Production Designer

When mobster Mickey Cohen ruled Los Angeles in the late 1940s, his favorite hangout was the legendary Slapsy Maxie's nightclub on Wilshire Boulevard. It's long gone now of course, so to re-create it for the new film "Gangster Squad" the filmmakers had to be creative. Production designer Maher Ahmad found the right spot for Slapsy Maxie's almost by accident, while driving around with the film's first location manager. They had been looking for a vintage house in a suburban neighborhood when they passed an Art Deco-inspired block of empty businesses in Bellflower.

We cannot begin to express how impressed we were with the Cavalia experience. The quality, scope, and production values of the show itself were tremendous. The production designer utilized technology and showmanship to create an inspired and vast fantasy world.  Finally, the Rendezvous VIP treatment was over the top. A friendly staff, and every detail provided, it was an exceptional evening. Our sincere thanks to you and the Cavalia staff for the opportunity to experience this wonderful production. 

The Art Directors Guild has announced nominations in nine categories for the 17th annual Excellence in Production Design Awards. Theatrical film nominations are divided between period, fantasy and contemporary categories. Nominees in the period film category are production designers Sarah Greenwood for "Anna Karenina"; Sharon Seymour for "Argo"; J. Michael Riva for "Django Unchained"; Eve Stewart for "Les Miserables"; and Rick Carter for "Lincoln. " Vying in the fantasy film category are production designers Uli Hanisch and Hugh Bateup for "Cloud Atlas"; David Gropman for "Life of Pi"; Arthur Max for "Prometheus"; Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh for "The Dark Knight Rises"; and Dan Hannah for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Foreign auteurs tend to enjoy a good metaphoric image or three. And few like them more than Chan-wook Park, the South Korean filmmaker behind violent cult hits such as "Oldboy. " In "Stoker," Park's English-language debut starring Nicole Kidman that opened in Los Angeles last weekend, there are a number of memorable images. They're all there for a reason. "Stoker" centers on the loner India (Mia Wasikowska), her aloof and at times rivalrous mother (Kidman) and India's affectionate but mysterious uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode)

Robert F. Boyle, a four-time Oscar-nominated production designer best known for his work on Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" and "The Birds" and Norman Jewison's "Fiddler on the Roof," has died. He was 100. Boyle died of natural causes Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a two-day stay, said family spokeswoman Nicole Bamber. "For us as a guild, it's a loss of one of our great masters," said Tom Walsh, president of the Art Directors Guild.

Tommy Goetz, 57, television production designer for such series as "Taxi" and "Coach." Goetz began his career in Chicago's improvisational Second City in the late 1950s. He gravitated to New York, where he became a stage manager for "The Ed Sullivan Show" and early Barbra Streisand specials. He next worked as a cameraman for the Swedish Broadcasting Union covering civil rights and anti-Vietnam confrontations in the 1960s and was assigned to the White House for three years.

In his half-century career in film, Oscar-winning production designer Terence Marsh performed some amazing transformations. In director David Lean's 1965 "Doctor Zhivago," for which he won his first Academy Award, Marsh and the other designers turned Spain into Russia during the communist revolution. For Carol Reed's Oscar best picture winner, "Oliver!" (1968), which earned Marsh his second Oscar, he captured the bleakness and poverty of 19th century London in the musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist.

"Les Misérables" production designer Eve Stewart went straight to the source: Victor Hugo's 1,200-page novel. She didn't just read the book, she channeled it by transcribing key descriptive passages, word for word, onto crib sheets that would inform the look for the musical's film adaptation from director Tom Hooper. Thanks to London-born Stewart's visceral designs, Hugh Jackman's Jean Valjean gets a mud bath, Anne Hathaway's Fantine has a run-in with rotting fish and scores of revolutionary Parisians lose their furniture.

Production designer John Myhre won Oscars for his work on director Rob Marshall's 2002 period musical "Chicago" and his 2005 drama "Memoirs of a Geisha." He's also supplied the eye-popping looks for the 2006 musical "Dreamgirls" and last year's fantasy thriller "Wanted." But for all that, perhaps his most creative project is his latest, the musical "Nine," opening Dec.18. Marshall directed this lavish adaptation of the Broadway musical hit, itself based on the 1963 Fellini film "8 1/2 ," about a movie director (Daniel Day-Lewis)

Closing out a week where it earned nominations from both the directors and producers guilds of America, "The Hurt Locker" received another nod Friday from the Art Directors Guild for their Excellence in Production Design Award for a contemporary film. Joining "Hurt Locker" production designer Karl Juliusson in the contemporary category are Allan Cameron for "Angels & Demons," Bill Brzeski for "The Hangover," Naomi Shohan for "The Lovely Bones" and Steve Saklad for "Up in the Air." Period film contenders are Jess Goncher for "A Serious Man," David Wasco for "Inglourious Basterds," Mark Ricker for "Julie & Julia," Nathan Crowley for "Public Enemies" and Sarah Greenwood for "Sherlock Holmes."

The last week in February is always a hectic time of year for Academy Award nominees. But for Michael Haneke, the Austrian director up for multiple Oscars on Sunday for "Amour," the next several days are shaping up to be a perfect storm of red-carpet appearances. The day before the Oscars are to be handed out in L.A., a new production of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," staged by Haneke, is to debut in Spain at the Teatro Real Madrid, which is led by Gerard Mortier. The day before that, the Cesars, France's equivalent of the Oscars, are to be handed out in Paris, with "Amour" nominated in multiple categories.

"Les Misérables" production designer Eve Stewart went straight to the source: Victor Hugo's 1,200-page novel. She didn't just read the book, she channeled it by transcribing key descriptive passages, word for word, onto crib sheets that would inform the look for the musical's film adaptation from director Tom Hooper. Thanks to London-born Stewart's visceral designs, Hugh Jackman's Jean Valjean gets a mud bath, Anne Hathaway's Fantine has a run-in with rotting fish and scores of revolutionary Parisians lose their furniture.

When mobster Mickey Cohen ruled Los Angeles in the late 1940s, his favorite hangout was the legendary Slapsy Maxie's nightclub on Wilshire Boulevard. It's long gone now of course, so to re-create it for the new film "Gangster Squad" the filmmakers had to be creative. Production designer Maher Ahmad found the right spot for Slapsy Maxie's almost by accident, while driving around with the film's first location manager. They had been looking for a vintage house in a suburban neighborhood when they passed an Art Deco-inspired block of empty businesses in Bellflower.

Considering its daunting production difficulties and director Joe Wright's last-minute decision to totally change the look and meta-narrative of the film, there's an almost storybook quality to the Oscar nominations haul by “Anna Karenina” on Thursday morning. That fact is not lost on Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer, who were nominated for achievement in production design for their work on the lavish adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel. “We didn't start out making the film we ended up with,” Greenwood said from “rainy, freezing London” on Thursday.

The Art Directors Guild has announced nominations in nine categories for the 17th annual Excellence in Production Design Awards. Theatrical film nominations are divided between period, fantasy and contemporary categories. Nominees in the period film category are production designers Sarah Greenwood for "Anna Karenina"; Sharon Seymour for "Argo"; J. Michael Riva for "Django Unchained"; Eve Stewart for "Les Miserables"; and Rick Carter for "Lincoln. " Vying in the fantasy film category are production designers Uli Hanisch and Hugh Bateup for "Cloud Atlas"; David Gropman for "Life of Pi"; Arthur Max for "Prometheus"; Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh for "The Dark Knight Rises"; and Dan Hannah for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" is set in a richly colored, Todd-AO widescreen-feeling America circa 1950, boldly ascending from the horrors of World War II without yet comprehending the trauma incurred. It's a sometimes squeaky-clean surface under which lurks the "animal" nature that the charismatic philosophical leader known as Master (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) decries, especially in protégé Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a troubled Navy veteran. Production designers Jack Fisk and David Crank agree that the key to bringing that era to life in a way that served the story was to keep it out of the museum.

Production designers are routinely charged with creating worlds a little unlike anything we've seen before. Researching centuries of architectural movements, borrowing a little here, a little there, mixing them together and adding healthy dollops of their own imagination, they erect entire cities and villages and dreamscapes on budgets a fraction of the cost of an actual building.

Foreign auteurs tend to enjoy a good metaphoric image or three. And few like them more than Chan-wook Park, the South Korean filmmaker behind violent cult hits such as "Oldboy. " In "Stoker," Park's English-language debut starring Nicole Kidman that opened in Los Angeles last weekend, there are a number of memorable images. They're all there for a reason. "Stoker" centers on the loner India (Mia Wasikowska), her aloof and at times rivalrous mother (Kidman) and India's affectionate but mysterious uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode)

Deborah Nadoolman Landis has worked as a costume designer on more than 20 films over the last 40 years. Along the way, she has created several looks that have crossed into popular culture and become fashion trends. Here are a few anecdotes, in her own words. - Booth Moore ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) Back in the 1970s, there were T-shirt shops where you could have all different [images] pressed on. I thought it was funny to put "College" on the front of Bluto's sweat shirt. I had no idea that it would become so iconic, that I would be taking my son to college at the University of Miami years later, and they would be for sale in the shop.

"Lincoln" earned a record-breaking 13 nominations for Broadcast Film Critics Assn.'s Critics' Choice Movie Awards. It received nominations for best film, director for Steven Spielberg, actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, supporting actress for Sally Field, supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones and acting ensemble. "Les Miserables" followed with 11 nominations, while the quirky romantic comedy "Silver Linings Playbook" scored 10 nods. STORY: 'Lincoln' scores 13 Critics' Choice nominations The following is a complete list of nominations.