Filmcraft: Production Design

Ken Adam

“As a production designer, you have to be able to fight for what you want, but you also have to know how to compromise without hurting the film—you can’t do everything. The main thing is that you have respect and a good relationship with the director and/or the producer, so you’ve got some muscle there and maybe you can get a little more money!”

Ken Adam has designed some of the most revolutionary and forward-thinking sets in cinema, from the war room in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) to the gigantic volcano of You Only Live Twice (1967), which at $1m was the largest and most expensive set ever created at that time. But ...