The Designer’s Story
: Filmmaking from the Perspective of the Production Designer

  • Jane Barnwell

    Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis

    Abstract

    The production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a film,
    working in close collaboration with the director, producer and director of
    photography. They create the environment and visual style for the story to take
    place in. As head of the art department they oversee the realization of their
    designs creating real and imagined worlds for the screen. The deployment of
    screen space is often physically and emotionally essential in order to underpin
    the concepts of character and narrative.

    Drawing widely upon the production designer’s professional perspective and
    particular creative point of view, the corpus of work comprising this submission
    has generated a new method of analysis deriving from five distinct categories
    that the designer employs to visualize the script.

    This submission consists of a combination of written publications and a feature
    length film that exemplify the professional practice of a production designer. To
    accompany the film, evidence is included in the form of pre-production
    paperwork that details the research and design process. Together the written
    and practical work provide an overview of the subject of production design
    through the lens of a professional practitioner.
    Date of AwardNov 2018
    Original languageEnglish
    Awarding Institution
    • University of Brighton
    SupervisorJeremy Aynsley (Supervisor)

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