Oscars Best Production Design overview: ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ has a tough hill to climb against ‘Elvis’ and ‘Babylon’
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There are many gorgeous-looking films in this year’s Oscar race, but even with 10 films nominated for Best Picture, only five films could be recognized for their production design, a role that plays a large part in the overall look of a film, along with cinematography.
Besides designing and drafting and deciding what needs to be built on soundstages, the production designer also is involved very early on in finding the best locations and hiring the rest of the art department, including the set decorator, who is responsible for dressing up said locations.
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Four of the five nominees this year are also nominated for Best Picture, while the nomination for Damien Chazelle‘s “Babylon” is one of only three nominations it received, and it didn’t make the cut for the top prize.
As of this writing, Gold Derby Experts have “Elvis” and “Babylon” neck and neck to win the category with a few picking “Avatar: The Way of Water,” a follow-up nomination to the original movie’s win in this category in 2010. (Coincidentally, one of the original “Avatar’s” production designers is nominated again this year, but for a different movie.)
“All Quiet on the Western Front” – Production Designer Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decorator Ernestine Hipper
Germany’s International Feature nominee has run the board in the below-the-line categories with six nominations out of its nine, and Goldbeck is a 20-year veteran in the German film industry. His duties on Edward Berger‘s Netflix film involve designing the enormous battlefield and finding other locations where the WWI drama takes place, as well as finding and dressing settings in the Czech Republic (along with Hipper) to make them look like period France during that era. It is one of two nominees in this category that also received a Visual Effects nomination; those two categories are frequently linked.
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“Avatar: The Way of Water” – Production Designer Dylan Cole, Ben Procter; Set Decorator Vanessa Cole
The other movie that received both Production Design and Visual Effects nominations (and is the presumptive favorite for the latter) is James Cameron‘s sequel to the 2009 “Avatar” which won the Oscar in this category in 2010. That movie was designed by Rick Carter, who is nominated once again this year for his work on Steven Spielberg‘s “The Fabelmans.” Cole and Procter have each only designed one film prior to this one – “Maleficent” and “Ender’s Game,” respectively – and they are continuing onto the third and fourth “Avatar” movies, which is a major years-long commitment. Both come from the world of visual effects, but they also worked in the art department for the original “Avatar.” Their work on “The Way of Water” is a continuation of the Oscar-winning work on that prior movie, creating new locations on the planet of Pandora that are a combination of physical on-set builds and visual effects.
“Babylon” – Production Designer Florencia Martin; Set Decorator Anthony Carlino
First-time nominee Martin previously designed Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Licorice Pizza” as well as Andrew Dominik‘s “Blonde.” She came through the art department ranks working on Anderson’s “The Master” and Spike Jonze‘s “Her,” but her work on Chazelle’s fifth feature involved everything from creating the luxurious mansion where a decadent soirée kicks off the movie to recreating the iconic studio locations that play a backdrop for this fictionalized story based on actual Hollywood lore. This is Carlino’s very first movie as a set decorator after working in the art department as leadman for 20 years on films like “Iron Man,” “American Sniper,” and more.
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“Elvis” – Production Designer Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy; Set Decorator Bev Dunn
There’s good reason why Catherine Martin has won four Oscars, two in this category, having designed all of husband Baz Luhrmann‘s fantastic-looking films going back to 1992’s “Strictly Ballroom.” She also has been handling the costume design for all of Luhrmann’s movies going back to 2001’s “Moulin Rouge!” Creating the Las Vegas and Memphis locations for “Elvis” (all filmed in Australia) required the help of a second production designer in Karen Murphy, who has been working in the art and costume department with Martin also since “Moulin Rouge!” She would also design Luhrmann’s Netflix series, “The Get Down,” and Bradley Cooper‘s Oscar-nominated “A Star is Born.” Set decorator Bev Dunn shared in one of Martin’s previous Oscars for 2013’s “The Great Gatsby.”
“The Fablemans” – Production Designer Rick Carter; Set Decorator Karen O’Hara
A long-time collaborator with director Steven Spielberg, Carter has won two Oscars, one for James Cameron’s aforementioned “Avatar” in 2010 and again three years later for designing Spielberg’s “Lincoln.” His amazing career includes much work with Robert Zemeckis, designing the two “Back to the Future” sequels, “Forrest Gump,” “Cast Away,” and more, but “Jurassic Park” and its sequel, again for Spielberg, were probably his two biggest undertakings. For “Fabelmans,” Carter and his set decorator had to recreate locations from Spielberg’s childhood, many of them taken directly from pictures and memories of the filmmaker and his sisters.
This will be a tough category to predict. The two Martins are in pole position with the “Elvis” production designer being better known from her previous Oscar-winning work, as well as the fact that her film was nominated for Best Picture. Even so, “Avatar: The Way of Water” has a corresponding Visual Effects nomination, while neither of those other films do; in the past 15 years, the Production Design winner has also had a Visual Effects nom six times.
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