Role Of The Production Designer In Filmmaking – The Pre-Production Of Narrative Film As A Case Study

Abstract

Filmmaking is not a ‘One Man Show’ anymore. In the advent of filmmaking, one person may bear the brunt of the design and production of the film along with the director. As the production complexity increased and involved many tasks many artistic professions needed to complete the production design in a team work. Not many can appreciate the task of the production designer and the extensive effort he/she puts in the filmmaking. In this research thesis I present the production designer responsibilities and relationships with the other departments in filmmaking. A short narrative film ‘Downtown’ is used as a case study to show the pre-production stage of making the film. The film uses symbolism and realism and therefore, those two schools are described herein as a base. This thesis is a descriptive study to reveal the details of the production designer’s work in filmmaking. I adopted a practical approach to clarify the production designer’s task by implementing the pre-production stage for the film including but not limited to mood boards, breakdown sheets, location scouts, and getting approval from the director.