Many art directors have become directors.
Mitchell Leisen, for example, who began his career
designing films for Cecil B. DeMille and Ernst
Lubitsch, who was the director of a long string of
stylish studio films between 1934 and 1967. The
Leisen style was pure glamour in interiors, clothes,
and cars, as seen in the over-the-top Art Deco look
of Easy Living(1937; art directors: Hans Dreier and
Ernst Fegté). Edgar G. Ulmer, who began his career
designing several of the classic German Expres-
sionist films—including F. W. Murnau’s The Last
Laugh(1924) as well as Murnau’s Hollywood debut
film, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)—
directed some fifty movies, most of which have cult
status, including The Black Cat(1934). From his
early career as an art director, Alfred Hitchcock
learned much about creating visual and special
effects, such as the powerful expressionist settings
and lighting in Number Seventeen(1932; art direc-
tor: Wilfred Arnold). William Cameron Menzies
was both a movie director (the futuristic Things to
Come(1936; art director: Vincent Korda) and a
designer, whose most significant achievement was
designing the entire production of Victor Fleming’s
Gone with the Wind(1939). Vincente Minnelli, who
began his career as a theater designer, directed a
host of lavish MGM musicals and dramas, all of
which had outstanding production values (super-
vised by Cedric Gibbons, with whom Minnelli had
legendary quarrels), including Meet Me in St. Louis
(1944; art directors: Gibbons, Lemuel Ayers, and
Jack Martin Smith) and Lust for Life(1956; art
directors: Gibbons, Preston Ames, and Hans
Peters). Ridley Scott began his career as a set
designer for England’s BBC television and has
directed a series of visually stylish films, including
Prometheus(2012). David Fincher, who began his
career doing special effects and went on to do
music videos for Madonna and other artists, has
since directed Se7en(1995), Fight Club(1999), and
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(2011).
Many directors make detailed drawings and
storyboards to assist the production designer in ful-
filling their vision. For example, the movies of Mex-
ican director Guillermo del Toro are known, among
other things, for the gruesome-looking beasts that
populate them, including Pan’s Labyrinth (2006;
production designer: Eugenio Caballero), Hellboy
(2004; production designer: Stephen Scott), and
Hellboy II: The Golden Army(2008; production182 CHAPTER 5 MISE-EN-SCÈNE
1 2From director’s drawing to screen Fo r Hellboy II: The Golden Army, director
Guillermo del Toro made a clear drawing of how he thought Abe Sapien should appear
[1]; in [2], you see how he actually looks on the screen. Obviously, this drawing was
valuable to production designer Stephen Scott’s on-screen conception.