Museum Home   The Last Samurai: Navigable Panoramas   Production Design for The Last Samurai   About Production Design   The 360° Image   About Digital Navigable Panoramas

About Production Design What is film production design, and who is responsible for it? The following information comes from Who Does What in Movies and Television by the American Museum of the Moving Image. This interative software is on view within the Museum's core exhibition, Behind the Screen. Production Designer Department: Art Labor Union/Guild: IATSE NABET USA Production designers are responsible for the visual design of movies and television shows. Supervising an art department that includes the art director, scenic artists, set decorators, a dressing crew, and more, they translate the director’s ideas into a physical environment. This may involve constructing sets and/or finding and modifying existing locations. The production designer begins work early in pre-production. She reads the script to determine location requirements, and arrives at a budget estimate that must be negotiated with the producer. During pre-production, the designer and director discuss visual themes and search for appropriate colors, patterns, and motifs, often reviewing paintings, photos, and other movies to establish a common vocabulary. With a budget, a complete breakdown of set requirements, and continuing creative input from the director, the designer and design staff prepare sketches, create blueprints and technical drawings, build three-dimensional models, and scout locations. Designers must closely coordinate their work with the director of photography and the costume designer. In designing the sets, they must take into account the cinematographer’s plans for lighting and camera movement. With the costume designer, they work to harmonize sets and costumes. Production design requires some technical background and facility with colors, as well as knowledge of art, costume, interior design, lighting, photography, and history. Most designers begin their careers in other positions in the art department and ascend through the ranks; training and experience can also be gained in art, theater, or film school.

Production designer Cedric Gibbons (center) discusses set designs for A Tale of Two Cities (MGM, 1935) with his staff. Photo from The Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive.   Production designer William Cameron Menzies sketches camera shots for The North Star (RKO, 1943). Photo from The Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive.   Production designer Richard Sylbert on a set he created for The Bonfire of the Vanities (Warner Bros., 1990). Photo from Photofest.