How to Watch American Cinematheque’s Q&A With Oscar-Nominated Production Designers
Production designers from the Oscar-nominated films “The Father,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Mank,” “News of the World” and “Tenet” are joining American Cinematheque for a virtual Q&A on Saturday at 1 p.m. PT.
Sponsored by Variety, the online conversation will bring together production designers and set decorators from this year’s critically-acclaimed films to discuss their craft leading up to the Academy Awards on April 25.
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The panel will feature Donald Graham Burt and Jan Pascale from “Mank”; Mark Ricker, Karen O’Hara and Diana Stoughton from “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; David Crank and Elizabeth Keenan from “News of the World”; Nathan Crowley and Kathy Lucas from “Tenet”; and Peter Francis and Cathy Featherstone from “The Father.” Pascale and Thomas A. Walsh will moderate.
All five films are nominated for best production design at this year’s Oscars. Two of the films, “Mank” and “The Father,” are also nominated for best picture, the awards show’s most coveted prize of the night.
The Q&A will be available to watch via Variety‘s YouTube and Facebook pages.
Variety‘s awards experts predict that “Mank” is the current frontrunner in the Oscars production design race, with “Tenet” following close behind. To capture 1930s Hollywood, “Mank” production designer Burt found spaces around California and utilized sound stages to recreate William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon estate.
“We built that set,” Burt told Variety in an interview. “We converted that set by switching out fireplaces, changing the paneling, by adding columns to the passageways. We added Gothic tracery to the doorways by changing doors so it could function for both scenes.”
Watch the panel live on April 24 below.
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