Production Design - Creating the look of a movie

2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968)

Creating new worlds has always been my great passion. And I absolutely love every kind of movies in general.
 
Especially the ones which reveal great art work and production design to the viewers, let us dream and feel the celluloid magic when we watch them.
One of my very first cinematic (or at least tv) experiences was Spielberg's E.T - The Extraterrestial or The Neverending Story by Wolfgang Petersen. Movies that take you on a marvellous journey into fantastic worlds, fairy tales, long before Avatar and Peter jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Following these movies from the early 80ies, I made hundreds of drawings of Darth Vader, E.T. and many robots and monsters, trying to imagine my own fantasy universe and I became more and more a true cinephile. 
Consuming all the 90ies blockbusters from The Rock to Independece Day, I also discovered the works of the most famous directors of all time like Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, John Houston, Charles Chaplin and of course so so many more.

Then, I started to study Scenographical Design at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich, combining the knowledge of stage design, exhibition design, set design and spatial design, and finishing with a Bachelor degree. Therefore I explored the world of miniature models too, which can express so much moods and visualize concepts of the bigger scaled space.

Now, I finally want to write about my personal favourite movies concerning their production design.
Don't get me wrong, I've been working on several short films by myself as a production designer, set decorator and concept artist, and I'm absolutely aware that film projects always unite the efforts and work of a lot of creative minds. Directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, editors, casting directors, costume designers, lighting operators, musicians, and many more, everyone makes a contribution to the final look and atmosphere of the movie. Especially cinematography (including the lighting) and production design is always very tightly connected of course.
Nevertheless, I want to try to focus on the production and set design and explore its concepts and influence on my personal reception.

So far, I intend to present you the following films: 

Se7en (1995)
Minority Report (2002)
Blade Runner (1982)
Alien (1979)
The Neverending Story (1984)
Rear Window (1954)
2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Janghwa, Hongryeon (2003)

Gattaca (1997)

 

There's a lot of work to prepare the posts about all these movies, but I'm really eager to do it and I already started ...

I'm not sure yet in which order I'm gonna present them to you, maybe I'll also add further movies. But you'll get them all ;-)