NOMINATED for Achievement in Production Design Art Directors Guild Awards 2018 - Contemporary Feature Film
DOWNSIZING
Directed By Alexander Payne
Production Designed by Stefania Cella
After months of designing graphics for the production and weeks of graphics for the post production compositing, I was approached about doing the titles for the film. While the intro titles were quite basic, the end titles were more of an adventure. The Vetruvian Man became a focal point given it's scientific nature and it's use early in the film. Otherwise we wanted a smooth looking backdrop to encourage the viewer to take a moment and watch the crew names go by. It was a new experience being so involved in post production. The Billboards and animations took time to perfect and being outside of the frantic pace of filming gave us the opportunity to really dial everything in. I also got to design a cake! The golf ball reads Littleist, a spoof on Titleist.
The Leisureland waiting room is as as sterile as it gets. We wanted to give it a little nudge with some regional magazines and some Shrink Culture magazines. We made several magazines to live inside Leisureland itself directed at nightlife, shopping and generally reinforcing that the residents made the right choice.
Alexander wanted me as the primary physician of Leisureland, so Dr. N. Carlson is on all the prescription bottles. One of the pharmacies is Hertzels, a nod to characters in Payne's film About Schmidt.
Leisureland needed all manner of signage, advertising and directionals. We went so far as to create a map for public transportation to ground this place as not just for the well-off. It shows that at any scale human nauture will always prevail. The design of Aloha Gardens overlapped from production to post. I interpreted it as a beacon of hope as the bus goers enter the tunnel to the outside world.
Big shows like Downsizing require a team of graphic designers. Production Designer Stefania Cella brought a designer on that she worked with often. Our combined experience helped create a fluid creative language between Stefania and AP. This was important as they were not that familiar with one another.
NWC