Hollywood Production Designer Matthew Ferguson Helps Build Ryan Murphy’s Gorgeous Alternate History

Ryan Murphy’s Netflix limited series Hollywood has all the glitz and glamor of 1940s Hollywood but with an alternate spin on history. We chat with production designer Matthew Ferguson about the challenge of getting the period details right and finding the balance between fact and fiction. The show debuted this past May 1 on Netflix.

Murphy and his team envision an alternative history of Hollywood in 1947,

Swallow Production Designer Erin Magill Builds a House of Horrors

Handsome husband, rich in-laws, and a stunning house might seem to provide a comfortable perch for the newly pregnant housewife at the center of Swallow. And yet, Hunter (Haley Bennett) suffers privately from a disturbing disorder hinted at in the film’s title. For the psychological thriller (now playing), production designer Erin Magill joined writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis in setting up a seemingly perfect milieu riddled with dark secrets.

Magill,

Little America’s Production Designer Amy Williams on Apple TV+’s Beautiful New Series

Apple TV+‘s Little America is the rare show that you could argue really and truly needs to be seen right now. The anthology series from executive producers Alan Yang (Parks and Recreation, Master of None) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick, Silicon Valley) focuses on the lives of largely working-class immigrants in America. Each episode focuses on the experience of a different character,

Production Designer Arwel Jones on Designing a New Dracula

Consistent with Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Netflix’s new three-episode Dracula series begins with a hapless English solicitor, Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), ignoring the Transylvanian locals’ misgivings to make his way on a snowy evening to Count Dracula’s forbidding castle. In the original novel, Harker is initially impressed with his host’s social graces before realizing he’s a prisoner, but 2020’s Dracula (Claes Bang) is ratty haired and grim, intent on getting the social skills he’ll need for England from his guest.

How The Irishman’s Oscar-Nominated Production Designer Crafted Scorsese’s Mob Epic

Central to Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman is retired hitman Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) fifty-year oral history of his time with the mob, culminating in his murder of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). The three-and-a-half-hour epic spans from 1949 to 2000, with most of the 295 different sets and locations made up to look like Philadelphia and environs between the 1950s and the 1970s. Designing the look of the film was a huge undertaking for the art department—“you’re reading the script and you’re thinking,

Hidden Life’s Production Designer on Working in Terrence Malick’s World

Production designer Sebastian T. Krawinkel recalls his first meeting about potentially working on Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, which he describes as “almost a conspiracy meeting.” He art directed both V for Vendetta and Speed Racer some years back, and two of Hidden Life’s producers, Henning Molfenter and Charlie Woebcken, had co-produced those.

Krawinkel was handed “a rough outline,

1917′s Production Designer on Building a World at War

How good is director Sam Mendes’ World War I epic 1917? Let’s begin with a brief anecdote about one of his collaborators—the legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, who originally wasn’t sure it was even possible to pull off what Mendes was after. That was to film 1917 as if it was all a single, continuous shot. But once Deakins read Mendes and screenwriter Krsty Wilson-Cairns script,

Best of 2019: How Ford v Ferrari’s Production Designer Rebuilt the World’s Greatest Race Track Piece-by-Piece

*We’re reposting some of our favorite interviews of 2019. Happy Holidays!

James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari revisits one of the greatest car races in history. It began back in 1959 when Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) wins the most difficult race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in France. The problem for Shelby is his crowning achievement is also his last race—doctors tell him a heart condition makes it impossible for him to race again.

Production Designer Hannah Beachler Dives into Dark Waters

There are a number of reasons why Oscar-winning production designer Hannah Beachler wanted to be involved with Dark Waters, the latest film from director Todd Haynes. The first was the subject matter.

Based on a true story, Dark Waters follows lawyer Rob Bilott’s (Mark Ruffalo) 17-year quest for justice after he discovers that DuPont may be poisoning the small West Virginia town of Parkersburg by dumping toxic chemicals into its soil.

How The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’s Production Designer Helped Expand Thra

When director and executive producer Louis Leterrier got to work on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, he knew he needed serious artists to help pull off his ambitious vision for this return trip to the mythical Thra. Leterrier’s update builds on the world first created by Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s classic 1982 film The Dark Crystal. Henson, a wizard of the practical effect and the brains behind The Muppets,

Marriage Story’s Production Designer on Creating an Environment of Heartbreak

Production designer Jade Healy doesn’t seem to repeat herself much—particularly with the kinds of films she designs, and even the directors she works with. Though as the work remains eclectic, it grows steadily more renowned, and the latter, at least, is changing.

She’s the designer for Marriage Story, director Noah Baumbach’s story of a marriage’s implosion that is heartbreaking for its specificity and its refusal to take sides.

The Report’s Production Designer On Recreating a World of Conspiracy

Find the mental capacity for another deep dive into the darkest corners of U.S. government and policy, but put away the newspaper. We’re winding back the clock to the beginning of the Aughts, when the CIA first implemented its “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or what most regular folks would call torture, at black sites around the world. The average American citizen didn’t learn about what the CIA was up to until after the program was shut down,

How Ford v Ferrari’s Production Designer Rebuilt the World’s Greatest Race Track Piece-by-Piece

James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari revisits one of the greatest car races in history. It began back in 1959 when Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) wins the most difficult race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in France. The problem for Shelby is his crowning achievement is also his last race—doctors tell him a heart condition makes it impossible for him to race again. The ever-resource Shelby decides to become a car designer (he can’t bear to leave the sport he loves) and sets up shop in Venice Beach,

How Last Christmas Production Designer Gary Freeman Got the Rom-Com Look Right

It’s fitting that the season’s first big holiday rom-com, a love letter to a George Michael Christmas song, is as much a testament to London’s enduring charms as it is to holiday-inspired selflessness, love, and cheer. Written by Emma Thompson and directed by Paul Feig, Last Christmas follows shambolic party girl Kate (Emilia Clarke) as she besmirches various charming London corners in permanently smudged eye makeup, dragging around her suitcase (having prevailed too much on exhausted friends,

Motherless Brooklyn Production Designer Beth Mickle on Bringing Back Old New York

Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn is a hugely ambitious adaptation of the seminal 1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem. While it borrows heavily from Lethem’s huge cast of characters—a gumshoe with Tourette’s named Lionel (played by Norton himself) and the folks he calls friends and foes alike—it charts its own path with a more or less completely original story. The era is no longer the late 90s but rather the 1950s New York.

How Joker’s Production Designer Brought New York Back to Its Past

If one thing is certain about Joker, director Todd Phillips’ half-billion-dollars-and-growing grossing dark take on the origin story of Batman’s chief supervillain, it’s that the film means about as many different things to its audience as there are people who’ve seen it. Is the Joker a compelling vigilante or simply a have-not gone mad? Are Arthur Fleck and Batman actually half-brothers? Does Fleck’s never-ending downward spiral speak for incels everywhere? (Absolutely not.) What’s certain is that Arthur is a more than down on his luck middle-aged stand-up comic wannabe working a miserable day job as a clown for hire in a particularly gritty take on Gotham City,

Creating the Landscape & Soundscape of Harriet‘s World

Although her appearance on the $20 bill has been predictably delayed by the current administration, Harriet Tubman is still a recurring presence in American culture. An escaped slave herself, she became, as the New Yorker noted a couple of years back, “the most famous conductor” on the Underground Railroad, which itself became the stuff of Pulitzer Prizes in Colson Whitehead’s alternate history novel of the same name.

Now Tubman arrives in theaters (on November 1),

Jojo Rabbit‘s Production Designer Ra Vincent on Building Taika Waititi’s Anti-Hate Satire

One of the most buzzed about films at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival was Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit. The film earned an enthusiastic ovation from the large audience at its premiere and is currently sitting at an 80% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. Some compared Waititi’s “anti-hate satire” to Roberto Benigni’s Holocaust drama Life is Beautiful as a high wire act of humor and pathos set during one of the darkest periods in history.

Production Designer Donal Woods on Settings Old and New in Downton Abbey

Picking up a year and a half after the end of the series’ sixth and final season, the crux around which Downton Abbey the movie turns is right there in the trailer: King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) are going to spend a night at Downton during a Yorkshire tour. The news comes in the form of a letter announcing their impending visit — it seems royalty is free to invite themselves to stay in aristocratic homes as necessary — throwing the household into a proportionately starchy frenzy.

Production Designer Brent Thomas on Building the Emotional The Art of Racing in the Rain

With a career spanning 25 years in film and television, Brent Thomas can trace his love for the movies to the first time he saw plays as a kid. From that young age, he became captivated by live theatre, particularly the production design involved. In short, he was hooked.

“I went to school for theatre design at the University of Alberta, that’s where I started until movies called out. I think the reason I went into theatre design;