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Art
Direction & History
The term production designer was
first applied to William Cameron Menzies for his work on Gone with the Wind in 1939.
Historically, it was not until 1924 that
sixty-three of the top individuals pursuing these crafts in the United States
formed the Cinemagundi Club, a
social and networking organization.
The first
Academy Awards for art direction (in 1927–1928) were given to Rochus Gliese for
Sunrise, William Cameron Menzies for The Dove and Tempest, and
Harry Oliver for 7th Heaven.
In 1937, the group was transformed into the
Society of Motion Picture Art Directors. In 2000, television was added to the
organization’s scope and it became the Art Directors Guild.
Then, in 2003, the purview of the group was
made even broader as it also included scenic, title, and graphic art.
Europe
In Europe, similar groups were formed
(e.g., British Film Designers Guild, Russian Guild of Artists in Cinema and
Television, Association of Stage Designers, Film Architects, and Costume
Designers in Europe, and l’Association des Chefs Décorateurs de Cinéma in
France).
European art direction (especially in
France, Germany, and Russia) has been in the forefront of film design and,
historically, a great crossover has existed between European and American film
scenes, with production designers such as Hans Dreier, Rochus Gliese, Edgar
Ulmer, and Erté working in Hollywood.
In general, notions of production design or
art direction can involve the following things: set design, painting, decoration, construction, and budgeting; the
incorporation of locations into the overall “look” of a film; decisions about
the tone and color of a work’s cinematograph; and special effects. The craft’s
purpose is to produce an overall pictorial “vision” for the film.
Art
Directors Club
Louis Pedlar, who was strongly influenced by Earnest Elmo Calkins, initiated
the Art Directors Club in 1920 in response to the uncertain
relationship between advertising art and fine art. ‘
Pedlar brought together a group of art
buyers, art department managers and layout artists to pool ideas and knowledge,
and to investigate the idea that advertising could be judged by the same
stringent standards as fine art.
At that time, Art Directors were paid five to ten dollars an hour, and
unconventional payment methods were common — including a lifetime supply of
gloves paid by The Daniel Hays Company to 1925 Gold Medalist R. F. Heinrich.
When the club moved to the Art Center on
East Sixty-fifth Street in 1921, luncheons, lectures, sketch classes and
ongoing debates about art and commerce were the standard.
Women
were not allowed to join the club until 1943,
putting an end to the regular nude-model sketch sessions at the club.
When the Art Direction Club moved to the
penthouse of the Newsweek Building on Madison Avenue in 1971, the going rate
for art directors was two to three hundred dollars a day.
From 1962 until 1971, the Art Direction Club
occupied the penthouse of the DePinna Building on Fifth Avenue until that
building was sold to the Iranian Pahlavi Foundation. During these years,
notable events included a special
lecture in 1962 by Oleg Cassini, the fashion designer responsible for creating
Jacqueline Kennedy’s state wardrobe.
At the 1966 ADC Conference Luncheon, the
President’s Medal was awarded to Duke Ellington, composer, arranger, bandleader
and traveling diplomat for the State Department in its cultural exchange
program. NBC televised the entire event. International
members were invited to join the Club in 1966.
Beginning
in the 1970s, Art Direction began to
have a greater impact in Hollywood. Film director Otto Preminger presented the
Hall of Fame award to Saul Bass — an especially notable event since Bass had
created the animated title sequence for Preminger’s great film - The Man with
the Golden Arm.
And
after the club moved to the Flatiron District in 1986, Robert Benton,
screenwriter of Bonnie and Clyde, discussed making the leap from Art Direction
to film direction.
By the 1990s, an art
director’s average pay was $1,500 a day.