Book Review: Filmcraft: Production Design

Filmcraft: Production Design is a truly insightful resource for anyone looking to learn more about production design and movie making.

The book oozes the experience that the 17 featured production designers have spent years to accumulate, to perfect their craft.

Each production designer talks at length about how they got into the industry, their philosophies, the movies they are involved in and the production design. The book gives a good idea to this intricate process of designing the film.

Production design when done well should not be noticeable to the audience. So it's great that there's this book that goes behind the scenes and looks at work and people involved.

Below's the list of the designers featured, along with the films that are mentioned in the book:

• Sir Ken Adam (Madness of King George, Dr Strangelove, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dr No, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice)
• Jim Bissell (300, ET, Good Night and Good Luck, Jumanji)
• Rick Carter (Avatar, Back to the Future II, The Goonies, Jurassic Park (1-3), War Horse)
• William Chang (2046, Chungking Express, Happy Together, My Blueberry Nights)
• Stuart Craig (The Mission, The Elephant Man, The English Patient, Gandhi, Harry Potter)
• Nathan Crowley (Lake House, Public Enemies, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Returns, The Prestige, John Carter)
• Dante Ferretti (HUGO, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Name of the Rose, And the Ship Sails On)
• Jack Fisk (Days of Heaven, Badlands, The New World, There Will be Blood, The Tree of Life)
• Antxon Gomez (The Skin I Live In, Bad Education, Che, Talk to Her, Broken Embraces, All About My Mother, Live Flesh)
• Sarah Greenwood (Hanna, Atonement, Sherlock Holmes (x2), Anna Karenina)
• Grant Major (Lord of the Rings, Green Lantern, King Kong, Heavenly Creatures)
• Alex McDowell (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Terminal, Upside Down, Minority Report, Fight Club)
• John Myhre (Chicago, Elizabeth, Memoirs of a Geisha)
• Eve Stewart (The Damned United, The King's Speech, Naked, Topsy Turvy)
• Yohei Taneda (Kill Bill (1 & 2), The Flowers of War, The Magic Hour)
• Dean Tavoularis (Apocalypse Now, Bonnie and Clyde, Carnage, The Godfather (I and II)
• Legacy (William Cameron Menzies, Richard Sylbert, John Box, Fernando Scarfiotti, Cedric Gibbons)

There are two publishers for this book, Focal Press and Ilex. The price and availability would be different depending on the countries you're buying the book from.

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This review copy is provided by book seller and distributor APD Singapore (website | facebook). You can get the book from them and major bookstores in Southeast Asia.

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