“It can’t rain all the time…”

During a weekend where Melbourne experienced a significant amount of rain, it seemed somewhat appropriate to attend the spooky Underground Cinema event for Halloween. Especially as the mystery film was revealed to be the 90s goth/crime cult classic: The Crow.

2010, Australia, Halloween, Melbourne, UGC, Photography – Dan Murphy

Approaching the secret location characters from the film came to life to interact with you. Whilst waiting in line, small excerpts from the film were re-enacted by the characters standing by: skatebaording past or clutching to a faux grave stone. With so much happening around you, it cannot be helped but to become swept up in the energy and excitement. The Underground Cinema creates an environment where guests are encouraged to be invloved in the scene they create: rather than just a viewer.

2010, Australia, Halloween, Melbourne, UGC, Photography – Dan Murphy

Be quick to get tickets to the Underground Cinema’s final event for 2010 – tickets can be purchased here

Just a couple of our favourite acts were…

Tomorrow, In A Year

Tomorrow, In a Year, Photography by Claudi Thyrrestrup

The beauty of Hotel Pro Forma’s striking visuals accompanied by Scandinavian electro-pop masters The Knife’s extravagent soundtrack provided a modern exploration of what opera can be pushed to be. The use of lasers, smoke machines and video all added to the exciting and unique atmosphere of which consumed the audience throughout the performance.
Directed by Ralf Richardt Strøbech and Kirsten Dehlholm, the performance creates an experience of Charles Darwin’s travels, inspired by his perception of nature and time. We are shown “our image of the world as a place of incredible variation, similarity and unity is re-discovered in this revolutionary electronic feast for the senses”.

John Cale – Noises in My Head

To spend an evening with John Cale to hear him speak about his musical career in a youth orchestra in Wales; writing his first composition in primary school; developing a penchant for avantgarde at a London art college; being guided to New York by the hand of Aaron Copland and John Cage; honing in his signature drone palate at the feet of LaMonte Young and then begin his underground noise bending attack on rock and roll from The Velvet Underground to his current genre-bending music: we felt more than privileged. Of course, by the end we wished there was much more time sit and listen to the man who has created some of the most beautiful chaos in music.

Boredoms – BOARDRUM

Boredoms (Japan), have become known for their “noice, chaos, tribal experimentation, remixing, trance-inducing feats of rythmic intensity, line-up changes, collaborations, and doing whatever they want regardless of trends and fashion”. Since 2007, Boredoms have performed their BOARDRUM set annualy. On the 7/7/2007 they had 77 drummers play together, on the 8/8/2008 it was 88 and last year on the 9/9/2009 it was 9. Boredoms featured 10 drummers for the 10/10/10 show, plus a guitarist and Bordeoms’ ringleader EYE playing two seven-necked guitar mutations.

More information on the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2010 here

Sinead O’Connor, John Cale, Robert Lepage, Jack Charles, Hotel Pro Forma, Michael Clark Company, Thomas Adès, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Akram Khan Company, The Black Arm Band & Beck’s Festival Bar

The 25th Melbourne Festival, and the second under the artistic direction of Brett Sheehy, announces a dynamic and emotive program of work from some of the finest creative minds of our times. Over 16 days, from 8 to 23 October, the Festival presents an unparalleled feast of music, dance, theatre, opera, visual arts, multimedia and outdoor events from renowned and upcoming Australian and international companies and artists.

Festival highlights this year include free outdoor aerial spectacular K@osmos; Hotel Pro Forma’s awe inspiring, large-scale operatic spectacle, Tomorrow, in a year, featuring the groundbreaking music of electro-pop masters The Knife; world renowned recording artists Sinead O’Connor (in her exclusive Australian performance), John Cale and Meshell Ndegeocello; one of Australia’s most highly regarded performers in his one-man show, Jack Charles V The Crown; the residency of British composer, Thomas Adès, the most inventive contemporary composer of his generation. As part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival: Beck’s Festival Bar at the Forum Theatre, will be featuring some intriguing acts: Boredoms (Japan), Low (USA), Ponzu Island (Australia), The Drones (Australia), Dead Meadow (USA) and more.

Boredoms

Ponzu Island

The Festival features two Australian premieres. come, been and gone, the bold new dance work from the world renowned Michael Clark Company featuring the music of the legendary David Bowie with Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Brian Eno and internationally revered director, film maker and actor Robert Lepage’s  magical journey to modern China with The Blue Dragon, a heart-wrenching love story told with Lepage’s trademark striking theatrical vision.

Come, Been and Gone, Simon Williams, Photography: Jake Walters

The Festival closes with a one-off spectacular finale, Seven Songs to Leave Behind, a unique concert featuring international music legends Sinead O’Connor, John Cale, Meshell Ndegeocello and Rickie Lee Jones, with award winning Indigenous artist Gurrumul Yunupingu and festival favourites Black Arm Band and Orchestra Victoria at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Oct 23.

For more info see the festival site here

Absolute Watchmen © DC Comics

Kate McCurdy

Absolute Watchmen is just that: complete, definitive, absolute.
The oversized hardcover edition of this ground-breaking graphic novel is considered to be a prized item to any collector of comics and graphic novels, as well as those of good literature.
The 1986 comic, Watchmen, was classed by Time magazine among its ’100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present’. It also won the Hugo Award as well as other prestigious titles. Absolute Watchmen is a collection which features digitally remastered line art and brand new colouring – overseen by original artist Dave Gibbons and colourist John Higgins – as well as 48 pages of supplemental material that has been out of print for nearly two decades. These incorporated pages include a sampling of Alan Moore’s script pages and the original series proposal, as well as a multitude of Gibbons’ initial character designs, cover sketches and promotional pieces.

The timeless aspect of this piece of landmark literature has been recently rediscovered with the release of the film adaptation Watchmen, over 20 years after the series began. Directed by Zack Snyder (300), the film’s crew includes Director of Photography Larry Fong (300), Production Designer Alex McDowell (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fight Club, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Editor William Hoy (I, Robot, Fantastic Four, 300), Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson (Babel, 300) and Visual Effects Supervisor John ‘DJ’ DesJardin (Fantastic Four, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Kingdom).
The crew applied themselves to the seemingly overwhelming task of adapting Watchmen – previously deemed to be ‘virtually unfilmable’ by those in the industry – for the screen.

The appeal of ‘the unfilmable’
Watchmen is an intricately complex, postmodern mystery adventure in which the narrative is conveyed in many layers. The tale follows a number of costumed superheroes embedded within the fabric of everyday society, albeit an alternate 1985 society in which the Cold War escalates under the presidency of Richard M Nixon. The narrative drives towards armageddon, charted by the Doomsday Clock which measures the tension between the US and the Soviet Union, upon which midnight signals nuclear war. The events unfold as the hands of the clock move closer to midnight.
The postmodern aspect of Watchmen lies in the subversion and deconstruction of the concept of superheroes. Under their masks and costumes these characters are shown to be more human than perhaps any characters who belong to this genre.
‘Watchmen is more complex in that it doesn’t just create an archetypal character; it goes through all the variations of why you would put a costume on, why you would want to fight crime,’ artist Dave Gibbons states. ‘Are you slightly mad? Are you altruistic? And what would happen if you did get super powers and you couldn’t care less?’

Gibbons, co-creator and artist of the original graphic novel, recalls the impact of the novel’s themes at the time, and how they still resonate today with the film’s release.
‘In the ’80s, there was a lot of paranoia about the Cold War – was it going to escalate and what would happen if it did – and how fragile our society was, how very little would have to be done to completely wipe out everything that we had,’ he says. ‘That was very real to me. And though it has receded a bit, there are new fears of mass destruction, so I think that paranoia is always going to be  there.’
‘People always said Watchmen was the unfilmable graphic novel,’ adds Zack Snyder, director of the film.  ‘The story itself is a pretty straightforward mystery, but inside of that, there’s this huge plot that has international intrigue and a super-villain and everything you want from a superhero story. There is a tonal quality to every bit of it, from the interaction of the characters to the design structure, whether it be a flashback or a flash forward, or a parallel story being told. It’s at once very traditional and also unusual in the way that it’s structured. It doesn’t owe anything to any specific genre; it’s just its own, true to itself and all of its characters.’

Recreating the Watchmen world
Filmmaker Zack Snyder was intent on keeping Watchmen as close to the original source as possible, when recreating it for the big screen.
‘Changing the time period, or emphasising any of the characters over the others, would never serve the story that’s told in the graphic novel, which has always been more than the sum of its parts,’ says his producing partner, Deborah Snyder. ‘For Zack, the key for doing this massive project was to always stay true to the graphic novel.’
Zack Snyder storyboarded the entire film, using the graphic novel, which became an important reference for the team, especially Production Designer Alex McDowell.
Unlike 300, Snyder’s previous big-budget feature where the visual landscape was created almost entirely on a computer, for Watchmen the filmmaker wanted the characters to exist in a more textured, ‘real’ world.
‘With Watchmen, the sets are so intimate,’ he notes. ‘As we started to build New York City, we realised these characters are going to be walking down these streets. You might as well build the whole thing. So, we ended up having something like 200 sets in the movie.’
Not limited to urban settings such as New York City, there is a large amount of action that takes place in less familiar environments, such as Antarctica and even another planet.
‘Watchmen is this gritty, real story, but yet a quarter of the film takes place on Mars,’ Snyder continues. ‘And other scenes take place in Antarctica, at a retreat built by a millionaire ex-superhero. So there are operatic aspects to it as well. I’m naturally interested in those big thematic visions of reality. That’s not to say Rorschach doesn’t walk down a seedy 42nd Street world, but at the same time, there is this giant glass palace that’s built on Mars. There are flying machines, huge blimps hanging over the New York skyline, and other things that we were able to layer in. I think that that’s part of the strength of this visual approach.’

Dr Manhattan’s glass palace on Mars would prove almost impossible to build and became one of the film’s all-digital sets. Alex McDowell explains that the design of the palace taps into the clock symbolism of the novel and film.
‘The design is a combination of quantum physics and a clock,’ comments McDowell. ‘There are layers and layers of references to clocks and watches in Watchmen – the ticking clock of the nuclear countdown, the watch Osterman wears and then leaves behind, setting off the chain of events that leads to the creation of Dr Manhattan. So, there’s some idea that the Glass Palace is an elaborate clock mechanism that he creates in reference to his father.’
In planning to build the many sets required to recreate the world of Watchmen, McDowell created a large schematic that incorporated images from the graphic novel, set designs, and other references to keep track of the multiple sets and characters and the timelines that define them. This schematic became a valuable tool for every member of the crew.
‘As we developed the language of the production, we used this as a way of feeding all the necessary beats back to all the departments, from set dressing, construction and costumes to the actors,’ he explains. ‘It was really a vital part of how we planned the film.’

Watchmen © DC Comics

Production and Set Design: building an alternate New York City
The filming took place in several locations around Vancouver, Canada and a number of sets were constructed on four stages at CMPP Studios (Canadian Motion Picture Park). Additionally, a new backlot was built from the ground up, in what was once a vast lumber yard outside the town, to accommodate for the construction of New York City. These included such Watchmen landmarks as the Gunga Diner, Rorschach’s alley, and The Comedian’s high-rise apartment.
‘In Watchmen, there are many subplots and threads layered within the imagery,’ observes McDowell. ‘It’s very very dense. As a production designer, one of the tasks it to set up an environment that the audience can enter and become completely immersed in, and then your work becomes part of the storytelling process.’
Each member of the production crew was given a binder of source materials which included extensive clippings and interviews with the creators, and the graphic novel itself, which was  referenced on a daily basis.

The task of building an entire city was made manageable due to the construction of three intersecting streets. The relatively-upscale Brownstone Street incorporated Dan Dreiberg’s apartment and also that of the first Nite Owl, Hollis Mason, while Blake Street housed The Comedian’s high-rise apartment building. Blake Street was eventually converted to Riot Street, where the Owl Ship lands during a scene depicting the Keene Riots. The central hub street, intersecting both Riot and Brownstone and representing the seedier part of town, was called Porno Street. An off-shoot, called Fight Alley, became the site of a major fight sequence between Dan and Laurie and the Knot Top gang.
Also built at an intersection on the backlot was the Newsstand, a key element from the graphic novel containing the overlapping stories presented in the Tales of the Black Freighter novel-within-a-novel chapters. Snyder shot those sequences specifically for a planned feature on the future DVD.
‘One of the things that was great about working with Zack,’ says McDowell, ‘is that he was as fanatically interested in finding the Easter eggs in the graphic novel and pulling them into the film. On some films, you make a decision that you’ve gone deep enough; let’s just shoot the thing. But Zack shares my same obsessive interest in the fine detail, so it was great fun to do.’
Other significant sets constructed for the film include President Nixon’s bunker at NORAD, which was inspired by the famous War Room featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film Dr Strangelove; the Gila Flats nuclear testing facility where Jon Osterman becomes Dr. Manhattan (actually Vancouver’s former Riverview Hospital); the Owl Chamber was created on a soundstage at CMPP, while the Saigon bar was situated within the New York environments.
The largest set on the soundstage was Adrian Veidt’s Antarctic retreat, Karnak, where the film’s climax unfolds. This set had multiple requirements, and the way it was constructed allowed it to be Veidt’s interior office if shot from one angle, and his exterior office if shot from another.

The Owl Ship
Nite Owl’s Owl Ship, also known as Archimedes or ‘Archie’ is a significant element of the graphic novel, and to recreate it lifesize Alex McDowell employed a team of artisans including sculptor and boat builder Jack Gavreaum.
‘Everyone, from sculptors and painters to set dressing and props, worked in this tiny little space,’ McDowell recalls. ‘But is proved to be one of the most satisfying sets in the movie for us. The idea with the Owl Ship is that form follows function, and everything is there because it has a purpose. In the Owl Chamber, we also incorporated dents and damage where we assumed he crashed while flight testing. It was very important for the audience to believe that this was a real craft, so it’s covered in scratches and scrapes.’

At the height of shooting, Dave Gibbons visited the set, an experience he found overwhelming.
‘I was just bowled over by the level of attention to detail,’ he attests. ‘Careful thought had been given to every little corner, even things I had stuck in the artwork that I hadn’t given a second thought to. When you draw something from your imagination, you have this misty impression of a picture that you then try to interpret. This was like seeing that misty picture crystallised into reality.’
Gibbons, who had previously seen only his Owl Ship on paper, had the rare experience of physically exploring his creation.
‘I looked at the model of the full-size Owl Ship, knocked on it, stood inside it, moved some of the controls,’ he marvels. ‘It was so fantastic for somebody who lives in their imagination a lot of the time to see these things actually become solid in the real world. It was one of the most exciting experiences I’ve had connected with comics.’

Worlds within worlds: on paper and screen
The cast was equally inspired by the world within a world they inhabited for a few months over a Vancouver winter. Jeffrey Dean Morgan who portrayed The Comedian asserts, ‘The details of it were just astonishing in their quality, right down to the smallest detail. I’ve never been a part of anything like this in my life. Every day I came onto the set and I was blown away by the scale of it, the work that so many people put into this thing. The novel literally came to life.’

One of the most subversive elements of the novel, which Alex McDowell sought to incorporate into the film, was ‘the twisting of the conventional primary palette of comic books into the secondary colours. It immediately made the Watchmen series into an incredibly striking package. People had not seen those colours in this medium before. Watchmen had fantastic graphic decisions throughout, from the smiley face cover onward, so that was the key for us.’
What would not work on film were the clean lines of a graphic novel.
‘To embed these characters in the real world, clean lines don’t translate,’ the production designer says. ‘But we found that it we took a grittier, more textured style, then added the strong secondary palette of the graphic novel to it, it became a way to find a common language of stylisation.’

Costumes for superheroes
The colour choices were also restricted by the graphic novel’s colour palette with regards to the costume design.
‘We used a lot of greens, purples, oranges and browns,’ recalls Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson, ‘the murky secondary colours that darken as the story progresses.’
The costumes for the key cast, like their environments, would need to be intimately designed, particularly their crime-fighting outfits. Wilkinson worked with the specialty costume company Quantum FX to create full body casts of all the major characters, upon which they then sculpted the details of each costume in clay.
‘We could then take these moulds and render them in foam latex so you get a stylised physique – wrinkle-free and with beautiful, sculpted details, while being flexible and breathable for the actors,’ he says.

Rorschach’s ‘face’
One of the more complicated characters, Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley, conveys his emotion via a mark of shifting mirror image patterns of black and white, similar to the inkblot test from which the character gets his name.
Wilkinson, describes the evolution of Rorschach’s mask – or his ‘face’ as the character insists – as long and complex.
‘We developed a printing process onto a fantastic four-way Lycra that enabled us to create a rough, canvas-like texture but also had a stretchy quality, so we could achieve that smooth, egg-like silhouette. And then the digital effects team created these beautiful moving inkblots on top of the fabric. It was a great collaboration between costumes and visual effects.’
To achieve the effect of perpetually morphing images, the Lycra of the mask was embedded with motion capture markers. These markers covered all of the material, except for Haley’s eyes, and allowed the patterns to reflect the actor’s performance. The visual effects team under the supervision of John ‘DJ’ DesJardin, animated the transitions between the inkblot patterns at different speeds, according to what Snyder wanted for the given scene.
‘We tried to model his expressions after the ones Dave Gibbons drew for the graphic novel,’ DesJardin reveals. ‘The inkblots are not just black and white; the edges are grey and animated in a way that makes it look like the ink is coming out of the cloth and sinking back in again.’

Watchmen © DC Comics

The impossibility of Dr Manhattan
The embodiment of Dr Manhattan hinged primarly on the actor playing him, as this character is the only one in Watchmen to have physical superpowers. Manhattan also has an effect on his environment: a blue glow that emanates from his body, illuminating his surroundings.
‘When I read the graphic novel, Manhattan was the only element that made me think, “How do we do this?”‘ recalls Director of Photography Larry Fong. Together, DesJardin and Fong found a creative solution.
‘We ultimately made a suit that had all the tracking markers we needed for motion capture but also thousands of LEDs that put out this nice, diffuse, blue light,’ DesJardin explains. ‘Zack’s idea was that when Jon Osterman pulled himself back together, he made this ideal male form for him to embody. So, while keeping Billy’s face and remaining accurate to his performance, we created a CG character with a powerful, ultra-ripped, perfected body.’

Deborah Snyder states that everyone involved brought unparalleled passion and commitment to their work in bringing Watchmen to the screen.
‘Watchmen is not only significant to the comic book community; it has so much significance as a piece of literature. Our hope is that whoever sees the film discovers or rediscovers the graphic novel because there’s so much more than we can possibly get on the screen.’

For more information about Watchmen, the film, visit the
Paramount Pictures Australia website

ABSOLUTE WATCHMEN
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Dave Gibbons
ISBN 978-1-4012-0713-7
Price: $75.00 US/$86.00 CAN
464 pages
Printed and bound in China

For more information about this publication please visit the Tower Books website

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) presents an exciting new exhibition, Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia. Until mid April, this exhibition examines the great achievements in film design in a fascinating display of what goes on behind the scenes. The work of film production designers, art directors, set designers and film architects are displayed in detail, as the exhibition pays tribute to the artists behind seminal works of film from around the world.

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The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962). Production designer Jean Mandaroux. Courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen.

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A behind the scenes look at international cinema is put on show in this fascinating exhibition celebrating production design, some of which is exclusive to Australian audiences. Kate McCurdy reports.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) presents an exciting new exhibition, Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia. Until mid April, this exhibition examines the great achievements in film design in a fascinating display of what goes on behind the scenes. The work of film production designers, art directors, set designers and film architects are displayed in detail, as the exhibition pays tribute to the artists behind seminal works of film from around the world.

A sense of place and space
Setting the Scene is focused on the sense of place and atmosphere of a film, and particularly the artists role in creating these spaces. ACMI’s Screen Gallery features more than 300 original sketches, storyboards and models from iconic films from international cinema, and is displayed in seven parts. These parts represent the different kinds of spaces in which the film’s world exists, namely Spaces of Power, Private Spaces, Labyrinth Spaces, Transit Spaces, Stage Spaces, Virtual Spaces and Location Spaces.

Dante Ferretti. The Name of the Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986). Courtesy of Dante Ferretti

Setting the Scene is based on the German exhibition Moving Spaces: Production Design + Film originally produced by the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen, Berlin. ACMI has significantly expanded Moving Spaces with two new sections to represent the work of some of Australia’s internationally acclaimed production designers. The Virtual Spaces and Location Spaces sections of the exhibition have been added and include exhibits from Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008) and are exclusive to Australian audiences.

Over 80 films are represented across the exhibition featuring the work of more than 30 internationally acclaimed production designers, including Ken Adam, Anna Asp, Dante Ferretti, Frank Schroedter, Robert Heath and Alex McDowell. German production designer Erich Kettelhut is the most heavily represented in the exhibition, with work from nine of his films on display, including work from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).

Australian production design
Seven of the Australian production designers and art directors, including Owen Patterson (Matrix trilogy and Speed Racer), Roger Ford (Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), Chris Kennedy (The Proposition and forthcoming release The Road), Stephen Curtis (beDevil and Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy), Catherine Martin (Australia), Karen Murphy (Australia), George Liddle (Dark City) and Steven Jones-Evans (Ned Kelly).

Dir Andrew Adamson and PD Roger Ford on set. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, 2008). Production designer Roger Ford. © DISNEY/WALDEN. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, NARNIA, and all book titles, characters and locales original thereto are trademarks and are used with permission.

On set: Baz Luhrmann’s Australia
One of the major attractions of the exhibition is the exclusive display of the work from Baz Lurhmann’s Australia, by double Academy Award winning Australian production designer, Catherine Martin, and her team including Art Director Karen Murphy. This section has been curated by ACMI with Murphy, and features design concepts, sketches, models and research material as well as the living room set of the Faraway Downs homestead from the film.

Catherine Martin with the Australia Faraway Downs Homestead. Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008). Production designer Catherine Martin. Image credit: Douglas Kirkland.

Speaking at the opening of Setting the Scene, Murphy reflected on her experience working on Australia: ‘It’s incredibly rewarding working as an art director on a Baz Luhrmann film, because the art department is unique. The production designer, Catherine Martin, is responsible for the images that inform and amplify the story from the research stage through to the final days of post production. The truth is in the strength and layering of the early images you see here in the gallery, and they end up on the screen,’ she said.
‘I’ve loved being involved in this exhibition,’ she adds. ‘It’s a wonderful celebration of the contribution of the talented pool of artists, from set designers, model-makers, set dressers, digital 3D modelers and craftspeople brought together by the production designer to help create those final, rich and memorable worlds we experience in Australia and in all of the films featured here at ACMI.’

A number of interviews with selected Australian production designers have been produced in conjunction with the Australian Film, Television Radio School (AFTRS) in which the designers speak about their work. These interviews are screened in the Screen gallery as part of the exhibition.

From Moving Spaces to Setting the Scene
The original exhibition, Moving Spaces: Production Design + Film was first exhibited in Berlin in 2005 and has travelled to significant venues such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles (2006) and the Hong Kong Film Archive (2007). Apart from the Australia section, the works in Setting the Scene are from the collection of the Deutsche Kinemathek, supplementing international loans from Cinémathèque Française, the Bibliotheque du Film and the Svenska Filminstitute archives among others, as well as material from the private collections of production designers.

The range of films displayed in the exhibition is signified by the title of ACMI’s exhibition: Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia. Some of the oldest films in the exhibition are significant examples of German cinema such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), while the most recent film is Australia (Luhrmann, 2008) and the forthcoming release of John Hillcoat’s The Road (2009).

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). Production designers Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht, Erich Kettelhut. Courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen

International highlights
A highlight of the exhibition is the large-scale model of the ultra-modern house from Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle (1958). This comedy won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1959, and one can experience the detail of the film’s set close up with this beautiful model, complete with the dachshund in the driveway.
Other films featured in the exhibition include three Stanley Kubrick films, Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining (1980); as well as The Apartment (1960), Cabaret (1972), Alien (1979), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Dogville (2003), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Terminal (2004).

Dogville (Lars Von Trier, 2003). Production designer Peter Grant. Courtesy of Zentropa Entertainments3 ApS

For more information about the exhibition, including the Setting the Scene poster competition, visit the ACMI website.

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The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2005). Production design by Dante Ferretti

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‘I always try to find ways of manipulating reality to accentuate the central focus of the film. I’ll exaggerate certain details and discard others.’
- Dante Ferretti

Film Production Design is being celebrated at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in its current exhibition Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia. To coincide with the exhibition, ACMI Film Programs have curated a unique film season dedicated to the significant body of work of Academy Award winning, Italian production designer Dante Ferretti. A showcase of thirteen selected films featuring art direction or production design by Ferretti will take place at ACMI from Friday 20 February to Sunday 1 March in Focus On Dante Ferretti.

Dante Ferretti was both in Macerata, Italy in 1943, and studied set design in Rome before he was employed as an assistant to film architect Luigi Scaccianoce. With now 70 films in his continuing body of work, his first assignment as a designer was for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea (1969) who taught Ferretti to draw inspiration from art history. One of the greatest examples of this influence can be seen in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose (1986). The film, adapted from the novel by Umberto Eco, is a medieval monastery-set thriller shot in Italy and Germany, and called for complex interior design to represent the labyrinthine drama. The construction of the interior plaza and abbey was supervised by Ferretti, and a reconstructed model is being exhibited at ACMI as part of Setting the Scene until April, 2009.

Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam, 1988). Production sketch by Dante Ferretti

Following The Name of the Rose, Ferretti’s next major project was working on Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), a film now perhaps better known for its production problems and cost overruns. However, this film can be viewed as a launch of sorts for Ferretti, as following this film his career really took off internationally. Since Baron Munchausen, he has worked with significant directors from all over the world, including Neil Jordan, Claude Chabrol and the late Anthony Minghella. Ferretti has also frequently collaborated with Academy Award winning American filmmaker Martin Scorsese on six feature films to date. Three of these films will be screening as part of the Focus On showcase: The Aviator (2005), The Age of Innocence (1993) and Casino (1995). Scorsese’s new feature, Ashecliffe, with Ferretti as Production Designer, is currently in post-production and due for release later this year.

The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2005). Production sketch by Dante Ferretti.

Roberta Ciabarra, ACMI Film Programmer and Curator of the season, says, ‘Dante Ferretti’s vast body of work included ongoing collaborations with some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In a way this is testament to his significant role in the history of filmmaking. From baroque and neo-realist Italian cinema to the Hollywood machine and some of the really defining moments in film, Ferretti has been part of it all.’

Dante Ferretti has won two Academy Awards in the Best Achievement in Art Direction category, most recently for Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008) and in 2005 for Scorsese’s The Aviator. Both of these films will screen as part of the Focus on Dante Ferretti season, as well as The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), Titus (Julie Taymor, 1999), The Black Dahlia (Brian de Palma, 2006), Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam, 1988).
Ferretti’s early career in Italy and France will be represented by screenings of a smaller number of arthouse titles such as E la nave va (And the Ship Sails On) (Federico Fellini, 1983), La nuit de Varennes (That Night in Varennes) (Ettore Scola, 1982), Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of Ordinary Madness) (Marco Ferreri, 1981) and Decameron (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971).

The Black Dahlia (Brian de Palma, 2006). Production sketch by Dante Ferretti

‘With the sheer volume of works in his filmography, we could have have done a whole festival,’ says Ciabarra, ‘but these works represent some of Ferretti’s defining moments, as well as those of the directors he has worked with. It’s a chance for ACMI to highlight the importance of production design and visionary directing and perhaps even more so, the deep interpretative skills these artists (quite literally) have. Their ability to get into someone’s head and translate concept into finely woven fabric is really quite something.’

- Kate McCurdy

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The Victoria-wide design event, The State of Design Festival kicks off on Wednesday 16 July 2008 with a host of events to appeal to anyone with an interest in design. Under the artistic direction of Ewan McEoin from Studio Propeller (one of the key organisations that make up the State of Design Alliance or SODA), the festival features four major design arenas: the Premier’s Design Awards, Design Capital, Design for Everyone and Design:Made:Trade.

State of Design Festival
16 – 24 July 2008
Various venues

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Premier’s Design Awards: Winners announced Wednesday 16 July 2008
Design Capital: Wednesday 16 – Friday 18 July 2008
Design for Everyone: Wednesday 16 – Thursday 24 July 2008
Design:Made:Trade: Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 July

The Victoria-wide design event, The State of Design Festival kicks off on Wednesday 16 July 2008 with a host of events to appeal to anyone with an interest in design. Under the artistic direction of Ewan McEoin from Studio Propeller (one of the key organisations that make up the State of Design Alliance or SODA), the festival features four major design arenas: the Premier’s Design Awards, Design Capital, Design for Everyone and Design:Made:Trade.

While the Melbourne Museum will become a ‘design hub’ for most of the activities on offer, events will take place at venues all over Melbourne, including the Royal Exhibition Building, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, as well as regional venues across Victoria.

The festival welcomes many international guests as well as those from around Australia, but takes a distinctly Melbourne, and indeed Victorian, focus in its celebration of design talent and innovation. One of the key themes at the festival is the issue of sustainability in design, and that is reflected in the criteria of the Premier’s Design Award, and newly introduced Premier’s Design Marks, as well as the challenges it brings to design and business as shown in Design Capital, how it affects product design in Design:Made:Trade as well as the broad scope of climate change and sustainability awareness of the entire population in Design for Everyone.

The Premier’s Design Awards
A highlight of the State of Design Festival, The Premier’s Design Awards 2008 seeks to recognise excellence in design practice in Victoria. Held biennially from 2008 onwards, the award is judged by a local and international panel and the winner announced at the opening of the festival.
In addition to the Award, the event has recently been redeveloped to introduce the Premier’s Design Marks. These Marks will ‘reward designers and practices that have developed their skills and their creative processes to respond to the new more demanding market conditions, producing exemplary approaches and outcomes that are perceived by the profession, clients and the community as a contribution to a sustainable future’.
The Premier’s Design Marks will be awarded within the following design categories in the divisions of Commercial, Cultural or Self Initiated: Industrial/Product Design, Architecture, Interior Design, Graphic Design, Multimedia Design, Landscape Design, Exhibition Design, Set Design, Textile Design, Fashion Design, Hand Made Objects.

Chris Bosse, Designer, Design Capital

Design Capital
As Australia’s first business of design conference, Design Capital, presented by Design Victoria, will bring the realms of business and design together in order to allow them to connect and discuss issues facing both areas such a sustainability, globalisation and also examining the role of design in successful innovation. Participants in Design Capital include leading innovators, designers, business figures, the media and industry who will bring their insights to the table to tackle issues relevant to designing, thinking, process, and the commercialisation of design led products and services from Victoria.

The Design Capital conference has been structured over three days according to key themes affecting business and design. These themes complement each other as well as work to stimulate debate among the participants.
Day One’s themes are ‘Designing Identity’ and ‘Place Making’. ‘Designing Identity’ examines how design is generated and shifts the identity of individuals, products, brands and places; and particularly looks at how when they work well, design solutions can provide a double dividend: a return on investment and a return on imagination, creating iconic, strategic outcomes for business. ‘Place Making’ looks at how urban renewal and development creates environments and new opportunities for business and community, acknowledging how architecture and urban planning are crucial to shape the way of the future.

‘Designing Experience’ and ‘The Opportunity of Crisis’ are on the agenda for Day Two. The former analyses the how our ‘experience economy’ harnesses design as a way to ensure consumer engagement. ‘Opportunity of Crisis’ canvasses the obligation of designers to respond to the imminent challenges of climate and society, and also motivate change as they create the products, environments and opportunities of the future.

Nendo, Design Capital

Day Three takes a global view with the ‘Convergent World’ and the ‘Commercialisation of Ideas for Export’. ‘The Convergent World’ observes how a new generation of design service systems, products and production methodologies are emerging to challenge social, environmental and consumer expectation. This theme makes particular reference to how technology-based design processes, digital networks and sustainable manufacturing are all innovation led business arenas worth watching. The ‘Commercialisation of Ideas for Export’ expands upon these themes as three innovative Victorian exporters describe their pathway to market, illustrate the commercial potential of design and manufacturing fed from research, and products rich with design.

The State of Design Festival Artistic Director and Conference Curator, Ewan McEoin, says that this conference is a ‘strategic event, looking towards a competitive, innovative future for Victorian design and Victorian business’. Design Capital will be facilitated by Oliver Freeman, director of the Neville Freeman Agency, and has been strategically designed to build a picture, across six diverse yet connected themes, of where Melbourne and Victoria sit in a competitive global market, and predicts new opportunities for design-led business from Victoria and Australia.
Design Capital will run from Wednesday 16 – Friday 18 July 2008 at the Melbourne Museum.

Design for Everyone
Design for everyone proclaims that ‘Design is a Verb!’ The driving force behind this event is to make design appear as accessible and appealing as possible, that ‘it’s about doing, being, making, crafting, thinking, shaping – a process not an object, design is for everyone!’
The involvement of not only the venues across the city of Melbourne such as Melbourne Museum, ACMI, the State Library of Victoria, RMIT University and the National Gallery of Victoria, but also regional centres from Horsham to Castlemaine to Bendigo – making this a truly accessible event at the Festival.
In designing these events, program curator Fleur Watson has helped bring together the design community, giving the designers unique opportunities with a space for design in all its guises to interact directly with the public. With events ranging from exhibitions to public talks, design experiences and iconic design statements, Design for Everyone makes its message clear.

'Propogating Fiction' for 'Winterlights' - Tracy Sarroff, Mars, Design for Everyone

Design:Made:Trade
Complementing the business realm of Design Capital and its opportunity for leading businesses to network and forecast, Design:Made:Trade adds an essential commercial aspect to the State of Design Festival. This trade event brings together 40 of Australia’s most talented designers from a wide range of design disciplines including lighting, textiles, fashion design, furniture, industrial design, and graphic design, and aims to give exposure to this showcase of forthcoming products and material trends to local and international markets.
Housed in the Royal Exhibition Building, Design:Made:Trade is the perfect location to attract key buyers, design professionals, design makers, manufacturers, decision makers from national and international creative industries, as well as design conscious members of the public.

Design:Made:Trade also makes an effort to engage with the current trend of sustainability in design by giving exhibitors the opportunity to transform a design box to showcase their design talent. The boxes are provided by Visy, are constructed from recycled cardboard and will be recycled at the end of the event.
Design:Made:Trade has been compared to the designers block concept in London as well as 100% Design Tokyo events, and aims to present innovative work in an environment  focused on attracting designers and trade visitors with a creative young and fresh approach.

Zema Designs, Design:Made:Trade

The State of Design Festival has been made possible by the Victorian Government, the Design Victoria program, the State of Design Alliance (SODA) as well as commercial partnerships. SODA is a joint venture made up of Australian Exhibitions & Conferences, Winslow Solutions and Studio Propeller.

State of Design Festival
16 – 24 July 2008
Various venues

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