Production designer

Michael Pickwoad on becoming a production designer.

A production designer is the head of the art department. They are ultimately responsible for producing the overall look of the physical elements seen in an episode. They help the director of photography and director choose locations for out-of-studio filming, and are also responsible for the practical manufacture of most of their own designs, either in-house or by prosthetic or CGI specialists. They are one of the key personnel in the pre-production process, and one of the first people to be involved in the making of an episode. Since the art department is comprised of many sub-departments, the production designer also has managerial responsibilities over a large number of the people working on a programme, equivalent to that of the production manager or the post-production supervisor.

Specific duties[[edit] | [edit source]]

Fully describing all the things under the control of the production designer would be difficult, as they touch many aspects of the production. However, there are certain key tasks that can be highlighted. It should be pointed out that many of these tasks are completed by independent departments, but all of those departments come under the aegis of the production designer.

Concept artistry for sets, props, characters, models, signage, images on the screens of in-scene computers and other graphical elements
Overseeing prop construction and continuity
Overseeing set construction
Location scouting (usually done in conjunction with other senior staff, such as the director and director of photography)
Overseeing the costume department to make sure their designs harmonise with sets and props
Acting as a "governor" to the imagination of the writer by providing a budget for achieving the script as initially written; this can greatly affect the final form of the scripts
Presenting ideas to others involved in the production, such as actors and camera operators.

As compared with designers[[edit] | [edit source]]

Though sharing genealogy, the job of designers on the 1963 version of Doctor Who was much more limited in scope. Designers only worked on one or two serials at a time, meaning that any overlap or recurrent elements were difficult to account for and coordinate prior to their implementation. For instance, on An Unearthly Child Barry Newbery was lumbered with a TARDIS interior set that had been created by Peter Brachacki, who quit the programme after a very brief stint. Thus, one of the central design elements of the show was rendered by someone who did not survive in his post long enough to see his episode filmed. Especially in the 1960s, many of the props were also not made in-house, but shipped off to speciality manufacturers. This often resulted in uncontrolled deviations from the original designs which could not be corrected before filming began. There was no single person in charge of the overall look of the programme as a whole, as there is with the production designer. In a practical sense, the "designer" of old had the greatest control over sets and those props they could make in-house.

Designers were also not heads of the art department in the formal sense that production designers are. Their staffs were not under their administrative control, as is the case with the modern production designer. Because they were employees of the BBC rather than of the Doctor Who production office, a designer typically had no powers of firing and hiring as is enjoyed by the production designer of today.

As documentary subject[[edit] | [edit source]]

The job of the production designer has been highlighted on multiple occasions in the history of Doctor Who Confidential and Torchwood Declassified. However, the most concentrated look at the work of the production designer was an instalment of the BBC Wales arts programme On Show. The episode, titled Designs on Doctor Who, focused entirely on detailing Edward Thomas' job, featuring his work for The Runaway Bride and early contributions to the first series of Torchwood.