My research is concerned with the Elements of Narrative Design, the ingredients of the production designer’s visual palette and signs and meanings of the spatial language used in moving image storytelling.
I am interested in the history and role of production design in cinema and its continuing bond with contemporary arts and architecture but also the evolving relationship between traditional art department methods and new digital processes. How design and world building principles now transcend platforms and moving image formats has a direct impact on the tools we as film designers will need to develop. These may be digital or analogue technical tools or tools relating to new ways of communicating through moving images. How we have traditionally used space, place, architecture and objects as storytelling devices is currently being challenged due to the introduction of interactivity, video game mechanics, virtual reality and longer or shorter linear (and non-linear) storytelling formats. The frame as we know it is dissolving.
I also explore the concept of simple and accessible digital workspaces where 3D models, technical drawings, text and visual references can be shared and discussed with collaborators, colleagues and students. Digital labs may cost-effectively accommodate design related processes for pre-visualisation and spatial investigations, which may in turn lead to sustainable approaches both to set building and to the construction of environments for film.
