Production Design / Art department

Production Design
Production designer is a term used in the movie and television industries to refer to the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production Designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the director and producer, they must select the settings and style to visually tell the story.

The term was created in 1939 in respect for the amount and level of design work single-handedly accomplished by William Cameron Menzies on the film Gone with the Wind. Previously, and often subsequently, the person(s) with the same responsibility had been called "art directors."

the crew who work in the art department under the production designer include:

1. art director
2. assistant art director
3. set designer
4. set decorator
5. costume designer
6. property master
7. concept illustrator
8. graphic designer
9. model maker

Production illustration

• Each member of the art department contributes illustrations that fall into three basic categories.

1. Concept and final design illustration: these are used to describe individual elements for a production, including sets, props, costumes, makeup and special effects. These are individual illustrations intended to establish a style a visual direction and do necessarily depict a shot or sequence in the film.
2. Plans, elevations and projections: These are the highly technical descriptions that give that exact specifications needed to manufacture whatever is depicted more evocatively in the design illustrations.
3. Continuity sketches and storyboards: these are the sequential panels that describe the individual compositions of each shot and their order in each scene of a film.