Frame & Reference Podcast - 43: "Power of the Dog" Production Designer Grant Major

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

On this weeks episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast, Kenny talks with Oscar Winning production designer Grant Major about his work on the Oscar Nominated film "Power of the Dog." Grant has had a fascinating career having worked on films such as "King Kong" and the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy, he won his Oscar for Production Design on "The Return of the King." Enjoy the episode! Follow Kenny on Twitter @kwmcmillan Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we've got production designer Grant Major on the cast. At the beginning of Season 2, you might recall that I said I was expanding Frame and Reference beyond just cinematographers and camera people into jobs that interface with the cinematographer as well. So directors, production designers, colorists, you know, maybe we'll get like a first AC in here. That could be really interesting. But, you know, kind of around the world of cinematography while still focusing on cinematographers. So this is the first one.

We got Grant Major, who is a legend in his own right. He and Jane Campion, the director of Power of the Dog, actually. shot their first film in New Zealand back in 1990, I believe, he said. And so it's cool to see them together again. I believe he also said that was the first like feature shot in New Zealand, which is fascinating. It's just, it was really cool. We spend a bit of time talking about like the history of cinema in New Zealand because while the art form is only 100 years old overall in New Zealand, it's even newer. But, you know, like I said, he's a production designer for Power of the Dog and also the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which we don't really get into very much.

But, you know, he is that. Yeah, so this is a lot of fun. This one is going to, if you're a indie filmmaker, this one's going to be really important for you. Or if, you know, you're trying to get into production design, I think it'll be valuable to hear Grant's perspective on things. I certainly learn some things that I know I'm going to take into my. my, like I said, indie filmmaking. It doesn't really, I suppose it helps with cinematography, too, in the sense that you two need to work together

to make sure that the look is what you're getting, especially with, like, colors and stuff. And actually, in a future podcast, speaking with a cinematographer, we really hammer down the color thing. So, yeah, this is a great one. I think you're going to enjoy it. So please begin to enjoy. Please go ahead and listen.

to the podcast you already selected. This is my conversation with Grant Major. The way that we always get started on these is just asking, how did you get into filmmaking? Were you always kind of a, I know New Zealand wasn't necessarily a bastion of film production early on, but like what kind of got you there?

Was it through theater or something? Yeah, this is going to make a long way, actually. I'm 66 now. And I think I, when I graduated film school, they actually promised everybody a job at my art school institution. That's pretty amazing. And, but I wasn't interested in going into advertising in some of those sort of more obvious channels. I was sort of picked up by a guy, a very interesting man, actually. Tony Stones, his name was, who at the time was running the design department of a company called South Pacific Television.

And at the time, television was a sort of a national, nationally owned thing, much like, I'm not sure what the equivalent is in America, I'm afraid, but PBS. PBS, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, at the time, they sort of divided up New Zealand into four different regions. And Auckland, where I come from, Auckland, New Zealand, had its own regional television station, South Pacific television that was called then, which was sort of based fairly loosely on the BBC. system. It's like a little mini BBC. So we had, it's the corporation, I should say, had its own design department, graphics, costume, construction, drama department, comedy, light entertainment, everything you could think of. News, of course, you know, there's a flagship.

And so the design department, you know, used to service all these different little program-making departments. And so I was bought on as an assistant set designer and taught the trade to design sets, which is interesting because I had designed graphics when I was at art school, which was largely a two-dimensional sort of discipline, and I was immediately thrown into this 3D thing.

But fortunately, I had studied drafting at school, secondary school and so I knew a little bit about how to draw technically but yeah I mean I was really thrown in the deep end because really New Zealand it's this it's you know land mass wise it's sort of the equivalent of England or Japan but population wise it's the equivalent of I don't know Albuquerque or something like that's got like you had the time the time might have had about four million people in it but so you know it was the audience was quite small that we had and they were able to throw me into the deep end.

So I learned really through trial and error mostly in terms of set designing. And I was actually given a job, my first, within three months, actually, of joining that corporation, I was sent down to a tiny island called Stewart Island at the very bottom of New Zealand, those people who know New Zealand's cut with North Island, the South Island and a little island down the bottom and I was designing a shipwreck movie called the wreck of the general grant and that was a fantastic experience for me because that sort of galvanised in me what production design could be they used to call it set design back then but you know what essentially what production design could be which is a combination of an exterior physical

exercise and bringing something to the camera But also in the, we did studio stuff with, you know, miniature photography and various little set builds and things like that. And it was a really beautiful combination to me of the things I loved, being in the great outdoors and the sort of design technical kind of thing that, you know, I was able to do. So, you know, early beginnings, planted the seed of what I continued doing for the next sort of 45 years. So more than that now, actually. So, yeah, went from there to, I stayed at the South Pacific television for a number of years and then left to go to the BBC in London proper, which was a, you know, it was an incredible sort of experience. It was amazing. It was, I was at the television center as an assistant set designer still,

but it was like a formal training there because the BBC has its own way, had its own way of doing things back then. It was a very formal process. So the way I design a set laid out on a sheet of paper with technical drawings was a contract of sorts, you know, so the drawing contract would go to construction companies in every single element of the design had to be on that one drawing, all the paint samples and all the should say, everything was cataloged, I should say, you know, in terms of what it had to be on in the set. And so whenever the designer would come in and want to change that, you'd have to

fill out a contract variation form, you know, so all these things, it's very, very formalised, and it sounds kind of bright. But it was, it gave me what I, I think is my, was my apprenticeship, really. My apprenticeship in set design was really formulated at the BBC. And, oh, man, I worked on some brilliant shows over there, just incredible shows with incredible people that, you know, many of them are still in the business, you know, as film designers now. So, in fact, I was told I used to sit at Ridley Scott's old desk at the BBC for a period of time.

So it's kind of hallowed ground at that point, you know, even way back. then but yeah you know i just sort of uh um work my way through the bbc system i became a permanent staff member there became a move from an assistant set designer to a set designer um and um but was assisting um on mainly period period um dramas there's a lot of co-production with cbs and bbc at that at that time and there'd be the big fancy elaborate um uh costume dramas i think I worked on it was called The Invisible Man

by H.G. Wells. There was definitely Demoria's story of sorry, senior moment. I can't quite remember the name of now. That's fine.

It was, you know, it took me to Italy and to Europe and as well as England. And my cousin Rachel, it was called here. So, you know, they were two of the ones that sort of stick in my mind. But it was just like in the fast lane, you could say, of television as it was then.

More by sort of accident than design, I ended up back in New Zealand, bumped into an old girlfriend of mine and sort of, we're still together after all this time. So what was a television-dominated industry when I left New Zealand had then change. You know, that really wound up the South Pacific television design departments and set everybody free. And now it was a sort of a freelance industry. And the government at the time used to have these sort of tax, the sort of tax break opportunities for producers to be able to make films back then. So there's a very embryonic kind of New Zealand film industry that I hooked into then.

I came in as an art director then because in New Zealand if you've spent time overseas you sort of have a lot of brownie points for that and you can sort of come in at a greater level you could say. So I called myself an art director then but I was an onset

what they called an onset art director so in terms of the hierarchy I wasn't sort of the designer I would be the sort of points map on location for these films that were being made. Putting out fires. Yeah, putting out fires. But, yeah, yeah, that's a good way putting around it.

But also, I used to share my time with doing things that were not in the film business. I had a friend of mine that I met in the film business back then, Logan Brewer, who was a, he went into sort of designing events and sort of tourist destinations. So I designed with him the New Zealand Expo Pavilion for Brisbane in Australia. And then latterly the Expo Pavilion for New Zealand in Spain, in Seville, in Spain. So that was a really fantastic experience in sort of segwaying out of using my same skills that I had, but seguuing into sort of the built, the proper built environment where people would go and visit it and see it. one to firsthand you know that was interesting and the in the british commonwealth which we still

are part of they have the commonwealth games so i designed the opening and closing ceremonies for the commonwealth games and various other things like that so i had a few strings to my bow back then but um that all changed without sorry without raving on for too long oh no go ahead we got plenty of time yeah yeah um without one to bore you anyway i did meet up with um a producer Bridget Eichen back then, who ran a production company called Hibiscus Films, and she had a project with a director called Jane Campion, who had just come back to New Zealand from Australia. You know, a young person graduated

film school, made a film over there and was coming back to do a project here called an angel at my table. And that sort of got me back into the film business proper. Yeah, honestly, I don't know if I could write a better sort of starting to current career like um you know because a lot of times on this podcast we've talked to people about how maybe they did come up more formally you know maybe going to a f i or something like that coming from an artistic background or people who are just full-on indie and it kind of sounds like you had a nice little uh coasting through both i don't know about

coasting that sounds like it was easy but a nice little pathway through through kind of both sides, you know, very formal and very kind of free form almost. Yeah, it was interesting because I look back and I see that it was really some people who picked me up and mentored me at that time because I always considered myself to be way too young to be having the responsibility that I was doing at the time. You know, we're right back doing, as I mentioned, this thing on Stewart Island, the record the General Grant, that was Anthony Stones who just like said, okay, you can design this, see how you go and get back to me on the phone if you have problems and I'll see if I can help you up

you know so there's that person there was there was uh don giles was a designer that I met up with the BBC and he he really sort of took me under his wing and um and really taught me the ropes about the BBC system and you know actually I remember we used to walk around the streets of London and he used to say okay grant when was that building made you know tell me about that era of that building. Tell me about the era of this building and tell me what the different eras are in that one building. And of course, you know, London's got a huge depth of architectural sort of, you know, Genesis. So it's, I did learn a lot through just that sort of, yeah, but yeah, being being just shepherded by these really brilliant people. Going to actually, before I ask this,

you just reminded me when I was in college, I did a handful of random. jobs and at one point I was working at ABC and I was back in you know I worked at ABC in LA and then I went back to Arizona and they had they kept me on to do random things like on campus outreach and stuff like that but then I guess this must have been 2010 or so we had a yeah we had a Obama had like a town hall like a you know political thing so they had me sort of have run that at 20 years old they were just like a like you're going to go and there's like set designers and everyone building this whole thing out and I'm just like for some reason I'm in charge but the exact same thing happened to me where we're

building this whole thing and then the main production designer uh go like looks at his watch basically and goes all right I got to fly back to New York you're in charge of this tomorrow and just takes off and so like it's the cameras are all set up and I guess I'm just because I became the point man the put out the fire guy I was like okay I'm doing this all day this is a trip there's nothing on that pressure to keep you on your toes isn't it you learned a lot for those exercises oh man i had i had a photo of uh me and uh one of the talents guy d l hugley and i didn't realize it at the time i was wearing all black but unfortunately i had a white um sort of logo on my front on the front and i didn't realize it but it was actually made

out of like 3m material so in the background of like the the sort of behind the set camera, there's just this glowing skull in the back of the thing. I was like, all right, yeah, set black is not reflective. I'll tell you what, that's a mistake. But what I was going to ask was,

you know, with all that training, do you kind of walk through life, seeing the code and the matrix, you know, like just constantly identifying, you know, like 1980s, Victorian era, you know, modernist, that's Frank Lloyd Wright,

again, look at them go, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah, like I sure do. You know, it's, you know, when you lead a sort of design life, it's, you're sort of, you're immersed in that. We are, we live at sort of moment to moment really. And I remember, remember reading, you know, when you're, when you're in park on a design career, you're on a permanent war against ugliness, you know, and so a lot of it's to do with recognizing really good aesthetics, you know, oh, these are really nice piece

proportion these are really nice color combination or you know here they've used a really nice nice sort of frank Lloyd Wright motif on a building or something like that so it's it's period styles but it's also you know what looks good what's looking good here what's working here and you know but also you know it's not just beautiful things you know I'm interested in quirks and personality details and things like that I notice all the time not just in buildings people's clothes, interesting cars, there's a fabulous kind of picture on someone's wall or a combination of elements that make up the decoration of someone's room. You know, so all those sorts of things are sort of filed away and, you know, we're able

to sort of draw on them at a later point, I guess, or maybe it just turns into a sort of a mush of soup, you know, of stuff that I can, that sort of affects my general sort of aesthetics, but I definitely live that life. yeah yeah yeah do you uh have any sort of i want to say main but sort of larger references or or um inspirations that you kind of really took to uh coming up or or even now um yeah's interesting um i'm not sure about that but i'm being a child of the sort of 50s and 60s i seem to have have a modernist kind of bent you know i do like modernism i like the clean lines of of modernism and I like the sort of revolutionary aspect of it breaking away from what was there before,

you know, and I'll very much like the materiality of modernism. So, you know, I've managed to find a modernist house here in Auckland, such as it is, it's sort of an Anglo-modernist, but I also gravitate towards that sort of aesthetic generally. Yeah. For, you know, for me, it's, um, modernism is great. for some reason art deco just really i like and i don't know what it is about that it seems very like whimsical yeah you know it's exuberant isn't that too yeah yeah it might have been the uh the old bat and watching the old batman cartoon i think there was a lot of uh art deco just like yeah sort of thing but yeah it's always stuff with me for architecture um you know uh i'm from the bay area of of california and

There's a great documentary called Fog City Mavericks about sort of the film industry coming up in the bay, you know, these sort of guys who, guys and girls who were outside of the LA studio system. And New Zealand seems to be one of those places that mirrors that in a way and almost grabs the baton and sprints with it because, and you're kind of not to toot your horn too much, but like, I would argue that you're kind of in that. genesis of the film industry in New Zealand really taking off and I was wondering if you could speak to how correct that statement is and also kind of looking back on it what that sort of means to you or even doesn't yeah yeah great you know I talk I talked rather blithely about coming back from the BBC and stepping into the film business here but it's like it's like a miracle of sorts really that that actually happens in a country that's so small and dominated by agriculture you know essentially we had been up to then anyway in such a backwater of sheep and you know there's nothing really more to be said about New Zealand at the time you know I'm being a bit disingenuous but it was essentially on the exterior point of view it's a place where there was like 30 million sheep and 3 million people um um um uh certainly no film business that is film schools or anything like that that i could ever

contemplate going to other than leaving the country you know there was one in sydney but that was really for directors and dps mainly um so this notion of a film business happening in new zealand was kind of an was a far-flung kind of american kind of idea really of course we made our own tv but um i think the the the government does like to promote itself, you know, in the hurly-burly of all these different countries in the world competing for attention, there's, you know, New Zealand does need to stand up and sort of wave the flag, otherwise people don't know we're there so much. And it did, at the time it sort of related back to trade, you know, okay, there's New Zealand, oh, let's

kind of buy as butter or whatever, you know, milk. And but, you know, selling ourselves as a sort of a cultural, cultural, or an exporter of our cultural, of our culture was kind of a new idea, actually. It was quite a new idea. And, you know, I won't bury this conversation too much in politics and things, but New Zealand was going through a very turbulent time at the time. We were actually like our apron strings had been cut from the British Commonwealth when they joined the EU, what's now the EU. So New Zealand was on its own and newly independent country had to sort of find its voice in the foreign media. So, you know, making our own films was part of that, I think. And, you know, we did have very good writers and we got, you know, we had technicians, I suppose, who were, no, I'll start again.

And visiting films used to come to New Zealand and train up local people like film maker, you know, cameraman and grips and lighting technicians and things like that. So we had the beginnings of those sorts of skills and translating them into films was, you know, as part of our growing up, basically, part of our growing up. And we got to start somewhere. We were doing these kind of fairly rough and ready, fairly raw movies. back at the time, but then, you know, I must say it really started with Jane Campion and an angel at my table, which I mentioned in 1990, making films that were very beautifully sort of sensitive about a New Zealand writer, you know, who would be interested in a New Zealand writer around the world, you know, and but, you know, Janet Frame that the film

was about was very much one of these writers that had a sort of an international voice and And so the film actually did extremely well. And from that point, we started taking ourselves seriously as a film business, I would say. You know, before then, there was a before and after that point. And I think in the 1990s was really a change where we had a lot more confidence and the things we were able to say to the world. And that we proved to ourselves that you can actually sell movies to the world and people would watch them.

It tended to be more art house, art house films, because the New Zealand accent is not the same as around the world. And we tended to be categorized and to this sort of art house sort of genre, subgenre, but nevertheless, we were getting our stories out there, which is... Well, yeah, it seems like especially comedy now, too. Like New Zealand comedy seems to be a very, perhaps niche, but hugely popular around the world. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I would say, I would place that even later. in the time scale, actually. Oh, yeah, that's probably more reason. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, with, obviously with Taika Waititi and the, the comply to the concords and things like that, they, man, they've been brilliant. And we never really thought we had a very humorous side to New Zealand stories. Because back then, in the 80s, especially, they were pretty dark, you know.

There were lots of, I don't know, man against, I don't know, nature of guns and all that sort of stuff. But now, you know, actually being able to laugh at it, ourselves is really something. And so I think we took a leaf out of Australia's book in a way. Australia always had a very good, a very good comedy, um, uh, filmmaking sort of history. So, you know, finally we caught up with them. Yeah. Do you, um, what are some of the things that, uh, this is an inelegant question, but what, what are the some of the things that you've noticed about sort of, let's say the New Zealand way of filmmaking that you guys developed more organically versus, um, sort of the L.A.

style, let's say, which is developed organically and then had wrote rules and kind of, you know, this is how we do things. Because I've noticed Australian filmmakers have a very, not to put you the same category, but I've noticed all the Australian filmmakers I've talked to have a certain ethos about them that's very workmanlike and very like, yeah, we just, we don't really have a lot. So we're just getting it done, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, New Zealand always had to make do with not very much, you know, because we, we're not a wealthy country, and we've, this is small, so everyone knows each other, you know, and this industry really, it has the capacity to make maybe three or four films at the same time, you know, big films at the same time, and then we

start to seriously run short of people. So we do, you know, we all have this sort of working relationship with each other and when when um visiting uh producers and directors step into this they find oh well you know it's like a it's like a family almost you know um so we we do we do have that we're also you know we're not new zealander's by character we're not um big sort of um loud people you know we do tend to be a little quieter and and we work very hard um but also we don't have the sort of same union structures that Australia and England and America do. We do have our guidebooks and we do adhere to a sort of a set of sort of principles, I suppose you could say. But we don't have this very hard and fast industrial sort of structure.

One thing I did notice in particular when I went to England was the latter. that you had to climb to be able to get from a assistant set designer to a set designer and then to a senior set designer and then a you know like a design assistant and then a designer and then it seemed to be like endless it seemed to like disappear up into the perspective wise into the sky you know so um we do uh and it's a double ed sword we do we are able to sort of jump ahead um you know I was able to call myself a art director in New Zealand without any art director's union saying, no, you're not, no, but at the same time, it's a double-edged sword because people call themselves that and they're not really qualified for it as well. So, you know, it's a little looser, you could

say, but I think now in particular in 2022, you know, we've had so much experience of foreign films coming through that we're, our skills are quite equitable, but we just don't know those out and tough structures yeah the the familialness is that a word um kind of i'm not going to lie it sounds uh enviable you know having kind of the thing that kind of sucked about getting out of school and and getting into the real world was you weren't making films with your friends anymore you know it was a job and i and i feel like if uh we just kept on that like me and all my friends together and then we just kept getting bids that that feels like it would have been more exciting is that kind of the feel because i know there's that joke which it's funny for you but i know

there's that joke that like pretty much everyone in the country at least was an extra in lord of the rings um you know there's that kind of there's that kind of bond you know is a bond yeah for sure there is you know we're quite quite tight yeah and um yeah it's just it's just the nature of the scale of it i think you know we're we all have to get along with each other and uh we're all banded brothers really but i think it must be the same you know once you've worked on a on a feature film anywhere you know you do make connections and you do get a bunch of friends around you know so i think it has the nature of doing that but just we do that from one show to the next to the next to the next and i do like to get out of you know offshore sometimes to break out of

And just to be sure that I am not working out of some sort of delusion of, you know, my skills and all that sort of stuff. Making checking the size of the pond, making sure you're the right size of fish and all. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's very necessary. It's actually been very necessary and very important to the New Zealand film business that foreign productions have come here. And they do so more and more now to use the industry, to use the people and to use the location. and all of our technologies because it's definitely upskills all to us. I mean, they've been making avatar here now for several years and you can imagine the sort of skills

that are rubbed off on the local people here. It's been brilliant. We're digital and all those sorts of people are like world-class institutions now, really because foreign investment, foreign, I call them foreign, but we're all brothers around the world anyways. We get industries, I should say,

coming in and trusting us, you know, with responsibilities. brilliant yeah have you been uh sort of perhaps i don't know if you're allowed to talk about it by the way if you say anything you don't want in here we can chop it out like we we at it but uh were you able to uh sort of maybe rub shoulders with the avatar productions or not because i imagine that's it's so weird that like the first avatar came out in 08 and now everyone's pretending like it wasn't the biggest film on the planet for like ever yeah no um it's very much a closed shop the avatar thing if you're not in it you forget it you know you couldn't even

approach the buildings you know it's no one's talking about it and it's very much uh you know the books shut on that so i'm not i wasn't asked to be part of it and i haven't been part of it i have um friends of mine obviously who are and um you know they they are done the journey doing the journey together honestly seems like so long ago must be must be here four years ago Easily four years ago, they started work on it. Well, they're shooting like eight of them, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. I don't even know, but...

Yeah. You know, talking about that sort of double-edged sword of being an amateur and overrating yourself, perhaps, that's a huge thing in cinematography right now where... Well, I shouldn't say in cinematography, but now with the proliferation of accessible, high-quality cameras and sort of a learning base online, it's much easier for people to grab a camera and by definition of their knowledge and access to equipment, say, I'm a, I'm a cinematographer now. And the advantage to that, obviously, as we've said millions of times, is the democratization

of filmmaking. More voices are allowed to speak. We get more interesting stories, you know, in much the same way that hearing stories from New Zealand is great, hearing individual stories is great. But on the same time, you end up not, I guess, not knowing who to trust, you know, not knowing where anyone's coming from, you know, the signal of noise ratio is a lot higher. And I was wondering if you could speak to if that's as much of an issue in production design. Is that double-edged sword quite wide or is it more like, is it easier to kind of weed out people who are,

because it's not necessarily, production design isn't sort of one of the more traditional past that people take, you know, the directing, writing, producing kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, good. You know, when people ask me, you know, how do I get into production design?

How do I become a production designer? I always encourage them to go to film school, maybe, if there is one. But in this part of the world, there aren't something. but I say do an architecture degree. You've got to get a degree and a discipline that teaches you about the formalities of three-dimensional design

and materials and budgeting and, you know, all these sorts of processes. Okay, it's not filmmaking, but it does have some common threads to it. So making good foundations for a career like that. So a lot of people do come up through the film business, they may go into, come in as an assistant props person, you know, as props maker or something like that, and then work their way up to being a props master and then want to become an art director. And then, you know, that's valid. But to me, the building blocks of design is to do with those disciplines that I mentioned, you know,

they are sort of architectural disciplines. So, you know, but there's designers and there's designers. you know some people thrive on the sort of um i don't know maybe they come at it from a different direction i should say but all i can really comment on it is the way that i do it which is sort of formalist if you like well so yeah oh i was going to say that um again i'm kind of uh somewhat envious because that because it is nice to have a set of skills that are i don't want to say hard and fast but you know they're they're a true set of skills when i tell people i'm a cinematographer it's not like either they don't know what I'm talking about or they go like so you take pictures you know and it's just kind of like all right cool whereas if you go like I'm an architect it's like

wow all right you know there's a lot more and you have like a hard set of skills you can use you know you could potentially fix something maybe I don't know I can't do that I can't yeah yeah it's right well even I tried describing my job to my father and you never you can tell that never really he never really understood wrapped his head around what it was that i actually did you know so you know to those people outside the industry it's always got a sense of mystery to oh do you know you know you know cast him danced or do you know all these people because you know that i hang with him at the pub after a day's shooting or something like that you know but uh uh no it's a it is kind of a niche career actually and it's and it's um you know every day i i

I sort of congratulate myself on being in it. So it does satisfy a lot of edges. Well, and the excitement of being able to, you know, I have a few friends who are architects that I just knew friends. And, you know, they spend years designing a building that's going to live there potentially forever, which is great. But, you know, it's kind of very one thing, whereas I assume with your job, there's a lot more variety and craziness, too.

You know, it might be spaceships and then it might be a ranch, you know, the next day. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's like, it's like the best part of architecture. You know, imagine being an architect and it's like, okay, the skyscraper is going to look like this. That might take you a few days to do that, you know. But then you've got to go and design all the toilets and the, I don't know, all the plumbing and all that sort of stuff. You know, the best thing about production design is that it's sort of facades. It's ephemeral like you touched on the floor. It's here today and gone tomorrow, but it's also it's what it looks like, and it's how it's sort of,

it's taken in as part of a dramatic kind of thing. So it's always pushing, pushing the sort of boundaries of how we sort of appreciate a building. So it's a, it's this industry generally, you know, it's really great. Because to do with narrative, and I haven't really talked about that, you know, So this narrative aspect of the, of our industry is really, really interesting kind of place to work. You know, some people call it sort of fantasy. You know, of course we do spaceships on the one hand. We do some period Tang Dynasty building in another.

And, you know, so we get to visit all these sorts of places. But everything, everything is in the, is in the, everything's to do with how it's. speaks, you know, what is it saying here? And that to me is the spice and production design. I'm so actually glad you brought that up. Now I just feel like this whole podcast is me just going like, man, your job's so cool. The ability to, I've always loved like props and whatnot in the sense that and by extension, you know, production design and in what I'm about to say, is the ability to tell the story before we got there. You know, why, why is this chair broken right here? You know, why is, you know, why is the paint like that? And you get to literally design all

that, you know, at how much time are you spending in your head just kind of going like, and this is where they, you know, threw a bowling ball at the wall and kind of, you know, doing that kind of thing. You know, that's what makes it real. You know, I mean, of that, I mean, Peter Jackson telling me, you know, when we were starting to do Lord of the Rings, you're saying we've got to believe in Middle Earth, otherwise we won't believe in dwarves and dragons and all that sort of stuff. We have to believe on the everyday physics of an environment and the sort of its own, their own history and things of that way that they bought to that point. You know, so a lot of the work I do, it's not just in sort of the architectural design of things.

It's making it feel like it's always been there or that is. brand new or that it's belonged to this person and had this purpose and then it has this purpose you know so it's really giving all these sort of nuances and that are all in the all in the service of the story um to uh all these environments and i think it's yeah so it's more than just walls and and decoration absolutely right everything's in that and that sort of narrative service and the more um the more i can learn about um the back history of these sorts of places and the more successful films of scripts I've read and the films I've been involved in have got this wealth of detail to them you know like Lord of the Rings I just mentioned before has got these incredible books with talking about backstory here the backstory goes about 3,000 years you know with the power of the dog which I just did recently it's it's like you know there was a set amount of critical instances that happen before we actually get to our story. So all those sorts of things are described as best I can in the

environments because they all have things to say about the current situation. Yeah. Is there a kind of a memorable maybe flair or storytelling element that you put in one of your designs that you're particularly fond of at all? Yeah, maybe. Like with, I remember, It's just been 20 years since the first Lord of the Rings film came out. And I was talking recently about bag end and, you know, why did you design it in that particular way? And essentially I went through, really, at Peter's behest, every single word in this sentence, in the chapter, I should say, that describes Hobbiton. and there's so much in there and it also describes kind of where in the path that the gate is

and where the gate goes through the hedge into the party field what's what the geography of the party field is it's kind of it's kind of sweet to be able to go through all of those little moments in a very famous book and actually bring them to life as was brilliant but of course um you know any amount of description is still in your head you know and in the reader's head i should say so actually pulling them out out and making them physically real is a is another sort of profound sort of process really. You know, any amount of description is always a, you know, sort of so based internally on internal things and sort of making it real and practical is a, is a, yeah, it's a, it's a journey.

So I love doing that. well and it's also through your vision right like it's not it's not a one to one uh there's no drawings you know you get to kind of put your own little spin on it which i assume is gratifying yeah you know um you know when you um when you pitch an idea you know and you must must find yourself the same sort of uh process sometimes you're pitching an idea to someone who's going to make it have pay for it whatever you know producer or whatever you're pitching a vision in your head, when you say, you know, I picture it this way or I see it this way, that what you see is an image that you've composed in your imagination, you know,

and getting that out is part of the design process, you know, getting that out, getting someone else to picture the same thing hooks in a producer in our industry, you know, getting them to see that, see an idea the same way. is really a very important process. You know, we do do it through concept art and all that sort of stuff. But first, it's a verbal pitch. And it's a very powerful media, you know, pitching an idea to somebody. You know, I think we should do it like this because I can see it, you know,

happening, you know, against this backdrop and this could happen and, you know, all those sorts of things. And when someone else sees the same thing, it's a very powerful community. that's just gone on there, you know? Yeah. It's like mental Wi-Fi. Yeah. I hope I answered the question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, as I said, kind of before we got started, I have this theory that a lot of films, the cinematographer, gets awards for what the production designer actually did. You know, David Fincher's films tend to come to mind. With cinematography is very, you know, kind of formal,

but it's the, sets that are even the color, you know, people are like, oh, the, the look of his films is this certain greenish color. And every one who's worked to them is like, no, that's the set. There's not a lot going on in the camera. I was wondering if you could speak to how you interface with the camera department, the cinematographer, what those meetings look like, you know, before you start rolling and kind of how that relationship forms throughout the film. Yeah, well, you know, fundamentally. Using power of the dogs as an example, maybe. Yeah, yeah, I mean, fundamentally, everything gets filled through the camera.

So there's a strict hierarchy there and what I do. So people are seeing my work secondhand, you could say, you know. But the beauty of that is that I, the cinematographer can make people see my work in a particular way. You know, it's every single sort of frame is thought through and considered. So when I do, when I produce these design, designs, they are sometimes catering towards a shot that I imagine and sometimes we've talked through quite, quite, you know, sometimes quite analytically, you know, all the sort of elements that make up that shop would be, would be planned and designed for. Other times, I'm doing

my best to create as many opportunities as I can for a cinematographer. So, you know, it'll be designing a set with a lot of angles that could be cool. I also design it with lighting in mind, you know, lighting that we've often talked about previously, but sometimes not. You know, sometimes I think, you know, oh, this thing will look really, really good if there's a light source,

a natural light source over there or like an ambient light source from somewhere over here or something like that. And it's, again, it's part of that sort of pitch thing. You know, I sort of pitch an idea to a cinematographer as much as a director in terms of kind of how the mood of it could fit in the way that I see it. So it's a very sort of symbiotic kind of relationship I have with the DP. But at the end of the day, it's their gig, you know, it's their shots. And I don't have the ability to be able to dictate anything.

The best I can do is to give as much creative sort of. as i can and then um you know let them run with it really yeah well the the light thing especially is a you know architecture mainstay you know where's the light coming from where we put in the light which is kind of goes hand in hand with cinematography when you're designing um these spaces for people what what are some of the differences in designing it for film use uh you know fly away walls aside that you wouldn't necessarily do at a traditional architectural way or, you know,

what are some of those things that the classic school learning wouldn't teach you about the film method? Yeah. Yeah, well, look, you know, I do, we do do a lot of those sort of tricks, I suppose, where we have flyaway walls and things like that. But I must say, 19th of the time,

the DPs don't use them. you know they have to move along at a pace normally um the cameras are quite you know smaller these days and allow to sort of get into a corner and and film and i think that this feeling that if you're seeing if you are if you're looking at a room in a way that's larger than what the room actually is like if the camera's behind something you know further back than what it would logically be um the audience sort of knows that so the lensing is is tends to be tends to suit the dimensions of a room that you're trying to um that you're trying to be in you know so those sort of technical things are are you know the planned for i suppose you know we do tend to um we do

tend to be more um analytical i suppose when those shots become very complicated you know if there's a shot that has been planned for by the director that that needs um a set design of particular way or that has to open up in a particular way or has to be covered in a particular way. You know, those sorts of things become, you know, set the geography of what I'm doing. Often like in Power of the Dog, there's a geography that was required between Rose playing the piano for those people who've seen the film and Phil's viewpoint off there from his bedroom, you know, so it's a very, very, very strict, very strict line of sight you can say so yeah no that's uh that scene in particular where he's kind of

staring and whistling at her yeah uh borderline a horror film yeah i know it's and it's it's voyeuristic and it's power play and all those sorts of things and it's it's a there's a there's a lot of drama in that in that particular piece of geography and i think it's actually the the the layout of the whole house in some ways was affected by that by that strong sight line so uh yeah i remember him to flop the design of the of the house at one point just to be able to take that in so yeah those sorts of things are very powerful i think in films and because it's because because the way these sorts of scenes are covered is tell so you know has so much drama around it as much as the room itself. So, yeah, like we were talking about before,

this symbiotic kind of relationship between DP and designer is very told out in scenes like that, you know. Yeah. I can't imagine it's always the case where you really get to hammer down with the DP about, you know, where they would like to put stuff. But do you have any sort of, I suppose, anecdotes about a time where that really worked out, where that symbiotic relationship kind of rewarded both of you? Yeah, look, I've got to say, like, I've done so many movies. I tend to concentrate on the ones that I've just done fairly prior to this conversation. So, excuse me, I'm not talking about things way, way back.

But, you know, I think that Ari and I did spend a lot of time together. I mean, she spent a lot of time in prep with us in the whole design phase. And so we're able to talk through all of these. really important ways of being able to bring the design, you know, marry the design to the cinematography. In much the same way if we married that costume design to the design and the makeup to the design, all these crafts sort of all come together in this one sort of one very tight sort of relationship we had.

But it was with Ari, it was like being on the location prior to any planning of what we're going to do for the power of the dog and okay where are we going to put this farmhouse because we've built everything so where are we going to put it in relation to the property that we're on you know in relation to the hills and the the approach roads and things like that so we're able to talk about the fundamentals of kind of what we're going to build and then the the relationship of one building to another like you know how are they how should they be laid out in terms of our drama. It's like a stage play almost as well. We can imagine the same things going on. We put this person here because that person says this and that person over there and that comes in that

door. You know, so all these sorts of geographical things I'd call them sort of are very important with each other. And then, you know, we talked about the gaps in between the building, between the buildings, you know, what's all right? What are our viewpoints towards the different aspects of the location that we really want to look at? Where are the, where are the opening in the buildings the doorways that frame it's like a frame within a frame you're like you know where the doorways and the windows are there's a great john ford shot in the movie yeah you know i think they really worked you know and and a lot of you know none of it was accidental you know everything was was thought through and we talked about and and um it was thrilling actually

to be with this very communicative um pretty people jane ari and i to be able to plan all these things out. Yeah. Well, and that that thoughtfulness very much comes through. You know, I was just talking, we were talking about Nightmare Alley, where you could really see that same thoughtfulness. Two completely different films, but Power of the Dog definitely feels like a whole cohesive, planned thought. You know, there's not an ounce of fat on that film. And going back to the house, I'm sure people have said this to you before, but that house, does tell a lot about Phil's character, you know, it's, it's dark, you know, there's not an, not one, not to say ounce again, I hate repeating words, but there's, there's no

feminine influence in that house at all, you know, it really speaks to, you know, the man just kind of being left alone, you know, his parents take off and he's just like, this is my cave now. Yeah, it's very sort of nuanced, really. It's very stark as well. I like that sort of, there's a very light and dark kind of thing to it and a broadness to it as well, you know, spaciousness to it, which I very much enjoyed doing, you know, the spaciousness of the ranch and the, you know, when you have all these spaces, it's the commuting from one place to another actually has significance to it. But, you know, Phil Burbank, he's a wonderfully complex character

with these kind of warped kind of personality things to him, I suppose you'd say, you know, that he's been, he's had very psychological experiences that have impacted on him and trying to play that out in the interiors has been really interesting. You know, Phil himself, per the book, per the original source material, had gone to university, gone to like, look what George, you want to, Yale or something like and learned classics. So here's a guy who we see now as a sort of a raw cowboy sort of cattle rancher knowing as Greek, you know, his Greek and his Latin.

You know, so there's something really beautiful about that juxtaposition of things. And I sort of tried to play that about it in the house. You know, so the house is it's got this sort of formality to it. It's a big bone, but it's also got a classic kind of thing to it that Phil has sort of assumed, you know, he sort of pushed that to one side and it's sort of, it's merged back into the darkness in some ways, the same way that his personality has. And he's, he's concentrating on being the man, you know, being more of a man than everybody else because of what he's having to keep a lid on here. You know, so there's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, just an

incredible opportunity to be able to talk about a character like that in ways that are not text and not language, but in objects, you know, and in environments. So, you know, I'm telling a story, I'll help me to tell us the story here about a person with things, you know, rather than with words. Well, yeah, I mean, that goes back to what I was saying about how you, like, kind of uniquely get to tell the backstory. You know, you tell sort of maybe the prologue to what we're watching and hearing through dialogue, you know, the only way we're going to know what happened before that is by looking at what you've put in the scene, which I think is incredibly cool. Yeah, the story, the story sort of starts out within the first five minutes.

It just goes. Brother about, okay, what are we, what's our anniversary? You know, we've got an anniversary here. What is it? You know, and it's, you know, 19-0-0, 1900 is when we did our first cattle drive on our own, you know. So we're already looking back into a very stark period of the family history. you know and i think that that was that sort of has a sort of a fundamental knock-on effect to everything we're doing we're looking back in so many ways at this at what happened in round

1900 with bronco henry that has brought to this point you know so you know it's a very powerful beat i think yeah um speaking of uh briefly about you know the light again where uh from what i remember netflix was uh very graciously allowed me to go to their screening room and see it maybe two months ago and so I'm having to recall it but I remember thinking that there were no I have notes for Ari but I remember that that all the almost everything was natural light does that check out was that kind of how the house was designed like we're not putting any practicals or anything like that or did you have to outside of the film make considerations for interior lights like film lights yeah yeah cool I mean so much as thought has put

into this um the the house would have been built in about 1880s so before electricity was available in the back back blocks of montana um so uh in my view at the it was the electricity was sort of put in there sort of post the post the building of the house and and it would have been probably run off a generator on the farm somewhere you know a smallest generator so it never really the lights never really generate that much kind of lightness to the um listed to the practical lighting however there's large windows that let light in and so hence you get this very stark inside outside kind of feel to it so all those sorts of things were kind of thought through we put these really nice hollum blinds we call them hollum blinds those those sort of um um

translucent plain blinds across the window so we're going to adjust the amount of Direct light coming into the set. Of course, those were interior sets were built on stage. So, you know, all that was done with stage lighting. And the back, the backdrops were, were photographic, printed. Like, what do you call it, Vista lights or something? Yeah, they weren't backlit, they were frontlit. Actually, that's all we could afford in fact.

Oh, oh. They weren't translights. They were front lights. essentially billboard technology actually you know so we have to sort of understand the sort of scale of the film we're doing here it's not a 200 million dollar film or anything like that it's a little smaller than that but so we I had these sort of billboard type things that we had photographed from the actual location which was nice and photoshop them and sort of put them outside there to to emulate these and I think that worked really well but I would never have known yeah because Ari sort of overlit them you got get that sort of contrasting of of almost sort of peeking out outside and the blackness on the inside was a star we wanted to do. Yeah. No, it photograph, that set photographs beautifully. I want to be conscious of your time here, but I was wondering if you have a moment, if you could maybe give a few, and if this is too big of a question, feel free to skip it. But I was wondering if, you know, this podcast is

intended to be educational to a degree. And I was wondering if you had any tips for maybe be students or indie filmmakers who are trying to raise the production value of their film on a budget, maybe some things that come to mind that could help them out, especially, you know, if you're shooting in an apartment with white walls, that's always a big issue, you know, little things like that. Yeah, I guess it's just control, you know, being able to have control. And also to be really conscious about what the overall. overarching look of the film is going to be.

You know, people experience these things might be like an hour and a half of their lives that's spent kind of in a black room. So you've got this immersive kind of experience. And it's like a one-off, you know, it's sort of starts and finishes with your, in my instance, with your production design. And so you're able to tell a story with that.

And so if you're able to control all these places and be really conscious of the choices that are made with layering up these sort of insides to be able to bolster the narrative is what it's all about. So, you know, you don't necessarily need a huge amount of money for these things. You just need to be very conscious

about what you are trying to say here. And also, I guess it's, I guess, you know, it's interesting, actually, just to rave on about story for it. But I read a book recently called Nouvelle Hariri called Sapiens. It's sort of like a, it's a story of the human sort of story. And it talks a lot about the importance of storytelling in our culture.

We tell stories to each other, like I'm telling you a story now. But it's also, we tell stories with, about ourselves a lot, you know, about what clothes we put on in the morning is a story we tell into the world. What sort of cars we drive is a statement about what our aspects. aspirations are or our, you know, what, you know, what we're thinking of at the time or, you know, and all these sorts of choices are beautifully layered and nuanced. And we can, we quote these. You know, we can quote these things when you're doing production design to flesh out a character or a dramatic instance. And it's not necessarily the most expensive thing. As often it's not,

it's just, you know, just looking for these clues and trying to sort of, holistically bring them together into a to tell the story so yeah yeah almost like uh set the frame set the story in the frame and then put the actor in it yeah i think so yeah yeah and you can sell you know when actors first get just going back to close a minute when actors first put on their clothes and they are becoming a another person in a way like the character that they'll be playing in the story it's a it's a it's quite a revelatory kind of thing i remember seeing I remember seeing Sir Ian McClellan put on Gandalf's costume for the first time and, you know, sort of standing in front of the mirror and taking a pose and, you know, sort of being that person for a moment, you know, it's really interesting, you know, and I think that why not the same thing with a set, you know, or with a dressed environment, you know, when actors walk into a place, it's like putting on their costume for the first time. Oh, so this is my world. This is my life, you know. right and it could be a submarine it could be the spaceship like you say it's all those sorts of

things but it's yeah it's this storytelling thing is very powerful kind of thing in our culture yeah i'll have to pick up that book um is there anything uh sort of quickly uh that comes off the top of your head practically that you should avoid doing as a maybe like a set designer or something like that yeah don't have a big ego about things you know it's a collaborative thing um be don't think that you've got the answer to everything as well because you know we we as you know as a cinematographer we we are from a shot to shot we're doing something that hasn't been done before you know so we continually um doing new things you know new new new so the best thing you can do is just to you know get as much experience as you possibly can but not um think that um you're sort

of bigger than everything else you know that's a that's a wonderful um it's a gestalt thing isn't it when everybody works together and you end up making your product that's far bigger than each individual. You know, so the collaborative exercises is to be celebrated really. Yeah. And given time, I would tell, sorry, to jump on about this, if you're making a career in production design and in anything, you know, cinematography as well, don't be in such a hurry to get behind the camera. Things you've got to do, you've got to pace yourself, pace your career to learn all these individual skills before you. take on the responsibility of being a designer in my instance. Yeah, well, and something we've talked about a lot recently is

knowing how to do something doesn't mean that you're qualified to do it. Yeah. You have to actually do it first. Maybe give yourself a safe place, so to speak, to hone those skills physically before moving on and telling someone, yeah, I'll shoot your commercial and then you have no idea like walkie-talkie etiquette. you know so the way that I like to end all these podcasts is with the same two questions and actually I was listening doing some research I heard a podcast you did where this guy took he didn't take it

he did this interview forever ago but he took my two questions and now I don't feel unique I thought these are mildly unique but I'm going to ask him hopefully your answers changed if anyone's you know going through your podcasts and the first one is is what is a piece of advice that maybe you were given or something you read that kind of stuck with you throughout your career that you think has kind of helped you along the way. Yeah, look, I'm sorry to have to go back on this, but let's make it real, make it real. As I mentioned before, with the Peter Jackson instance, you know, if people do not believe you're in a particular place at a particular time, then they're not going to believe the drama that's happening in it.

You know, all this sort of stuff is sort of, we make all this stuff. We make all the stuff from nothing. And we're talking, we're taking people on a journey. We have to take people out of there. You know, when people go to the cinema, we're taking them out of their everyday thing and taking them on a creative, imaginative journey. And as soon as people are not in. that journey, not in that world, then we lose, we lose their imagination. We lose their concentration

and their sort of devotion to the story. So, you know, from my point of view, it's to do with just making the whole environment as real as possible. Yeah. You know, I have to sort of, what do you call it, confess. I haven't, I saw Return of the King in theaters. I haven't seen the first two, but I have watched the like 12 hour behind the scenes on the DVDs for all three of those films. Right. It's longer than the Beatles one he did recently. So. Oh, it's so long. And I love it. It's like my favorite. It's, in my opinion, it is the pinnacle of behind this. You know, I'm considering myself one of those like, you know, learned off behind the scenes features on DVDs. And the Lord of the Rings box set is like the top of the peak of it for how detailed all of those

featureettes are. And I know that's going to make some people angry. But I just got them in 4K Blu-ray. I'm going to watch them. Like, you know, it'll be great. But second question, kind of easier. And I'm changing it recently. So maybe this won't work.

But it used to be just recommend a film that isn't yours for people to see. Or if Power the Dog is in a double feature, what's the other movie? oh boy that's actually quite hard because i've what i've see so many films and there are just so many amazing films out there they sort of it's hard to sort of it's hard to pick one you know because i tend to um the ones that have the most resonance are the ones that i've seen most recently i've just adored dune and i adored the denise bit of nerves one he did before that the the Blade Runner, sort of, was a prequel or remake or something like that, they... Sequel.

Sequel, they have so much power to me, you know, not only as a story that's very succinct in many ways, but also just the visionary world that he brings to the cinema is just phenomenal. You know, and I can see that they're not everyone's cup of tea, you know, they're not, they're not like multi-billion dollar things that um the box office but to us cine files it's like it's likely it's right up there i would say yeah i you know heads off to him i was just able to see uh doon in the like really nice dolby theater um not that not the not the delby chinese theater but like the the nice you know and boy that's a that's an experience i wish i could sell blade runner like that it's a must see on i max in a way you know i i yes and i do wait in oakland because it were

COVID and all sorts of things to be able to wait. And everyone else had seen it, but I did, was disciplined. And I thought, well, I'm only going to see this on IMAX. And it was worth the weight. Absolutely. Yeah. And then Blade Runner, obviously, is just world building on top of world building. But, um, Blade Runner, to me, would probably, you know, was even bigger because it had more,

had more, um, places and more sort of design input, uh, design items in there that I was just, you know, in all with. Yeah. it's that's a film that I think every I want to say every filmmaker but especially young filmmakers have all just really jumped on as being like when you when being taken away somewhere that film just nailed it yeah yeah same with Dune but Dune's a lot harder to see yourself in yeah well I'm looking forward to June too actually because I read the book you know actually in a very similar time frame to reading Lord of the Rings actually because it

It came out in the 1970s, I call, but, yeah, it had a lot of profound impact on me reading the book. You know, we were talking about sort of the imagination and how you conjure up these sort of visions in your head. That's what Dune did for me, you know, because there was no movie of it back then, and you had to sort of rely on your own imagination. And, boy, it was, he did a great job. And Denise, but I know, did a great job in bringing those sort of visions to them to the similar. Yeah, the books are great. Anyway, I, again, I want to be conscious of your time.

I want to keep you all morning. But thank you so, so much for spending the hour with me. I really appreciate it. Like I said, I'm a big fan, but also I just think your job's really cool. So it's great to kind of pick your brain for a bit. Yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity. Really nice to be able to talk about broader design things, you know, like influences and things. So, yeah, great.

Thank you. Awesome. Yeah. Well, next time you do something, we'll be sure to have you back. All right. Look forward to it. Frame and Reference is an Owlbot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition.

Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the Ethad Art Matbox logo was designed by Nate Trurax of Truax branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash owlbot respectively. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.