The Art Director (1949)

This is quite an interesting short feature that spotlights the creative skills of the art director. Often creating the scenario from scratch, and equipped with a considerable knowledge of the styles of halcyon days as well as an imagination for what might be yet to come, this person has to create detailed sketches from which extensive and obviously expensive sets are built. It’s an integrated position that sees those with lighting and photography roles playing a complementary part in delivering the raw structure from which the director and the actors work to create the bright and airy or the dark and gloomy. It illustrates many of these talents using archive footage from previous films and even suggests that these designs inspire household furnishings and layouts, too.