“You get the script on white sticky paper, the action is furious, the characters are ready, but they’re not moving anywhere. There is no world to surround them until the film’s production designer creates an environment for them.” – Rick Carter, two-time award winner Oscar Production Designer who collaborated with the golden quartet of world cinema: Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron, J. J. Abrams. “There is a common code of communication,” he emphasizes.

Even if he didn’t have golden statuettes to show off to support a great career, just a few films from his rich filmography would be enough to lead to the same conclusion: Avatar, Star Wars, Forrest Gump, Polar Express, Back to the Future II and III, Jurassic Park, AI, Castaway, Munich And last, “Fabelmans”, Steven Spielberg. “Spielberg once told me that ‘my best ideas are the ones you come up with,’ so I would say one complements the other,” he tells me.

“I like films that are about travel and discovery,” he says. “In addition to my travels and wanderings around the world, my own relationship with cinema began.” He explains that even though he was born and raised in Los Angeles, he never thought he could spend his day on set. The end of the 60s and while he was accepted to the university, he gives up on the department of sociology and decides to know the world. This is the era of the Vietnam War and the human rights debate, and he’s trying to satisfy the young rebel inside of him.

He travels throughout the year and draws many people he meets in his countries – Nepal, India, Thailand, Kenya. “I have always been interested in people, and now, if you think about it, I start with people, I build my own world. The interaction of the environment with man creates an atmosphere.” He returns to New York, finishes his studies and starts working as an artist, it’s hard for him and so he calls his father. “What could I do in Hollywood? How can I contact the art director? His father introduced him to Robert Silbert, artistic director of such films as Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, The Newcomer. “He treated me like an uncle, he was generous with me, he showed me what this job meant and helped me find my own path, my own expression.”

He argues that the direction given by the director acts like a canvas on which the production designer gives free rein to his imagination. “They give me a general direction, and then I think about how I would act if I were the hero in their film, what would I see, where would I live, what would I touch, how would I move. First I have to believe my lies. If this is not the case, I should reconsider my opinion of this story.”

Spielberg once told me that “my best ideas are the ones you come up with”, so I would say that one complements the other.

As an example, he cites cult films of the past, such as Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz. “These worlds that Dorothy and Alice visit do not exist, but they must unfold before our eyes and this golden balance between reality and dream must be maintained.” You are a magician, I interrupt him. “The wizard is always the director, I’m the one who supplies him with the right spells for all occasions.”

Feeling

What does he think of all these technologies that he now has at his disposal? “When we made the first Avatar, Cameron argued that there was technology behind the story we were trying to tell. Digital media and augmented reality make things easier, but not enough to tell the story. The effect will hit you for 1-2 minutes, but you have to provide the sensation, somehow stimulate the deeper instincts.”

I tell him that the way I think about his work is an exaggeration. “I never think of my art in terms of exaggeration. Of course, I have to go beyond, imagine situations, invent worlds, but you know that the concept of gravity is “sewn in” behind each of our actions. We live on Earth, we are defined by this downward pull, we may claim to be able to fly, walk through walls, travel through time, but we are like divers. We have to, however strong our lungs are, come to the surface, take a breath, connect with what we know.”

He is in Greece for the Film and Canvas exhibition at the Blender Gallery (until 18/12), where he will show drawings, watercolors from his youth, as well as photo collages and other mixed media from his long journey in the field of art. film industry. He is also here to speak as a speaker at a conference held at the same location as the Metaverse Exhibition (17-18/12).

I ask him if this is his first visit to Greece. “I was here two months ago for a production design conference in Spetses. This place has incredible energy. We take it for granted that we think the way we think, but it all started here. And the idea of ​​cinema goes back so far. If Plato hadn’t written down his teacher’s thoughts, hadn’t created a profile, hadn’t made up a story, we wouldn’t know much about Socrates, would we?