Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction

It`s beautifully printed glorious book on history of production design. Except it is only a photo book with VERY little of text for the latter to be of a ANY value. I`d rather have a book that is written by a movie professional than a journalist. Very decorative book but that`s its only value - there is no informational value at all or very little of it. I hoped to have an in depth discussion on production design and how it influences the audience perception of both the characters and the stroyline. But instead there is just a collection of the best examples of set designs over the 100 years. If you are looking for that - then it`s the book for you. If you are looking for something more informative the pass it on.

I have nothing bad to say about this book at all and it's well worth the cost. This is everything old Hollywood and it presented in a great book. The photos are all excellent quality and there's plenty of pictures.....you're not paying for just text. The text has great information and explains everything you're seeing....or not seeing. If you love classic Hollywood, I'd highly recommend this book for a look back at the history of movies!!

I loved the book. I Wish it had more pictures. But there are never enough pictures in a book like this.

It's nice book but way too expensive!

Thank you

This is an incredible book! I use it as a text book for my class on the History of Production Design. The photos and the text are excellent. It is a great book and I highly recommend it.

Beautiful book!

What great photos and text. Love this retrospective of scenic design in Hollywood.

What a beautiful large book on film design. Just lovely to flip through the pages of so much historical design.

Was purchased as a gift, very pleased.

I love this book. It has in-depth information on the history of art direction. Great imagery too.

I love movie sets and whereas friends will discuss the cast or plot after we watch a film together, I am more likely to wax lyrical about the architecture, furnishing, or props and what they brought to the story. I had no idea there was a name for this because I went to an old fashioned school which taught plays as literature, as texts, and never discussed the practicalities of stagecraft. As for cinema, that was never mentioned at all. There was no such thing as 'media studies' in those days. Anyway, in recent days I have discovered that sets, props, costumes etc - all the non-human contributions to stage or cinema performances - are put together by a profession called 'art direction' or 'production design'. Since I loved their work, I was eager to learn more about this profession and its creations.This volume was my first purchase on this subject, found by doing an Amazon search for 'art direction' (doh!) I wanted a book which would provide a general introduction: give an overview of the history of the profession, define specialist vocabulary, signpost trends, highlight the main theories, debates, controversies, name exemplary works, offer appetising images. I wanted a book which would explain the principles governing the profession (its ethos, its purpose, its theories), what to look for in well-designed movies, to name examples, and thus encourage me to seek out new movies to enjoy while giving me the skills to critique what I saw. I wanted to up-grade from appreciative but naive fan to knowledgable aficionado.This book almost does some of these things(!) It defines some vocabulary. It names some of the most influential designers in the field. It offers a chronology of the profession - i.e. organises its material in date order, decade by decade. But a chronology is not a history, a chronology says x followed y but it does not explain how or why things developed that way rather than another way. The lack of historical interpretation is matched by a complete absence of analysis, criticism, or theoretical discussion. The result does not satisfy my hunger to learn. I have no sense of a 'profession', an 'aesthetic', an 'ethos', a 'body of theory and/or criticism'. I gained the impression the author really does not know much about this subject and she failed to paint a portrait of the profession etc not because such things don't exist 'out there' but because she is not qualified to do so. She offers an account of 'art direction' which reminded me of a Bart Simpson book report - superficial, to say the least. It was only after buying that I realised she is an interior decorator not an art director and her connection with movies is that she used to be in marketing. Yup, that figures.What the book offers instead of everything I hoped for is a list of recommended movies, organised by decade, with the names of the designer(s) and a few other tid-bits of trivia you could probably find on Wikipedia. The reason for including a specific movie in the chronological list is not justified by critical or theoretical argument but because it was very expensive to make, was top-grossing at the box office, or won oscar nominations and/or oscars. I thought this was simply crass. Or maybe this is Hollywood? I have to find some books on non-Hollywood art direction to see if the global 'profession' has some other criteria for quality than this.The list is illustrated with movie stills and other images. I thought most of the images were of very low quality, some were so bad I wondered if they were clipart from the internet blown up and grainy to fit the page. This is certainly not a 'coffee-table book' with arty pretensions. Yet it is sold for a hefty 'coffee table' price - and I am left wondering why anyone thought it was worth that much?On the positive side, I will use this book as a jumping off point i.e. to seek more information about the people she mentions (reading their autobiographies might help me develop a better idea of their 'profession', how it developed, how it defined its purpose and imposed its own 'quality control' and then I can branch out to read related material to contextualise the personal accounts e.g. to understand the male bias of the profession which apparently remains to this day) or to buy DVDs of some of the movies she lists. I have already bought three DVDs since reading his book and two of them were delivered by Amazon this morning and are sitting on my desk ready to be played as soon as I finish this review. But even this positive has a downside - I could just as easily have made a desiderata list of must-see movies by visiting Rotten Tomatoes or Amazon and saved nearly £31.80. None of the movies she lists are off-beat unheard of rarities. All of them can be found on Top 1000 movies of all time lists. Shrug.Summary: over-hyped, under-written, poorly illustrated, over-priced book. Unlikely to satisfy anyone seeking to understand the profession of art direction: I will have to look elsewhere for the knowledge and understanding I seek and I strongly advise you to look elsewhere too.

Very Fine indeed. Thank you so much. My daughter had a chance to read it in London before the young man for whom it was bought,returned from his trip in Spain.