How Hollywood Creates Immersive Worlds | Production Design Explained

0:00This episode of Indy Mogul is sponsored by Squarespace.

0:05That castle at the very end, as the paintbrush went to the set, I heard

0:09cracking I thought to myself okay what doesn't freeze and we painted the set

0:14with antifreeze so the whole of that castle remained wet which got me into a

0:19lot of trouble with a costume designer because of course they're all wearing

0:22white ski shirt suits.

0:26Hey what is going on Indy Mogul my name is Ted. Today I'm

0:29here with Guy Hendricks Dyas basically the production designer behind films

0:31such as Inception, Passengers, Steve Jobs, the list goes on and on and today we're

0:36going to talk about how filmmakers actually design a movie from start to

0:38finish and we're going to break into a couple of the scenes and movies from

0:41guys actual career. First off, what is a production designer and how do they

0:45actually work in designing a film? Production designer really is there as

0:48the eyes of the director; designing and overseeing everything that you see in

0:53front of your eyes when you look at a movie. You're there to help select

0:57locations, props, department, set dressing, costume design, make sure that there's a

1:01synergy between the colors and the costumes and the sets that they're gonna

1:05be on. You have a greens department if you're outside and you're doing a forest you

1:10have a guy who's getting you trees or making fake trees and fake bushes and

1:15grass and paths and all those sort of things. That as a job. A special effects team

1:19they have to make sure that all the physical effects not the ones that are

1:22done in CGI are going to work I will literally be watching test videos given

1:29to me by stunt departments and a special effects departments and I can make sure

1:33that something actually looks real. I know there's a lot of DPs that watch

1:36this show to you so DPs just so you know a production designer is

1:39like your best friend. Can you describe that relationship? My work doesn't look

1:43any good unless the director of photography is getting what he needs.

1:46What-- what does the process look like? What do the steps look like? If

1:49it's a director who's written the script that's pretty much what they want to do

1:53so I usually ask the director if there's anything they're particularly concerned

1:57about, or want to get a jump start on so to speak. If you have a script with a

2:01particularly different stunt or effect in it I usually pinpoint those as

2:05conversation points. So it sounds like first step is really getting in the

2:08directors head. Yeah-- Understanding their vision. Second figuring out

2:11what are the big key points the concerns and the tricky scenes that you have to

2:14deal with. So let's jump into a couple of films here starting of so are you ready to play

2:19the first clip? Let's do it. Let's do this. First up here we go.

2:27We're starting off with a classic, Steve Jobs.

2:31There had already been a Steve Jobs movie but that didn't concern me because this

2:36script was gonna be written by Aaron Sorkin so I knew it's gonna be a tour de

2:39force. When I spoke to him about the story he said to me, "Look this is

2:43something I designed almost to be literally a stage play" The script really

2:48broke Steve Jobs life down into three acts, three major product launches, it may

2:55seem like there's no design here you've got three people having a conversation

2:59but this is just as important there's just as many design decisions to be made

3:04here. You'll notice in those first few shots

3:07We're shooting rows and rows of empty chairs. This came about because Danny

3:11Boyle and myself are location scouting I looked at the chairs

3:15all lined up and I said, "They look kind of like keys on a keyboard of a computer"

3:19he went, "Okay I love that" and there are a lot of instances throughout this film

3:24where I would encourage Danny to show these environments as though we were

3:29literally people inside a computer if anyone picks up on it that's great if

3:34they don't pick up on it it doesn't matter it's still a fantastic visual and

3:38you know this is 1984 it's a slightly ugly period in sort of recent history

3:45computers were beige and corridors were green --And this is how people dressed--

3:50This is how people dress they really did this was a completely white room you

3:56want something with dark tones so you have an opportunity to light those walls

4:00I never want to give a DP a white room you see these stripes that we're

4:05following and chasing all the way around here it's that green that blue and that

4:08yellow it's sort of retro and it's cool at the same time these colors were

4:12researched because that mustard that green and that cream were the most

4:17common colors around in the late 80s being used by interior designers of

4:22time. They make you feel you're in 1984 and not in some generic timeframe. If you

4:28look carefully you're gonna see a lot of gifts around the room they're gifts from

4:31people who are wishing Steve good luck for his presentation. So it sounds like

4:35it's almost adding things that one make the world real and the little details

4:39thinking beyond just what's in the script, two, it sounds like it's also adding

4:43in elements that feel and enhance what's already there. There's a scene in this

4:48very room where you see Steve laying out his papers they're all very well

4:52organized and laid out all perfectly that's exactly how Steve did it I found

4:57a historical picture of Steve Jobs and there were the papers all laid out and I

5:02showed it to Danny and he said that's brilliant we need to work that into the

5:05scene. How do you approach research when you do a film like a biopic especially?

5:09what you really should do I think is immerse yourself in material from that

5:14time of course nowadays this is incredibly easy for us with the internet

5:18those posters that you're seeing behind Steve on the wall are all recreations of

5:24real Macintosh ads that we had to recreate and get through sort of

5:29clearance and copyright in order to reuse them as if you're for example

5:33shooting an art gallery you have to write to every single owner of those

5:39paintings if their old masters and get their approval to use them I'm gonna

5:43draw this from memory so basically you had a stage so Steve actually exits here

5:49and he takes a corridor there's a an area that opens up and I'm just gonna

5:55connect that over here and then Steve walks into his dressing room every space

6:00is almost synced up to the script because it is a walking talk it's one

6:03continuous scene yes this film could be extremely boring to watch simply because

6:09it's about a lot of people standing around talking to each other so his

6:13directive to me was find me locations where I can keep my performers moving I

6:19had to walk the course with a stopwatch and I go to Danny and I'd say we we

6:23worked out a route from the theater to the dressing room and it's about a

6:2810-minute walk he said there needs to be 12 so we'd have to go to the location

6:32and figure out how we could make it 12 but also make it not look

6:36like he was doubling back on himself that's insane it's it's insane it really

6:41is so let's move on to movie number two let's do this so what is this film and

6:51what were you seeing in the script everyone's gonna remember the

6:54introduction of Cate Blanchett in the film Elizabeth there was a sequel to

6:58that film called Elizabeth the Golden Age what we're really dealing with that

7:02this period of time is the height of her reign when Spain was determined to raid

7:07England and own England one of the best challenges for this chemistry this is

7:12the height of Elizabeth's power so the first thing we had to do was sell the

7:16idea that the kingdom is much richer things have changed yeah I tell you what

7:20didn't change what didn't change was the budget for the film my biggest challenge

7:25was design a world that looks richer bigger more impressive than the first

7:30film for half the money and by the way it's 10 years later so everything's more

7:35expensive there were certain scenes that we couldn't do as locations it was

7:40easier for me to take photographs and recreate them on stage rather like the

7:43one we're looking at here this is a soundstage set in the scene that was

7:48written Elizabeth was gathered around a map on a table that seems so static so

7:54stationary what would happen if the map was actually a tiled floor map of Europe

7:59she was actually moving and kinetic around the floor and we could show the

8:04advancement of the Spanish Navy with almost like these giant chess pieces in

8:09the shape of ships so this is really the beauty look at this the director decided

8:13to end the scene with her crouching down in dismay hiding her behind the Spanish

8:19ship now that's a director taking idea of making it beautiful you mentioned

8:23that building an artist on stage was actually cheaper than using the actual

8:26location a lot of these spaces were real schools in Oxford and Cambridge but hey

8:32guess what the student fees are a lot more than we can pay as a film company

8:35so you know sling your hook go somewhere else you're paying a laugh off a lot of

8:39events that might be happening at a location you have to pay for the

8:43adjacent buildings to be quiet and in the case of this set there

8:47is not a space in London where you have a giant map of Europe on the floor you

8:52know where do you draw the line between historical and fantasy I think as long

8:57as you create something that is it has its roots in something that's

9:01historically accurate I mean even these little gold ships that

9:05I keep pointing out they actually came from reference a 6-inch high salt and

9:10pepper shaker from the Elizabethan era and I thought they were so beautifully

9:15detailed that we would simply steal them and increase the size to act as this

9:20this icon it's it's really wait how do you make something like this larger as

9:25approaching as I know Tim do you work with one of the departments that we've

9:30talked about a lot is the props departments we can't build it from a

9:33single photograph and we couldn't get access to this ancient solid gold salt

9:38and pepper shaker they were two of them we had this sort of side elevation and I

9:42think we were able to get something that gave us what I call a sort of a

9:46three-quarter front views the way you go about building something and a lot of

9:51the audience are going to know this is you have to break it down into a

9:53technical drawing we had to look at this thing in elevation so we had sort of the

9:58side view of the ship so we sort of built by projecting lines down what the

10:03plan view would be where the sails are and where the masts are from there we

10:07would start building the ship absolutely so they actually sculpted this all in

10:11clay and then obviously these masts were made of cylindrical dowel or rod and the

10:18clay part was actually cast in a resin and then painted to look like metal I

10:23mean this floor for example we didn't have the money obviously to make a tile

10:29floor where each of the tiles was individually sort of painted so the way

10:34we made this floor is they are large sheets of plywood that have been routed

10:39in other words there's a line been cutting them to create the sort of way

10:43you put the grout between the tiles and then I didn't even know we could do this

10:47at the time those sheets were fed through a printer and we printed this

10:53pattern we laid them onto the floor and then the work was in making sure that

10:57when we put those big sheets together you couldn't really tell where the seam

11:01lines were and the only paint that's on that floor is what we call a glaze the

11:06paint department will put a sort of a slightly yellowed varnish over a surface

11:11to make it feel older and give it some sort of age and depth we knew that if

11:16you walked on that for two weeks you'd wear the print out but we only needed

11:21the set for four days of shoot but before anyone thinks that's incredibly

11:25wasteful I will say that what we ended up doing with this space is we pulled up

11:29the floor we ended up using this for about four or five different sets each

11:34time we dress the room as a different place we change the windows we remove

11:38the trellis let's move on to an insane movie we go the third film last one here

11:44we go now before we move on to our last scene I want to talk to you a little bit

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12:27Squarespace and now back to the episode

12:31so Geneva correcto

12:36got it if moving on we are going to a film but I think everybody knows well by

12:41now if you don't need lemon or Iraq so this is Inception this was a completely

12:46unexpected opportunity for me Chris Nolan works with pretty consistently the

12:51same designer but was unavailable for this film so Chris had to find somebody

12:55else I'm sort of locked in this room at Warner Brothers told to read the script

12:59while somebody is watching me which was pretty unnerving Chris asked me what I

13:03thought about the script and that there were two things I could have done the

13:06first thing is to say it's amazing you're a genius let's do it but I can't

13:09do that I got to be honest about it so I said

13:11look it is an amazing script it's mind-blowing but the only thing that I

13:16want to pitch to you is the opening it was set originally in a Scottish cast of

13:21what you'd imagine a castle to be sort of grey stone it just didn't feel right

13:25to me if we were talking about Saito who obviously is Japanese but not only that

13:31the protagonists were architects and designers they would have a natural

13:35interest in Japanese architecture so I sort of pitched this idea to Chris and

13:40he paused and thought about and just said that's a really good idea and

13:44obviously going back to our earlier conversation I'd spent three or four

13:48years in Japan it was serve a little bit in my blood you know even though clearly

13:52I'm not Japanese the idea for the lanterns for example in this set was

13:56another notion to have the move to suggest the earthquake phenomenon that

14:00happens in his world the lanterns are actually a reference to a temple that I

14:05visited in Japan where they had hanging lanterns and when I asked them what the

14:10hanging lanterns meant they were representing the lost souls of monks who

14:15had died in this temple and so the idea that you can get lost in these dream

14:20layers and end up in a place called limbo never to return to me I thought it

14:25was phenomenal to represent that with all these lanterns what else went into

14:29the design of this room I think for Chris it was really important to have

14:32real sets but there had to be something a little weird and maybe dreamy about

14:36them but we did everything here even the plates that you see on the table those

14:41were specifically made for this scene I didn't want anything to be in this

14:45environment that an audience could look at and say

14:49I've got a plate like that at home show me the scene in the floorplan and I

14:53achieve zone first thing we see in this scene is we're pushing in on this store

14:57way this is all completely in blackness and we enter this golden box so if I

15:04project this crude sketch into a plan we had our room camera dolly and camera

15:09where Chris who never sits down the standing right here all of these walls

15:13that you're seeing that have that very strange gold effect that was enhanced by

15:19a trough of light the wall the ceiling on the floor we have this trough and the

15:26Nigerian kisses the edge of those walls and that's what gives you that beautiful

15:31gold effect there could have been an instance where I might have not thought

15:35of that and it would have ended up being the DP would have come along and he'd

15:40see that opportunity and hidden places lights and then on the day we'd be

15:45making these strips to hide that light there's obviously one more thing that

15:49happens in this scene and that the scene ends with the water we had special

15:54effects guru Chris cobalt who is an absolute master of his field what we

16:00ended up doing is building a set for this scene here and then outside these

16:05windows which were rigged to be extremely weak

16:10we had these enormous tip tanks hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gallons of

16:15water that tipped over and the water poured in it was as simple as that this

16:20was a one take deal we're literally having conversations where we're saying

16:24you know okay we're gonna dump 100,000 gallons of water if they're not doing it

16:30is that another are we gonna see it water never looks as good on camera as

16:35it does when you're actually doing the effects you sort of have to almost

16:39double everything that you're doing in order to even see the water what's one

16:44thing that most audience members don't realize about production design in

16:47movies it's the work that you don't see just to give you two very simple

16:52examples on Elizabeth the Golden Age we did end up having to build a giant galya

16:56but we actually needed a Spanish galleon and we need

16:59British galleon but we couldn't have afforded to build two boats or even have

17:03two sets of extras so on the first day we shot one side of the boat which was

17:08an English galleon Oh No all dressed up as English people the second day the

17:14cameras were on the other side that was dressed like a Spanish galleon and the

17:18extras all put on beards and metal hats and pretended they were Spanish with

17:23inception that castle at the very end that's that's on that snowy hillside

17:28I got a worried call from a Canadian painter who said the paint won't go on

17:33the set it's freezing before we get it on the set and they put their

17:37paintbrushes in the paint and as the paintbrush went to the set I heard

17:41cracking and by the time the paint got to the set it was a hammer I thought to

17:46myself okay what doesn't freeze and we painted the set with antifreeze so the

17:52whole of that castle remained wet which got me into a lot of trouble with a

17:56costume designer because of course they're all wearing white t-shirts inks

18:00but you know what you loved every minute of it and then of course you have the

18:04wonderful result of amazingly talented people saying thanks and then they go

18:10shoot these things and it's an amazing amazing job again thanks to Squarespace

18:14for sponsoring this video start putting your life's work together by going over

18:17to Squarespace comm slash Indy mogul for 10% off of your first purchase of a

18:21website or domain of course don't forget to head on over to the Indy mogul

18:24podcast where you can also hear more from guy Hendricks Dyess well put both

18:27those in the link in description down below thank you so much for coming on

18:31any level thank you for watching this and of course we'll catch you guys in

18:35the next one I've got the original sketches I did for the corridor it was

18:42the easiest sketch I went okay so we we need a corridor and I went and then

18:46we'll do this and he says the only problem is at the end of the corridor

18:50I need a bend so you're gonna need to give me rings that are this big we ended

18:56up having two giant metal discs that were live electric disks that rotated

19:03and we had to coordinate off because if anyone touched it they would literally

19:07be bacon yep really