Design Info

Kubrick for designers

I’ve been thinking recently about film and design. This past evening I finally saw the 2001 documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.

I knew most of what was in the documentary (I had three film history classes in undergraduate school, hung around with filmmakers and actors as a young man, and have seen thousands of movies before and since) but, it brought all the parts together and much of it has re-gelled in my mind.

Kubrick was a self trained genius. He started as a still photographer in high school (as did I). He was good too. A photo he shot post FDR’s death got him a job at Look magazine as a photographer. From there, he went on to become a film maker.

The crossover between photography, film, and design are present in many times and places. The Russian Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko was a photographer and designer. The Bauhaus was full of photographers and film makers. Brodovitch ended his career doing photography. Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell blend design and photo to the point where you are not sure if the type is image or the image is type.

Many designers are friends with photographers. The friendship of designer Malcom Grear and photographer Aaron Siskin comes to mind.

Designers can learn a lot about life, light, shadow, texture, pattern, composition, timing, editing, and many other features one finds in film and photography.

There are key films which I think all designers should see. If you can, you should try to see all or most of the Kubrick films.

In no particular order, here is my list of the Kubrick films design students should watch:

- Doctor Strangelove - like all his films, incredible attention to detail. Note the opening title sequence designed by Pablo Ferro.

- 2001: A Space Odysey - again, details. There were no good color images of Earth from space at the time. But they got it pretty close to right, the sets are based on real information, and the film set the stage for future space films.

- Spartacus - in this case, mostly for the opening title sequence by Saul Bass

- Barry Lyndon - for this film, which most people will not like, what you want to look at is the incredible quality of color and light. The photography, sets, and costumes were mostly based on paintings from the period the film takes place in. The candle lit dinner scenes were shot with a Carl Zeiss Oberkocken Planar 50 mm lens designed for NASA to be used for dark side of the Moon photography with an f-stop of 0.7. For normal photographic purposes, this was and remains the fastest lens ever made. The lens was necessary as film stock was only around ISO 100 and the only light was that of actual candles. The narrow depth of field added an etherial quality to the scenes but was challenging for the actors to keep in the field of focus. More here

- Paths of Glory - a great anti war, war movie. Sometimes called the forgotten Kubrick movie but it uses many of the camera techniques and angles used in later films. 

I’ll be adding to this list of “design movies” in time.

Here are some other movies to consider in the mean time:

Sullivan’s Travels, Foreign Correspondent, The Killing, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Blow-Up, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Manchurian Candidate (original), City of God, Grand Illusion, Amélie, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Lives of Others, Joyeux Noel, My Girl Friday, Frida, Funny Face

There have been many many books written on Kubrick and there is much on the web too.

Check out this article on his movie posters 

Other Kubrick sources and info here

Coudal has the definitive list of web sites on Kubrick

(It is actually too big and could use trimming of some of the sillier stuff.)