Designing for the Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel won the Academy Award for Best Production Design (an award that combines the categories of art direction and set decoration). In my opinion, no other movie even came close.

To get a sense of the elements involved, take a read through this interview with the film’s lead graphic designer Annie Atkins, who was responsible for every graphic prop in the movie.

Wes is completely involved in every aspect of his filmmaking, and I worked very closely with him and the production designer, Adam Stockhausen, every day. This film was particularly fun, I think, from a graphics point of view, because we were creating this entirely fictional country that Wes had written – the State of Zubrowka. It meant that every little detail had to be made from scratch – flags, banknotes, postage stamps, everything. Adam had already collected a huge amount of reference from 1930s Eastern Europe when I joined them, and I would start each graphic prop by showing Wes a real artefact from the time. I would show him redrafts of designs sometimes 20 times a day. Wes has a very graphic sensibility – that’s evident in all his films, of course.

Once the layout of each design had been decided, then it was time to make the prop physically, and make something that will work on set in an actor’s hands. I use traditional methods in graphic prop-making wherever possible: a real 1930s typewriter for typewritten documents; a dipping pen and ink and for any handwriting. Pieces have to be aged, too, as nothing should look like it was made in an art department five minutes ago. Madame D’s last will and testament took a lot of ageing, for example, as it contained over 600 pieces that were scripted as being some 46 years old. I have some tricks of the trade that I’ve learnt over the years… mostly involving a big vat of tea and a hair dryer.

This shows how much time and craft Wes Anderson puts into his movies, and it shows.

[Hat tip to Bryan Hart]