ART DEPARTMENT

Job Overview

The production designer is responsible for the visual design of the settings where the screenplay will exist. After meeting with the producer and director to determine their goals and get a feel for their expectations, the designer devises an appropriate concept within budgetary parameters. The designer presents sketches and/or models of his proposed design to the producer and director, and once it is approved, hires the craftsmen to construct the set, purchases furniture and props, and oversees the realization of the design.

Special Skills

A production designer must possess creativity and basic design skills, as well as being a good communicator, able to explain what they visualize and how it is to be accomplished. Many production designers have studied architecture and environmental design, or theatrical set design.

Advice for Someone Seeking This Job

Many production managers begin their careers working on commercials or small independent films where union membership is not required. Most begin as a production assistant or assistant to the art director to gain on-set experience. Volunteer to art direct or design student or low budget films to gain some practical experience, build your résumé, and make contacts for future projects. Contact production designers whose work you admire and volunteer to work for free so that you can observe them. If you're working as a production assistant on a project, offer to help the art department after your own work is completed.

“My advice is to become an intern on a production,” says production designer Carlos Barbosa. “An internship is like a scholarship—you don't get paid, but at the same time, you're learning film [without paying tuition].” Through an internship you are gaining practical experience while you learn and making contacts for future work.

Professional Profile: Carlos Barbosa, Production Designer

“I have always been fascinated with the worlds created on television and film,” says Carlos Barbosa. “I always admired it but never really pursued it.” Instead, the Columbian native studied another passion: architecture. He graduated with a bachelor's degree of architecture from Tulane University in 1982 and worked in firms located in New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York, and Connecticut.

By the late 1980s, Barbosa says he “was very disillusioned with the endless amount of unpleasant paperwork, permits, codes, and city officials” involved in getting one project off the ground. “You work on a project for a year and it doesn't get built—that was very frustrating.”

One day he was talking with his partner in a small Connecticut firm, after having recently finished all the projects they were contracted for. “I just had this realization. I said, ‘I'm going to Los Angeles and get into the movies.’ My friend started to laugh—I didn't know anybody working in the movies.” Undaunted, Barbosa got up and started packing. Within three days he had shipped all his belongings west and set out driving cross-country.

His first break came when he stopped in Nevada to see a house he and his former partner had designed. The homeowners were excited for Barbosa to meet their neighbors, a couple that loved the home's architecture. As it turned out, she was a former soap opera actress and he was a retired costume designer. When they discovered Barbosa was on his way to Hollywood to try and get work in the movies, they immediately made calls on his behalf.

A meeting with one of the producers at IRS Media led to his first job, as construction coordinator on a movie called Shakes the Clown. Through connections make on that film he was offered the job of art director on Lonely Hearts. After that, he began picking up production design jobs on lower budget projects, steadily building his portfolio of work.

When not working on features or television programs, he honed his designer skills for commercials, including spots for Burger King, Coca-Cola, Durasoft Contact Lenses, Isuzu, 7-Eleven, and Sony.

Production designing the television series Moloney enabled him to join the union, which opened up many more opportunities for work. Designing on a permanent installation for Euro Disney's Tomorrow Land garnered a recommendation for the art director job on the 1998 remake of Psycho—“My first big studio movie.” It was an important break in Barbosa's career in terms of recognition.

He went on to production design the pilot for the series Action. “It was very smart; hilariously funny. But it was an inside joke of Hollywood and how production companies work. It was Hollywood poking fun of itself—it didn't do well in middle-America.”

Another important step in Barbosa's career was designing Presence of Mind, starring Harvey Keitel and Lauren Bacall. It introduced his work to the Spanish film industry, bringing offers to work on other Spanish films.

Through his connection with Don Reo, one of the producers of Action, he was hired as production designer for the series My Wife and Kids. He went on to design the pilot for the series 24, which earned him a “best production design” award from the production designer's guild.

Barbosa followed that up with work on the series Fastlane and C.S.I.: Miami.

Professional Profile: Jeff Mann, Production Designer

“I never anticipated being involved in film—ever,” states Jeff Mann, whose mother is a successful costume designer. “My parents were divorced. My little brother and I spent a lot of time on our own because of my mother's choice of career. She was consumed by it, so we had a bit of resentment.” Consequently, Mann steered away from the film industry, instead becoming a mechanic, working on automobiles and boats.

One day, a friend working in the business telephoned with the offer of a weekend job paying $300 a day, cash. Mann accepted. Slowly, calls came in offering other video and commercial work, until he realized that he could make more money working in film than as a mechanic. Mann decided it was time for a career change.

From the beginning, he was assigned to the art department. Working on videos gave Mann experience in assisting with special effects, driving a truck, gripping, set design and construction, and more. “On music videos and commercials you do everything … It's not that way in movies; it's very compartmentalized and unionized.”

His first feature work came on the 1992 film Kalifornia. Friend Michael White was production designer and offered Mann the art direction gig. The film proved pivotal to his career and personal life, introducing him to both director Dominic Sena and his future wife, who was serving as the film's production coordinator.

Over the next six years, Mann honed his skills working on commercials with talented directors like Jonathan Glazer and Sena, with whom he worked on a 90-second Nike spot that aired during the Super Bowl. When Sena was later tapped to direct the Jerry Bruckheimer feature Gone in Sixty Seconds, starring Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie, he campaigned for Mann to be hired as production designer. “Dom went in and lobbied for me. To Jerry's credit, he likes to take people from commercials and give them an opportunity.” It was only Mann's second big feature, and his first as production designer.

Mann again teamed with Sena on Swordfish. The film's ending, where a helicopter picks up the bus, was not in the script. That was Mann's idea. “Dom embraced the idea … we pitched it to the studio and they loved it, but the implications were huge from financial and labor standpoints.” Although the film was already in production, the studio agreed to the additional expense.

His next picture, Showtime, was with director Michael Dey, whom Mann had first worked with on commercials. Then came Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, due out in 2003. Producer Colin Wilson initially planned to hire Kirk Petruccelli for the film. Discovering that he was unavailable, Wilson telephoned agent Jonathan Furie, who also represents Mann, for a recommendation. Vying for the job against the top production designers in the business, Mann went in and showed his book and commercial reel, and left a copy of Swordfish. On the way home from the meeting, his agent called to say he'd landed the job.