking whizkid that can design costumes, edit films, and do production design. He has worked on many of Wong Kar Wai’s films, including the upcoming Ip Man biopic, The Grandmasters.  I have nothing but respect for this artistic genius.

(above) Production design for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, by Nathan Crowley. His work is also covered in The Art And Making Of The Dark Knight Trilogy book. 

(above) Production designer Yohei Taneda. I love the work he has done for films like Kill Bill, Swallowtail Butterfly and Flowers Of War.

This book is an excellent resource for both aspiring production designers or anyone with a love for Film. Highly recommended.

“Film Craft : Production Design″ details :

– Author : Fionnuala Halligan
– Dimensions – 10 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
– Soft cover, 192 pages
– Full color

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