Worker Blog - Worker Studio News on Animation, Film, Events, and Productions in Colorado

12/9/2013

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #3

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others. He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #3 in a series of posts.

**#3 Road to Perdition (2002)
Production Designer: Dennis Gassner
Art Direction: Richard L. Johnson**

Director Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition, was a quiet masterpiece of cinematic adaptation, taken from the graphic novel of the same name. This visual crowning achievement garnered cinematographer Conrad L. Hall an Oscar, as well as a nomination for Dennis Gassner, Production Designer and Nancy Haigh, Costume Designer. Included with Art Director Richard L. Johnson, the production design team was also nominated by the Art Directors Guild, among several other awards. All the elements of design, sets, staging, lightening and cinematography, must come together for the production designer's vision to shine on screen, and Road to Perdition is a benchmark for that cohesion.

For Barry, the production design embodies the perfect translation of a graphic novel to a film, with its compositional simplicity, concise character staging and film noir lighting. Road to Perdition was one of several collaborations between Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson, including, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Big Fish, and The Truman Show. These collaborations amount to an artistically stunning body of work, with designs that adhere to the tones and characterizations on screen.