May 23, 2024 • 46 mins
For this episode, we are thrilled to have Stefan Dechant, the Oscar-nominated production designer whose imagination and desire to tell stories has stretched from the Spielberg-tinged streets of his Ohio childhood to working with legends like Saul Bass, to Industrial Light & Magic, to design opportunities on a myriad of Robert Zemeckis films, and more! As we peel back the layers of Stefan's illustrious (see what we did there) career, we uncover the influences of his youth and how a simple love for drawing evolved into designing some of cinema's most unforgettable worlds.
Stefan's story is a tale of taking chances and moving into uncomfortable spaces and roles to achieve your goals. Stefan also has no qualms about letting you know that imposter syndrome is real, and what you need to do to overcome it is jump into the creative and hope that it lifts you up and you surf on its waves!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer Coronado (00:00):
My career has been kind of like running on
top of crocodiles, you know.
I just kept moving from onething to the other and trying
not to get, you know, eaten.
Stefan Dechant (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Everyone Is.
I am your host, jenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all types of people
and build an understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success has achieved thatsuccess because they are a
creative thinker success hasachieved that success because
they are a creative thinker.
So, whether you are an artistor a cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
(00:30):
human conversation.
And now, as they say on withthe show Hi, it's me, jen.
I wanted to jump in here toadmit that this week's episode
had some audio challenges, butwe thought it was an interesting
conversation, so we stillwanted to share with our
listeners.
So please forgive thelong-distance telephone sound of
it all and enjoy the vibes.
(00:56):
Stefan Decken is a productiondesigner, and an Oscar-nominated
one at that.
He was nominated in 2021 forhis amazing work on the Tra, the
tragedy of Macbeth, directed byJoel Cohen, and in his career
has worked on 30 plus films,including, but not limited to,
the original Jurassic Park,castaway Minority Report, as
well as the first Avatar film.
So welcome, stefan, to EveryoneIs.
(01:18):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
The whole idea of this is totalk to people about how they
think about things creatively.
You grew up near Chagrin Falls,ohio, is that?
Jennifer Coronado (01:29):
right, yeah, yeah.
Home of Tim Conway.
Stefan Dechant (01:31):
What was it like to grow up there?
Jennifer Coronado (01:37):
If you want to think of what typical
suburbia was like in the Midwest, that would place it down there
.
We were outside of Cleveland,you know.
So it's a Rust Belt city calledBainbridge.
But you know, I'm still to thisday probably not even sure what
my dad did.
He worked in management uppermanagement of electronics
(01:58):
companies in Cleveland and mysister, who's two years younger
than myself, we just grew up ona track home not a track home,
but every house looked the sameand in a development where you
could ride your bike, you know,to see your friends.
I think that's why when I was akid and I would watch Spielberg
films, in some ways they reallyconnected with me.
Like that, felt like oh, that'smy childhood.
The thing I couldn't connectwas the California of it all.
(02:19):
You know, when I would see howmassive those developments were,
they weren't as massive as whatwe had.
It was kind of idyllic in itsvanilla kind of way.
I'm not sure I'm describingthat well, but you know, my mom
was an English teacher, my dadworked in an office and my
sister and I we went to likeCatholic grade school and then
(02:41):
we'd come home and play with thekids on the block Catholic
grade school and then we'd comehome and play with the kids on
the block and I probablyconsumed way more media than I
should have, and so I was alwaysfascinated by, I would get
hooked on certain shows orwhatnot, and then I was always
interested in how they made them.
So when I was very young Iwatched this show about
firefighters, called Emergency,and I was really into that.
(03:02):
But at the same time mygrandparents went out to
California to visit relativesand they took pictures at
Universal Studios and I was like, oh, I knew that Universal was
the emblem that was at the endof the television show, and so I
was really interested in howthey made that.
And then the same thing therewas a horrible show out of the
(03:22):
UK called Space 1999 that I usedto watch, which was kind of
like a Star Trek ripoff.
I loved the spaceships and howthey did that.
I was just always interested inhow they made those.
And then Star Wars came out andI was like prime age.
I was like around eight, youknow I knocked my socks off
because the imagery was soevocative and unlike anything I
(03:43):
had seen before, and how it waspresented and on the scope it
was presented, and so I lived inmy imagination, in that world
which, at that time, there wasno toys or anything, there was
no product to kind of keep youengaged in that IP.
It was just that Star Wars hadcome out and all you could do at
(04:03):
least I could do was drawpictures of it or think about it
or pick up a comic book.
And then, I think it was inOctober or September of that
year, the Making Of came out,and that's the first time I saw
the drawings by Ralph McQuarrieand Joe Johnston.
And then, you know, that kindof hooked me both in the sense
that you can get paid for doingthat.
(04:25):
I don't even think that gettingpaid was part of it.
It was like, oh, there's a jobwhere you can be creative and
you can draw.
And then also, what I was alwaysobsessed with was the
variations, the versions thatdidn't make it to screen.
What is that?
It was like there were otheravenues, paths not taken, that
(04:47):
there might've been anotheruniverse that had the design in
there that I was seeing.
You know, if you look at thosefirst Ralph McQuarrie's I think
they were done on like the thirdor fourth draft script.
They were very early, all thatkind of fed into my love of
drawing, which I always loved todraw.
I was always drawing.
I want to ask you about thatreal quick.
Stefan Dechant (05:07):
When did you start?
Did you start playing as alittle little kid, or when did
you start playing with drawing?
Yeah, I was always drawing.
Jennifer Coronado (05:13):
I don't know why, it was just something I
needed to do and I like to drawand I always and I have to tell
you this, I've realized thislove with having kids now.
And I have to tell you this,I've realized this love with
having kids now.
There were certain illustratorsthat I gravitated towards and
that I liked and this will soundstrange, but even like when I
(05:34):
was like three, between threeand five, I loved golden books
and I loved that gouachepainting and I loved the world
that was being built in therebecause it's somehow I was kind
of familiar with it because youwould, let's say it was 1930s or
1940s.
I knew that I was living notthen I'm thinking this is a very
(05:54):
young child but I knew that itfelt like my grandparents house,
so I knew that it came beforeand I loved like falling into
that imagery and this I mean itsounds so crazy, but I remember
like yesterday, you know, likethere was a book it was called
Seven Little Postmen and it wasall these illustrations in there
.
But I remember like the way thecity was painted felt like rain
was about to happen and I lovedthat.
(06:17):
I was very attracted to theillustrations in those books,
like my grandparents had thisencyclopedia that had Charles
Knight paintings of dinosaurs.
Charles Knight set the tone onwhat a T-Rex looked like.
It didn't change until prettymuch, jurassic Park.
You know just everything youwould see in King Kong, and even
the Allosaurus and Valley ofGwangi is like that.
(06:39):
It's Charles Knight.
Stefan Dechant (06:41):
Well, I want to ask you about that, because you
mentioned something that I thinkis really interesting, which it
and it kind of plays into whoyou are as a production designer
.
It seems like as a little kidyou had this sense of when
things looked different and thatit represented different times.
Do you think that was innate,or was that something that you
got from your parents?
Or was that just a sense of?
Jennifer Coronado (07:01):
I think it was innate.
I loved looking at thoseimagery, the imagery, and then,
I don't know why, I thoughtabout it.
There's different times and Ican't think of what was at my
grandparents on my mom's side.
That would make like it was alittle town in Ohio and all the
houses were kind of Victorian.
If they weren't Victorian therewas this little, you know,
post-war build boom thathappened in there.
(07:24):
So they were late 40s, early50s.
There was an antiquity to thatand a comfort that I felt in
there.
So I loved being in that townand I liked being with my
grandparents and my relativeswere very close.
It was a big Catholic familythat my mom came from and I
liked that, so that all kind ofwove into the feelings that I
(07:47):
was getting.
There was kind of a nostalgiathat was already building in
there that I liked.
And then I don't know wheredrawing came in.
I just I was always drawing.
In the early 70s computerprintouts were on this white and
green paper.
My dad would bring those homebecause we could just draw on
the back of them.
So there was always stuff thereto create with.
(08:11):
But my parents weren't like andthis is not a knock against
them.
I just don't think they saw itas something to kind of feed.
They just saw it as somethingthat I was interested in.
And you know so, if my dad wenton a business trip, it was a
bigger deal back then.
So if he came back from likeCalifornia, there was always
like a drawing pad and markersand stuff like that and, again,
(08:31):
I think, some of the obsessionswith the imagery that I was
seeing on television, since youcouldn't go out easily and get a
toy that represented that.
You know, drawing it was thebest way.
Stefan Dechant (08:49):
That was also a time when it wasn't like oh,
I'll just pull that up on theinternet and watch that again,
or I'll rewind that.
It's like it was a fleetingmoment in time, so you were
trying to capture it.
Jennifer Coronado (09:00):
Exactly, that's exactly it.
And also it wasn't like youcould find it at the bookstore
and it's not like my parentswere taking me to hunt that
stuff out, and it was just adifferent time.
I mean, most of playing wasjust like going outdoors or
hanging out with your friends.
You know, it wasn't until I wasin high school or maybe junior
high, you know we didn't havevideo games or anything like
(09:20):
that.
So, yeah, I think it was.
It was a way to hold on tothose things.
Stefan Dechant (09:24):
Do you think that helped with your
imagination Like that, that timeof that spare time, because it
feels like now we're so filledup with things to do constantly.
Jennifer Coronado (09:35):
Yeah, probably, probably, and probably
wanting to recreate thosestories.
And even the toys that I hadwhen I was a kid, they weren't
like, they had a story to them.
There was a company calledMarks and they made these like
you've got a box full ofdinosaurs and cavemen and caves
(09:56):
and whatnot and that can keep mepretty busy for days on end.
You know you're just creatingthose stories, you know.
So I was watching a lot ofSaturday morning cartoons and I
and they used to have liveaction shows like Land of the
Lost and stuff like that andthat all fed into that.
Those obsessions.
Really they're like childhoodobsessions, you know that you're
(10:18):
you're just kind of fetishizingthe designs and the characters
and I was so into my own stuffthat I wasn't as a kid, I really
wasn't a reader, like I wouldread and then put a book down
and be like I'm just going todraw the picture.
I'd rather do that.
I was a major nerd, I didn'tknow how to interact socially
(10:39):
with other kids really.
And then it's funny because ifI look at the Cleveland Plain
Dealer now the local paperreally and then it's funny
because if I look at theCleveland Plain Dealer now the
local paper, it might have twostories of national or local
interest.
And then sports.
So when I was a kid, thatschool, the elementary school,
was like it was sports, sports,sports.
And I was just like, oh my God,I'm not good at sports.
(11:00):
But then when I got to collegeI was like, hey, this is.
I don't have to be accepted onthese terms.
So my dating life was better.
I had friends.
I wasn't the best student,probably my first year.
It was just some place that mylife was changing for the better
and I liked it.
Stefan Dechant (11:20):
So you went to the University of Cincinnati,
right.
Jennifer Coronado (11:22):
Yes, I did.
Stefan Dechant (11:23):
What'd you study there, you?
Jennifer Coronado (11:23):
went to the University of Cincinnati, right?
Yes, I did.
What'd you study there?
I studied graphic designbecause I didn't know what it
was.
There's two reasons.
One I studied graphic designbecause I thought it was
commercial art.
For some reason I saw myself ashaving a career of maybe the
guy that draws people wearingHager slacks in Sears magazines
(11:45):
Like I.
Just it was commercial art andI thought, oh, that's
interesting to me.
I also liked that they had thatpro.
They had a program there whereyou could intern.
So you went.
They were quarters at that time, so you went to school for a
quarter and then you worked fora quarter.
You went to school for aquarter and went to work for a
quarter, and my biggest fear wasnot having a job and living
(12:07):
with my parents.
And so I thought commercial artseems good at getting a job,
seems good to me.
At the time I quickly realizedit was graphic design.
It was about typography, whichI had no interest in Thank God
for the digital revolution.
That happened while I was therebecause I really didn't care
for it.
I just had no love of it.
And we had these wonderfulprofessors and they were like if
(12:27):
you don't love this, you shouldget out of this program because
you're not going to make moneydoing it either.
I thought about that and I had arough year, my freshman year,
and I came home and then my dadsaid maybe you're studying the
wrong thing, maybe you shouldwork at that place that does the
effects for Star Wars.
That was something that kind ofwas a through line through my
(12:50):
childhood.
It's like again there was lessinformation available so you'd
get a making of Star Wars bookor making of Empire Strikes Back
, but there wasn't books likethat for every film that came
out and there just wasn't a lotof print and you wouldn't get it
in chagrin falls, ohio if youdid, you know.
So it was something it seemedtoo far away.
(13:13):
But once my dad brought it upand then I was working at jp
morgan that was my firstinternship through uh the
university, cincinnati.
I was working at the in intheir in-house design department
.
I remember reading it.
It was in the New York Times.
It was about unemployment andhomelessness and there was some
guy who was a graphic designerand was making.
I forget how much he wasbringing in a year, but now he's
(13:36):
living on the street and I waslike this is it.
I've got to go where it feelsright, what I want to do.
And that's when I started, likeI made a game plan, like I'm
going to get to industrial lightmagic.
Somehow I'm going to meetsomebody that can get me in the
door there and that's how I'mgoing to get a job.
Stefan Dechant (13:54):
That's not necessarily a game plan.
That's like wishing into theuniverse and then moving on it
Right.
Or did you have a?
Did you have?
Jennifer Coronado (14:09):
I had a game plan.
Well, let's think's think aboutit.
Yeah, it is a little bitwishing, but here's the thing
that I was thinking about.
Like I was thinking about beingin the right place at the right
time, and these are like as a20 year old thinks about things,
right.
So I was thinking about beingin the right place at the right
time and I thought I need to bein san francisco.
And when I couldn't get aninternship because that was all
reserved for juniors and seniorsand I was a sophomore in San
(14:29):
Francisco, the jobs that hadbeen lined up I knew that I
needed to be in a big city.
So I'm going to go, I'm goingto be in New York and somehow
I'll meet somebody that hassomething to do with the film
industry.
I'm going to try that.
And then when I was working atJP Morgan, I remember in Mac it
was either Mac Week or Mac Worldor one of those type magazines
(14:52):
there was an article aboutPhotoshop and that John Tom
Knoll had written this programand that John worked at ILM.
And I thought that's my ticketin.
I've got to figure out how Ican get a copy of Photoshop, how
I can learn that, and that'sgoing to be it.
So maybe it was wishfulthinking, but it was also kind
of like I want to be in theright place at the right time.
Stefan Dechant (15:14):
Well, you did intern at ILM, and you interned
with Saul Bass too.
I did.
Jennifer Coronado (15:18):
One of the things I feel very strongly
about is reaching out andhelping young kids getting into
the film industry, and this willlead to ILM and Saul.
But when I was at JP Morgan, Iwas working there on a weekend
and one of the other designershad come in.
She said well, what are youinterested in?
(15:39):
What kind of design firm wouldyou like to work?
Well, what do you want to dowith your career?
And I said I don't want to doanything, I just want to get
letters of recommendation so Icould go to USC and study film.
And I wanted to work at ILM.
And she said oh, I know thisguy, stuart Robertson.
He's the head of the opticaldepartment at ILM.
You should give him a call.
In fact.
Stefan Dechant (16:07):
I'll give him for lunch in a month.
And he said yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (16:10):
And I don't know anyone who would commit to
that.
Maybe he was thinking Iwouldn't come out.
But I bought a plane ticket andI came out and I met Stuart and
he gave me a tour of ILM andthen I would write him every
three months to keep thatrelationship up.
And that's eventually how I didget my internship at ILM.
And this woman who sent me overStuart Robertson, who got me a
(16:34):
tour of our Greenberg Associates, saw Bass.
His firm, bass Yeager, had arelationship with the University
of Cincinnati and took studentsand I applied to be an intern
there and I know it was betweenmyself and another student who
was going to get that job.
But what set me apart wasbecause I had met the people at
(16:56):
Art Greenberg and I knew thatSaul did titles and I was
interested in titles and I wasinterested in film.
So that little leg up, thatkind of kindness that was given
to me, it was kind of like alittle gem that I had a secret
password that allowed me to workfor Saul.
When I say work for Saul, Imixed paints.
That's a lot of my job.
(17:18):
It was called Chromatex.
You don't do the same workbecause you can get a color
printer.
But at the time if you wantedto lay out a logo or whatnot in
color, you had to mix the paintcustom and then you had to lay
it on a piece of plastic, thenyou'd lay the glue on there and
then the designers could go rubthat down and it was a pretty
(17:40):
noxious job.
So when I say I worked at SaulBass, I made a lot of.
Stefan Dechant (17:45):
I made a lot of work down yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (17:47):
Yeah, but it was still cool to be there.
And again, the people that youcome across that just have this
kindness and willingness to letyou see behind the curtain his
archivist, I remember oneweekend he said let's meet at
the studio.
We went there, we went in thebasement and I saw all the
original storyboards for Psychoand the opening of West Side
(18:09):
Story.
It was cool.
He gave me all these Japanesemagazines that had articles
about Saul.
It's like oh, we have tons ofthese, take them in.
So that was what's wonderful.
And actually that led me to ILM,because Harley Jessup, who was
running the art department, wasa big fan of Saul, and so that's
how I got my job at ILM.
I remember on the phone he'slike listen, I really don't,
(18:31):
you're not going to be doingwhat you think you're going to
be doing at ILM.
And I said, no, right now I'mjust leaving a job at Solvass
where I'm buying birthday cakesand whatnot.
You know, I like I know that,but I need to get inside and see
it.
You know, somehow things justfelt lucky.
Yeah, and I'm not.
I don't know what I believe.
(18:53):
To tell you the truth, I don'tknow if I believe in bigger
things happening?
I'm going to say yes Because Iremember before I got the job at
ILM, I got off the phone withHarley and it had been a couple
of weeks and I had a dream thatI was walking through the front
doors on Kerner and StuartRobertson answered the door and
he said congratulations, andthen we just walked through the
(19:15):
lobby and that was the end ofthe dream.
And then about a week later Igot a call that I got the job at
ILM, and so sometimes I see mycareer as kind of like surfing.
I'm trying to look at the waves.
The waves could be anythinglike what do you think is
happening?
Who do you think you need tomeet?
Where do you think you need togo?
(19:36):
But a lot of it's a force ofnature that I'm just reckoning
with.
Stefan Dechant (19:40):
I want to ask you two questions about the
internships, and I want you tolook at it two ways.
And the first way was I'm ayoung kid coming in here to be
an intern and here's what Iexpect to learn.
And then the other way to lookat it is I'm Stefan of now, and
here's what I actually learnedwhen you were in those
internships?
Jennifer Coronado (19:59):
That's a really good question.
When you were working as anintern, that's a really good
question, I think.
When I went in to ILM, Ithought that I could maybe learn
how to storyboard and see howit's done and then work on the
weekends and improve my craft.
And what I realized was that Ilacked those drawing skills.
(20:25):
I lacked the the hardcoredesign skills that that was
needed for that job.
Now I could be there and see ithappening.
But, um, as a kid I think thatwas my expectation.
But I had wonderful mentorsthere.
You know Ty Ellingston, who isa designer, has worked a lot
(20:46):
with Guillermo and did a lot ofdesign work on Avatar for
Cameron.
He kind of took me under hiswing and I remember one night we
were having beers and he goes.
I just want you to know you'rereally not that good and if
you're going to work here,you've got to be better.
And I didn't take it as aninsult, I just thought, yeah,
(21:08):
he's right, I really need towork on things.
So I had an expectation ofdoing that.
But in a sense, some of thathappened.
We only had one Mac in the artdepartment and if you wanted to
use Photoshop, get in line and Iwas asked could I composite
this car in front of thesebuildings and could I bend the
(21:31):
buildings like they were blowingin the wind?
It was Steve Beck and he had abeautiful marker rendering of
the car.
All he wanted was the car cutout and put in and the
building's bent.
I'm like, yeah, I can do thatand it's the kind of thing you
give an intern right.
But I stayed all night torepaint the car so it looked
photo real and had the paintcoming off and I don't know how
(21:54):
good it was, but they loved it.
And then they had some morecommercial stuff and they gave
me.
So in some ways my expectationswere met.
Okay, so that's my kid's pointof view.
As an adult, looking back,there's a couple of things I
learned.
One is I learned that ILM was avendor.
It wasn't like Star Wars, itwasn't like you were building
(22:17):
all that stuff up from scratch.
A lot of this stuff had beendesigned, I think.
Also, I learned how to navigateproduction and then the person
who's directing it and then the,the art department.
I got to see what that was likein terms of you know cultures
and working around and seeinghow those people work together.
It's such a good question.
I think part of it is.
(22:39):
I've told this story so oftenthat I make my own myth up, and
so it's hard for me to kind oflike look at it, you know, like
when you start creating your ownstory.
One of the best pieces of adviceI got from there, doug Chang.
He was showing me his reel thathe had before he went to Iowa
and he said you know what youshould do.
You should make up your ownproject and storyboard it.
(23:00):
And so I did.
What I wanted to do wasultimately be a PA on Jurassic
Park at ILM, and so when I cameback to Cincinnati, I hit the
professors up to write ascreenplay for Jurassic Park
just the T-Rex attack and then Iwould storyboard it and I would
typeset those storyboards.
So that was how it'd be graphicdesign.
(23:21):
So I'd make a book and myboards would be in there, and
that ended up being a reallyimportant thing for me when I
went for my job at Jurassic Park.
That was why Rick Carter, theproduction designer, hired me.
The way that Doug John Bell,mark Moore, harley, ty, mark
Moore, harley, ty, paul Houston,claudia Mullally, you know the
(23:47):
way that they helped guide mewas so important that, as an
adult, I'm very conscious ofthat, and so I like bringing in
PAs.
I like bringing in people whohave that experience underneath
their belt and then going well,how can I guide this person to
get what they want out of theircareer?
Like, ultimately, maybe my roleas a designer is not really to
(24:09):
kind of go.
People look back and go oh didyou ever see the work that
Stefan did?
But maybe my role as a designeris actually I'm in a place that
I can help other people achievethings, and maybe greater
things than I've done.
Stefan Dechant (24:19):
Well, I want to jump into that because you know
you are a production designernow, but you've played several
roles in film art departments.
You've been an illustrator, astoryboard artist, an art
director, a supervising artdirector, you know, and now
production designer.
But for people who don't know,I like to dive into some of the
differences between roles.
(24:39):
So's start with the illustrator, and am I allowed to mention
Waterworld?
Jennifer Coronado (24:42):
Yeah, waterworld, listen, the first
three films I had were the firstone was Jurassic Park yeah,
right, so that was pretty cool,right, I met Steven, I got it.
I had a photograph in CinefixChildhood dream I was in the
making of book.
Couldn't get any better.
Next film is, uh, forrest Gumpbest picture, right, working
(25:04):
with Zemeckis pretty cool.
Third film is Waterworld, and Ilearned it's really, really
important that you're workingwith people that you love,
because you could be on a filmfor two years, but that film is
only going to be in the theatersfor two hours at the moment.
Stefan Dechant (25:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you that whatdoes an illustrator do on a film
Like what is their role in thefilm.
Jennifer Coronado (25:26):
Basically, you're working with the
production designer to get theirvision of what the look of that
film is on paper.
So at the time when I started,the way that you did that was
they could be pencil sketches,they could be marker sketches,
or there would also be people.
Part of the way that you didthat was it could be pencil
sketches, it could be markersketches, or there'd be there
(25:48):
also be people who did amazinggouache paintings, right.
So those were kind of like thethree, three ways of kind of
doing it.
And you, you either laying outan environment you know, this is
, this is what the environmentlooks like, this is what the
streets gonna look like when weredress it or could be more
conceptual, like this is whatthis kind of special vehicle is
going to look like.
And I got into that rolebecause I knew photoshop and so
(26:10):
I wasn't a great illustrator,like like I said, but no one
else was doing photoshop and Icould do things that the effects
house had seen before, ilm hadseen it, but people in our
departments had.
So I remember thinking that Iwasn't really providing what
they probably wanted on ForrestGump, so I needed to save my job
(26:33):
somehow.
So on my own.
I scanned in a drawing thatJames Haggis had done of Sally
Field's home and I was modelingit out as super blocky, super
blocky 3D models very primitive.
But then I painted over that inPhotoshop so it could look
photo real and then I thoughtI'm probably going to get in
(26:53):
trouble for this.
This is probably not right.
And then Rick saw it, he lovedit and he showed it to Bob and
that was Rick Carter again.
Yeah, rick Carter, yeah, who'sa mentor.
That kind of runs through myentire career.
So for a long time my skill asan illustrator was tied into
Photoshop and I'd be workingwith other illustrators, artwork
(27:15):
and whatnot, and it was alwayskind of to get it to look photo
real and it was up to me in myown time to discover how to be a
better illustrator.
Doing that and when thathappened was Minority Report.
It's like I had a violin and Iwas playing Mary had a Little
Lamb, and people were like checkit out.
And then all of a sudden, artCenter, these guys are coming
(27:37):
out and they're playing Vivaldi,and so you have people like
James Klein, who's just anincredible illustrator, and I
remember working on MinorityReport.
I wouldn't even hang out withthose guys.
I wouldn't have lunch with thembecause I knew they were going
to see that it was a fraud.
At a certain point I needed togo to them and say I need help,
can you help me be a betterillustrator?
And they were so kind.
(27:57):
I remember Jim explaining likeoutdoor light, indoor light how
I could make my paintings lookbetter.
So I started as an illustrator.
I started doing Photoshop andletting the technology kind of
hold me up.
More people came in as anillustrator and more work was
just being done purely inPhotoshop.
I was learning from my peers onhow I can be better in
(28:19):
Photoshop.
I was learning from my peers onhow I can be better On those
shows.
It might be like this is whatthe T-Rex nest is going to look
like, or this is what I rememberon Waterworld.
I did marker and pencilsketches of what the weapons
look like, that the smokers had.
Or I did 3D models of whatKevin's boat was going to look
like or what the Exxon Valdez.
(28:41):
I did a Photoshop painting ofthat.
So that was the kind of work Iwas doing as an illustrator.
It's pretty.
Production designer based.
Your relationships with theproduction designer, yeah, which
will lead me to storyboardingWaterworld.
Kevin Reynolds asked me if Iwould storyboard some scenes and
I said I really don't dostoryboards.
Rick Carter had invited me overand I told him that this
(29:02):
conversation happened and hesaid no, whenever you can get
out of the art department and bewith the director, be with the
director, go back, tell him youcan do it.
And so I did.
I told him oh, you know what Ithink I can do those storyboards
.
Now it was horrible, my figureswere awful and whatnot, but I
was going to get in and do thatjob and and so storyboarding is
awesome.
I love storyboarding.
(29:22):
That's when you're incommunication with the director
and you're you're kind of doinga comic strip of of what that
person wants, how, how they wantto shoot the film, and that can
be very specific, where adirector will say I'm going to
do this shot, I'm going to dothis and I'm going to do that,
and you're drawing that to getit laid out.
But the best.
(29:44):
The absolute best is when adirector gives you kind of a
framework.
You know, like Zemeckis, onwhat Lies Beneath.
I was an art director but I wasdoing a lot of storyboarding
because I had that dual card asan illustrator and he might go,
wow, steph Harrison's going tocome in here, then she's going
to drown, he's going to do thisto Michelle and this will happen
(30:05):
and this will happen.
And he'd give me a couple shotswithin there.
But I could come in and lay outthe scene and riff on it.
So it's almost like you'replaying music with the director.
The director is kind of layingdown a riff and you're coming
back and then they're you'reriffing off each other until the
scene gets done.
And that's that's when it's theabsolute best.
(30:25):
And zemeckis was the director Iliked working with the best.
Stefan Dechant (30:29):
He was just fun it's interesting because I'm
going to jump past art directorto supervising art director, and
the reason that I'm doing thatjumping from illustrated to that
is because that's like thefirst time you got a deal of
money, because a part of what asupervising art director does is
help manage that budget andthat takes you out of the
(30:51):
creative as much.
Right, so can you talk about?
What was that like, fittinginto that role and how did that
feel?
You've done it on jarhead.
You did it on avatar.
What did that feel?
You've done it on Jarhead?
You did it on Avatar.
What did that feel like for you?
Jennifer Coronado (31:03):
Okay.
So this is how it happened.
I had art directed a coupleshows for Rick and I did Cast
Away of what Lies Beneath withRick, and those were special
projects.
Those were a productiondesigner, knowing what I could
give, giving me the title of artdirector.
I was helping sets along, but Ididn't come from drafting,
(31:26):
getting the sets built, workingwith construction.
How do you make it happen?
I was learning while I wasdoing that, but I was in a
special role.
It was hard for me to get a jobas an art director with someone
I didn't know, because I wasn'tsure I was going to live up to
what they wanted me to do.
Stefan Dechant (31:43):
And.
Jennifer Coronado (31:44):
I hadn't had all the groundwork underneath me
.
My career has been kind of likerunning on top of crocodiles I
just kept moving from one thingto the other and trying not to
get eaten.
My personal life was such thatI couldn't commit the time that
needs to be committed to artdirecting as well.
So I went back to illustrating.
And then I was illustrating onJarhead and the supervising left
(32:08):
the show and I seriously thinkDennis Gassner who I love him
and again another mentor of minewas just looking across the
hall and like, well, this is nottoo difficult, I'll just have
Stefan do it.
So I became the art director onJarhead and I know enough now
from how I moved from crocodileto crocodile to like when the
door opens, man, stick your footin it, make sure it doesn't
(32:29):
shut, and move through.
But I didn't really know thescope of that show.
You know how it was going toget done.
I was smart enough to go.
These are the things that needto get done.
This is the money I need totrack.
This is how I'm going to do it.
I don't know particularly, butI'm going to say I need to have
these drawings by such and sucha date right, and doing that.
Now I also needed another artdirector, or needed an assistant
(32:52):
art director.
And they said Dennis said callChristy Wilson.
And so I called her up and shesaid well, I'm really hunting
for it.
I'll do it if I can get an artdirector title and one of the
things I've seen with Rick isnot to get all caught up in
titles and whatnot I'm like sureyou can be an art director, I'm
fine doing two art directors onthis show.
So I went to Dennis and I said,okay, she'll do it, but she's
(33:14):
going to be an art, she wants tobe an art director, a
supervising art director.
So that is how I got it and Ididn't know what the hell I was
doing and she could have come inand just thrown me under the
bus, but she didn't.
She helped me with her.
She had a vast experience ofart directing, more than I did,
(33:35):
but she helped me plan out likethis is when the drawing needs
to get done, this is where thenumbers are, and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and I couldn'thave done it without her.
What I took supervising artdirector to mean is like I'm
going to help on this otherlevel, get the film designed
with dennis and, and how Irelate to sam mendez, the best
(33:56):
part about anything in thisindustry is you can kind of
invent what you are, yeah, but areal.
What I need when I'm a designerand a supervising art director,
I need someone's got.
They're making the hires,they're they're running those
numbers, they're tracking thatnumber, they're tracking it, you
know, and actually they'rehaving the battles.
So I don't have to have thebattles, so I can be the good
cop.
(34:16):
You know, sometimes you got tohave some deep conversations
with construction and theproducers like, how are we going
to get this done?
I wasn't that person.
I don't know what I was, but Isurvived that show.
I only became that personactually because I did another
show, lady in the Water, whereChristy was a supervising art
director and I saw how sheprotected Martin Child, I saw
(34:39):
how she organized that artdepartment.
So when I was hired on Avatar,I was hired as an illustrator
and at that point I just sawthat my skills couldn't, that I
couldn't compete.
I just wasn't on that level.
You really needed to commit andthat you're going to work on
your skills at this level.
But I did see that certaindepartments were a mess, and not
(34:59):
in a bad way.
They were trying to do it thebest they could, but they needed
an art director to come in,organize them, say this is how
we're going to get it done, thisis how we're going to get it,
we're going to hit our markshere.
And that all came from Christy.
As a supervising art director,I could really I mean, you're
not going to learn more thanworking with Rick for two years
on a Jim Cameron movie.
So when we did Alice and RobStromberg was designing for his
(35:23):
first time, I could be thatperson that I knew he could rely
on and go.
I got it.
Rob, you just keep painting,designing, do whatever you want.
We'll keep you covered on thisother side, where the sets get
done.
One thing I realized in mycareer is I've been a bit of a
manipulator.
When Rob hired me to do OzGreat and Powerful, I didn't
(35:49):
want to do the numbers anymoreand I remember Rick and Rickard
calls me because how's it going?
I go.
It's great.
I made a new position formyself.
He goes, what's that?
I go.
I'm Tom from the Godfather.
He goes.
That's a perfect position.
I go, it is.
I hired another art director whocan handle all the budgets and
I'm there working with rob.
He's got great vision, but Ican be a guide, helping to go
okay, we need to get this turnedover.
We need to get the drawingshere.
You know, I liked being in thatposition more than I liked
(36:13):
doing the numbers, so I was abit of a manipulator, but a good
supervising art director andI've worked with quite a few.
They run that art department.
They should really be havingmore credit than they get.
It really frees you up thatyou're in this create.
You can be in this zone that'sup here above everybody else.
(36:36):
You can see it in the bigpicture and you can work with
deeper ideas than you can whenyou're really handling the
day-to-day in and out of it.
It's a tough job.
It's a really hard job.
Stefan Dechant (36:47):
So I'm hearing lots of themes through your
career before we launch intoyour production design, and lots
of themes I'm hearing areconnections, long-term
relationships, mentoring, termrelationships, mentoring.
And then I'm hearing anothertheme which is a little bit of
Stefan not necessarily thinkinghe was the right person for the
(37:09):
role that someone just gave him,and so I want to ask you about
moving into production designand how that happened for you
and what are the best things,things about that and what are,
like, the personal stressorsaround having to own a film
production art department.
Jennifer Coronado (37:30):
I think when you have a combination of
Catholicism and Midwest, thatyou're very susceptible to
imposter syndrome, and I do havethat a bit.
So that's that part that mightbe coming out.
(37:52):
I'm not sure how to deal withit properly, right, but I try to
use it to work harder to gosomewhere deeper.
So, to answer your otherquestion, in terms of production
design, I had been working onOsgrate and Powerful and I
actually couldn't take that filmthrough because my kids were
born.
I have twins and once we foundout we were having twins oh, by
(38:14):
the way, I ended up marryingChristy.
Stefan Dechant (38:16):
Well then, she managed everything really well.
She still does.
Jennifer Coronado (38:20):
Trust me, we did quite a few films together,
so one where I was supervising,one where she was supervising
About a year after we hadsettled in our new house and the
twins they were doing well.
I was hired to kind of overseereshoots, because Robert
Stromberg wasn't available andyou're given the title
(38:41):
production designer but me doingreshoots for Oz.
I was not the productiondesigner, I was still a
supervising art director,protecting Rob's designs and
creating a couple of new sets,but making sure that I did that
in the way that Rob would have.
And when I was doing that, peteDeming, the DP, was talking
with his agents about me and soICM called and said they wanted
(39:05):
to rep me and so I had somemeetings with them and they said
what you need to do is you'vegot to focus on being a
production designer now and youcan't be an art director, which
is hard because that just meansyou're not bringing your money
coming in.
And I started having meetingsand I was really good at being
the second choice on a lot offilms.
(39:33):
And the thing about connectionscame in the producer of Jarhead,
who I had met before earlier.
He was a guy named Sam Mercerand while I was in this dry
patch of being everyone's secondchoice.
Sam took a chance on me and atthe time I was helping again
Rick Carter as he comes back in.
I was helping him out on BigFriendly Giant and I flew down
(39:57):
to New Zealand and I was workingwith Weta Workshop and Weta
Digital on getting the assetsbuilt for Big Friendly Giant and
Sam said, if you come in and dothis, I can sit you up for the
interview for another film thatI was interested in.
But Legendary was very kind andcalled me and said we're going
to hunt for another film for you, and that film ended up being
(40:23):
Kong.
And I met Jordan Voight-Robertson Kong, skull Island yeah,
skull Island and we had a prettygood meeting and I got a call
from my agent saying look,jordan likes you, but he doesn't
know what you're going to beable to provide.
So I was able to leave NewZealand early, come back.
But at that night I went out andsketched out some keyframes and
(40:45):
then I called friends and saidcan you help me?
Could you illustrate somethingfor free for me?
And so in a week I had threeoutside illustrations and three
illustrations I had done and Imet with Jordan and that's what
got me the job.
So now you're in a positionthat you don't know what.
You don't know Like I've neverproduction designed before.
(41:06):
I don't know how I'm going tomake this happen.
I'm just stepping in to make ithappen and I have instincts and
I have a very young directorwho's not like the directors
I've worked with before, and itcan be intimidating, and one of
those intimidations was that hehad brought in all these
illustrators.
He had like maybe eight, nineillustrators working across the
(41:28):
globe and they were working forhim, and I was very intimidated
by that, and so it was very hardfor me to get in sync with him,
and it was over Christmas thatI thought oh wait, here's the
way I'm going to see this.
John Barry was the designer ofStar Wars.
John Barry designed those sets.
When you're a kid, all you hearabout is Ralph McQuarrie and
(41:50):
Joe Johnson, but you don't hearCal and Cal.
Well, all these other guys youdon't hear about John Barry that
much.
As a kid, I was like okay, Idoubt John Barry was going
around going oh, this RalphMcQuarrie is doing stuff.
So it was a way for me to kindof take what I had already known
instinctively as a kid andthrough my moving up to my
(42:12):
career, and apply it and go OK,this is where I'm going to go.
Jordan is George and, as Irecall, a lot of guys in London
were like what is this guy doing?
I'm going to have faith in himbecause he's going to be my
George Lucas.
I'm going to follow his lead.
He's got it so much in the head.
He's working with theseillustrators.
That's fine.
They're going to be the Ralphand the Joe Johnston of the show
(42:34):
.
I'm going to be the John Barryand I'm going to design the
environments and the sets towork with what Jordan's doing
and make that happen.
The way I work is I layeverything out either in my mind
some of it's like a whiteboardin my mind and it's making the
connections.
(42:54):
What are these connections thatweren't existing before, and
sometimes even as a designer, Ihave to make those up not to
keep me interested, but it mightbe something that the
director's not there going foror I share with the director he
likes.
So, for example, for Welcome toMarwen, about a guy who
rebuilds his world with dolls,the idea I had was that scale is
(43:17):
a way of keeping people away,protecting himself.
They can't enter that world,but at the end, when he shares
it, when he has his photographs,at the end of that movie, we're
gonna.
Scale is broken, so we'll printthese things so their life size
, that either.
Bob took that idea and he likedit.
I was able to go with Jordanlike to look at these disparate
images and go, oh, I see thestory that's happening here.
(43:39):
Maybe this leads to this.
So Jordan has a guy and thenatives and they're painted with
electronic keyboards on theirface, right, it looks like
electronics.
And I'm thinking, like what,why are they doing that?
And then I thought, well, maybe, maybe it's their language and
they're writing the language injordan like that.
(44:01):
It was like that was cool.
I go, but wait a minute, maybewe could do this too.
Maybe we write the language onthe walls, so it's also like a
camouflage, so that wheneverthey, if they can, get to a
place they built that has thispattern on it.
That's how they, they protectthemselves, which jordan dug too
.
Now, any idea you come up with,whether you're the storyboard
(44:23):
artist, the art director, the paproduction designer, you give
it to the director.
Once you give it to thedirector, it's their idea.
So it's not me saying this, ismine alone and I'm responsible
for it.
It's like I found a way to makethese connections to make a
fertile area that Jordan couldgrow something out of mixing all
(44:46):
kinds of metaphors there.
Stefan Dechant (44:48):
For me that all wraps back up to something,
stefan, and then I don't know ifyou see it in yourself which is
being a kid growing up outsidechagrin falls, ohio, seeing the
different things in yourgrandparents world and how they
look differently and how theycan be little stories and how
you were drawing.
Like all of that stuff has comeinto fruition in you just being
(45:11):
a production designer.
Jennifer Coronado (45:13):
Yeah, I think it's about dialogue too.
Like I appreciate this dialoguewith you because it helps me
think about my own process and Ithink it's important for people
to be in dialogue with thepeople they work with.
Like I would love it if it wasoutside of even this podcast to
just kind of see you and Daveand the guys and just kind of
(45:33):
talk, continue the conversationon even a larger term.
But, like you said, I am indialogue with myself, so much so
that I was designing mattepaintings for True Grit and when
the little girl rides away onBlackie, one of the buildings in
(45:55):
the background says BollingerCut right, it's the name of the
building.
And that was the drugstore thatI used to go to in my
grandparents' town and that'swhere I would buy my Star Wars
comic books and my silly puttyand bad model kits and whatnot,
and it was just a way for me toweave that all back in there.
Stefan Dechant (46:15):
Thank you very much for your time today.
Jennifer Coronado (46:17):
Thanks, thank you.
Stefan Dechant (46:19):
Thank you for listening to.
Everyone Is.
Everyone Is is produced andedited by Chris Hawkinson,
executive producer is AaronDussault, music by Doug Infinite
.
Our logo and graphic design isby Harrison Parker and I am Jen
(46:46):
Coronado.
Thank you for listening.
My career has been kind of like running on
top of crocodiles, you know.
I just kept moving from onething to the other and trying
not to get, you know, eaten.
Stefan Dechant (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Everyone Is.
I am your host, jenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all types of people
and build an understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success has achieved thatsuccess because they are a
creative thinker success hasachieved that success because
they are a creative thinker.
So, whether you are an artistor a cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
(00:30):
human conversation.
And now, as they say on withthe show Hi, it's me, jen.
I wanted to jump in here toadmit that this week's episode
had some audio challenges, butwe thought it was an interesting
conversation, so we stillwanted to share with our
listeners.
So please forgive thelong-distance telephone sound of
it all and enjoy the vibes.
(00:56):
Stefan Decken is a productiondesigner, and an Oscar-nominated
one at that.
He was nominated in 2021 forhis amazing work on the Tra, the
tragedy of Macbeth, directed byJoel Cohen, and in his career
has worked on 30 plus films,including, but not limited to,
the original Jurassic Park,castaway Minority Report, as
well as the first Avatar film.
So welcome, stefan, to EveryoneIs.
(01:18):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
The whole idea of this is totalk to people about how they
think about things creatively.
You grew up near Chagrin Falls,ohio, is that?
Jennifer Coronado (01:29):
right, yeah, yeah.
Home of Tim Conway.
Stefan Dechant (01:31):
What was it like to grow up there?
Jennifer Coronado (01:37):
If you want to think of what typical
suburbia was like in the Midwest, that would place it down there
.
We were outside of Cleveland,you know.
So it's a Rust Belt city calledBainbridge.
But you know, I'm still to thisday probably not even sure what
my dad did.
He worked in management uppermanagement of electronics
(01:58):
companies in Cleveland and mysister, who's two years younger
than myself, we just grew up ona track home not a track home,
but every house looked the sameand in a development where you
could ride your bike, you know,to see your friends.
I think that's why when I was akid and I would watch Spielberg
films, in some ways they reallyconnected with me.
Like that, felt like oh, that'smy childhood.
The thing I couldn't connectwas the California of it all.
(02:19):
You know, when I would see howmassive those developments were,
they weren't as massive as whatwe had.
It was kind of idyllic in itsvanilla kind of way.
I'm not sure I'm describingthat well, but you know, my mom
was an English teacher, my dadworked in an office and my
sister and I we went to likeCatholic grade school and then
(02:41):
we'd come home and play with thekids on the block Catholic
grade school and then we'd comehome and play with the kids on
the block and I probablyconsumed way more media than I
should have, and so I was alwaysfascinated by, I would get
hooked on certain shows orwhatnot, and then I was always
interested in how they made them.
So when I was very young Iwatched this show about
firefighters, called Emergency,and I was really into that.
(03:02):
But at the same time mygrandparents went out to
California to visit relativesand they took pictures at
Universal Studios and I was like, oh, I knew that Universal was
the emblem that was at the endof the television show, and so I
was really interested in howthey made that.
And then the same thing therewas a horrible show out of the
(03:22):
UK called Space 1999 that I usedto watch, which was kind of
like a Star Trek ripoff.
I loved the spaceships and howthey did that.
I was just always interested inhow they made those.
And then Star Wars came out andI was like prime age.
I was like around eight, youknow I knocked my socks off
because the imagery was soevocative and unlike anything I
(03:43):
had seen before, and how it waspresented and on the scope it
was presented, and so I lived inmy imagination, in that world
which, at that time, there wasno toys or anything, there was
no product to kind of keep youengaged in that IP.
It was just that Star Wars hadcome out and all you could do at
(04:03):
least I could do was drawpictures of it or think about it
or pick up a comic book.
And then, I think it was inOctober or September of that
year, the Making Of came out,and that's the first time I saw
the drawings by Ralph McQuarrieand Joe Johnston.
And then, you know, that kindof hooked me both in the sense
that you can get paid for doingthat.
(04:25):
I don't even think that gettingpaid was part of it.
It was like, oh, there's a jobwhere you can be creative and
you can draw.
And then also, what I was alwaysobsessed with was the
variations, the versions thatdidn't make it to screen.
What is that?
It was like there were otheravenues, paths not taken, that
(04:47):
there might've been anotheruniverse that had the design in
there that I was seeing.
You know, if you look at thosefirst Ralph McQuarrie's I think
they were done on like the thirdor fourth draft script.
They were very early, all thatkind of fed into my love of
drawing, which I always loved todraw.
I was always drawing.
I want to ask you about thatreal quick.
Stefan Dechant (05:07):
When did you start?
Did you start playing as alittle little kid, or when did
you start playing with drawing?
Yeah, I was always drawing.
Jennifer Coronado (05:13):
I don't know why, it was just something I
needed to do and I like to drawand I always and I have to tell
you this, I've realized thislove with having kids now.
And I have to tell you this,I've realized this love with
having kids now.
There were certain illustratorsthat I gravitated towards and
that I liked and this will soundstrange, but even like when I
(05:34):
was like three, between threeand five, I loved golden books
and I loved that gouachepainting and I loved the world
that was being built in therebecause it's somehow I was kind
of familiar with it because youwould, let's say it was 1930s or
1940s.
I knew that I was living notthen I'm thinking this is a very
(05:54):
young child but I knew that itfelt like my grandparents house,
so I knew that it came beforeand I loved like falling into
that imagery and this I mean itsounds so crazy, but I remember
like yesterday, you know, likethere was a book it was called
Seven Little Postmen and it wasall these illustrations in there
.
But I remember like the way thecity was painted felt like rain
was about to happen and I lovedthat.
(06:17):
I was very attracted to theillustrations in those books,
like my grandparents had thisencyclopedia that had Charles
Knight paintings of dinosaurs.
Charles Knight set the tone onwhat a T-Rex looked like.
It didn't change until prettymuch, jurassic Park.
You know just everything youwould see in King Kong, and even
the Allosaurus and Valley ofGwangi is like that.
(06:39):
It's Charles Knight.
Stefan Dechant (06:41):
Well, I want to ask you about that, because you
mentioned something that I thinkis really interesting, which it
and it kind of plays into whoyou are as a production designer
.
It seems like as a little kidyou had this sense of when
things looked different and thatit represented different times.
Do you think that was innate,or was that something that you
got from your parents?
Or was that just a sense of?
Jennifer Coronado (07:01):
I think it was innate.
I loved looking at thoseimagery, the imagery, and then,
I don't know why, I thoughtabout it.
There's different times and Ican't think of what was at my
grandparents on my mom's side.
That would make like it was alittle town in Ohio and all the
houses were kind of Victorian.
If they weren't Victorian therewas this little, you know,
post-war build boom thathappened in there.
(07:24):
So they were late 40s, early50s.
There was an antiquity to thatand a comfort that I felt in
there.
So I loved being in that townand I liked being with my
grandparents and my relativeswere very close.
It was a big Catholic familythat my mom came from and I
liked that, so that all kind ofwove into the feelings that I
(07:47):
was getting.
There was kind of a nostalgiathat was already building in
there that I liked.
And then I don't know wheredrawing came in.
I just I was always drawing.
In the early 70s computerprintouts were on this white and
green paper.
My dad would bring those homebecause we could just draw on
the back of them.
So there was always stuff thereto create with.
(08:11):
But my parents weren't like andthis is not a knock against
them.
I just don't think they saw itas something to kind of feed.
They just saw it as somethingthat I was interested in.
And you know so, if my dad wenton a business trip, it was a
bigger deal back then.
So if he came back from likeCalifornia, there was always
like a drawing pad and markersand stuff like that and, again,
(08:31):
I think, some of the obsessionswith the imagery that I was
seeing on television, since youcouldn't go out easily and get a
toy that represented that.
You know, drawing it was thebest way.
Stefan Dechant (08:49):
That was also a time when it wasn't like oh,
I'll just pull that up on theinternet and watch that again,
or I'll rewind that.
It's like it was a fleetingmoment in time, so you were
trying to capture it.
Jennifer Coronado (09:00):
Exactly, that's exactly it.
And also it wasn't like youcould find it at the bookstore
and it's not like my parentswere taking me to hunt that
stuff out, and it was just adifferent time.
I mean, most of playing wasjust like going outdoors or
hanging out with your friends.
You know, it wasn't until I wasin high school or maybe junior
high, you know we didn't havevideo games or anything like
(09:20):
that.
So, yeah, I think it was.
It was a way to hold on tothose things.
Stefan Dechant (09:24):
Do you think that helped with your
imagination Like that, that timeof that spare time, because it
feels like now we're so filledup with things to do constantly.
Jennifer Coronado (09:35):
Yeah, probably, probably, and probably
wanting to recreate thosestories.
And even the toys that I hadwhen I was a kid, they weren't
like, they had a story to them.
There was a company calledMarks and they made these like
you've got a box full ofdinosaurs and cavemen and caves
(09:56):
and whatnot and that can keep mepretty busy for days on end.
You know you're just creatingthose stories, you know.
So I was watching a lot ofSaturday morning cartoons and I
and they used to have liveaction shows like Land of the
Lost and stuff like that andthat all fed into that.
Those obsessions.
Really they're like childhoodobsessions, you know that you're
(10:18):
you're just kind of fetishizingthe designs and the characters
and I was so into my own stuffthat I wasn't as a kid, I really
wasn't a reader, like I wouldread and then put a book down
and be like I'm just going todraw the picture.
I'd rather do that.
I was a major nerd, I didn'tknow how to interact socially
(10:39):
with other kids really.
And then it's funny because ifI look at the Cleveland Plain
Dealer now the local paperreally and then it's funny
because if I look at theCleveland Plain Dealer now the
local paper, it might have twostories of national or local
interest.
And then sports.
So when I was a kid, thatschool, the elementary school,
was like it was sports, sports,sports.
And I was just like, oh my God,I'm not good at sports.
(11:00):
But then when I got to collegeI was like, hey, this is.
I don't have to be accepted onthese terms.
So my dating life was better.
I had friends.
I wasn't the best student,probably my first year.
It was just some place that mylife was changing for the better
and I liked it.
Stefan Dechant (11:20):
So you went to the University of Cincinnati,
right.
Jennifer Coronado (11:22):
Yes, I did.
Stefan Dechant (11:23):
What'd you study there, you?
Jennifer Coronado (11:23):
went to the University of Cincinnati, right?
Yes, I did.
What'd you study there?
I studied graphic designbecause I didn't know what it
was.
There's two reasons.
One I studied graphic designbecause I thought it was
commercial art.
For some reason I saw myself ashaving a career of maybe the
guy that draws people wearingHager slacks in Sears magazines
(11:45):
Like I.
Just it was commercial art andI thought, oh, that's
interesting to me.
I also liked that they had thatpro.
They had a program there whereyou could intern.
So you went.
They were quarters at that time, so you went to school for a
quarter and then you worked fora quarter.
You went to school for aquarter and went to work for a
quarter, and my biggest fear wasnot having a job and living
(12:07):
with my parents.
And so I thought commercial artseems good at getting a job,
seems good to me.
At the time I quickly realizedit was graphic design.
It was about typography, whichI had no interest in Thank God
for the digital revolution.
That happened while I was therebecause I really didn't care
for it.
I just had no love of it.
And we had these wonderfulprofessors and they were like if
(12:27):
you don't love this, you shouldget out of this program because
you're not going to make moneydoing it either.
I thought about that and I had arough year, my freshman year,
and I came home and then my dadsaid maybe you're studying the
wrong thing, maybe you shouldwork at that place that does the
effects for Star Wars.
That was something that kind ofwas a through line through my
(12:50):
childhood.
It's like again there was lessinformation available so you'd
get a making of Star Wars bookor making of Empire Strikes Back
, but there wasn't books likethat for every film that came
out and there just wasn't a lotof print and you wouldn't get it
in chagrin falls, ohio if youdid, you know.
So it was something it seemedtoo far away.
(13:13):
But once my dad brought it upand then I was working at jp
morgan that was my firstinternship through uh the
university, cincinnati.
I was working at the in intheir in-house design department
.
I remember reading it.
It was in the New York Times.
It was about unemployment andhomelessness and there was some
guy who was a graphic designerand was making.
I forget how much he wasbringing in a year, but now he's
(13:36):
living on the street and I waslike this is it.
I've got to go where it feelsright, what I want to do.
And that's when I started, likeI made a game plan, like I'm
going to get to industrial lightmagic.
Somehow I'm going to meetsomebody that can get me in the
door there and that's how I'mgoing to get a job.
Stefan Dechant (13:54):
That's not necessarily a game plan.
That's like wishing into theuniverse and then moving on it
Right.
Or did you have a?
Did you have?
Jennifer Coronado (14:09):
I had a game plan.
Well, let's think's think aboutit.
Yeah, it is a little bitwishing, but here's the thing
that I was thinking about.
Like I was thinking about beingin the right place at the right
time, and these are like as a20 year old thinks about things,
right.
So I was thinking about beingin the right place at the right
time and I thought I need to bein san francisco.
And when I couldn't get aninternship because that was all
reserved for juniors and seniorsand I was a sophomore in San
(14:29):
Francisco, the jobs that hadbeen lined up I knew that I
needed to be in a big city.
So I'm going to go, I'm goingto be in New York and somehow
I'll meet somebody that hassomething to do with the film
industry.
I'm going to try that.
And then when I was working atJP Morgan, I remember in Mac it
was either Mac Week or Mac Worldor one of those type magazines
(14:52):
there was an article aboutPhotoshop and that John Tom
Knoll had written this programand that John worked at ILM.
And I thought that's my ticketin.
I've got to figure out how Ican get a copy of Photoshop, how
I can learn that, and that'sgoing to be it.
So maybe it was wishfulthinking, but it was also kind
of like I want to be in theright place at the right time.
Stefan Dechant (15:14):
Well, you did intern at ILM, and you interned
with Saul Bass too.
I did.
Jennifer Coronado (15:18):
One of the things I feel very strongly
about is reaching out andhelping young kids getting into
the film industry, and this willlead to ILM and Saul.
But when I was at JP Morgan, Iwas working there on a weekend
and one of the other designershad come in.
She said well, what are youinterested in?
(15:39):
What kind of design firm wouldyou like to work?
Well, what do you want to dowith your career?
And I said I don't want to doanything, I just want to get
letters of recommendation so Icould go to USC and study film.
And I wanted to work at ILM.
And she said oh, I know thisguy, stuart Robertson.
He's the head of the opticaldepartment at ILM.
You should give him a call.
In fact.
Stefan Dechant (16:07):
I'll give him for lunch in a month.
And he said yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (16:10):
And I don't know anyone who would commit to
that.
Maybe he was thinking Iwouldn't come out.
But I bought a plane ticket andI came out and I met Stuart and
he gave me a tour of ILM andthen I would write him every
three months to keep thatrelationship up.
And that's eventually how I didget my internship at ILM.
And this woman who sent me overStuart Robertson, who got me a
(16:34):
tour of our Greenberg Associates, saw Bass.
His firm, bass Yeager, had arelationship with the University
of Cincinnati and took studentsand I applied to be an intern
there and I know it was betweenmyself and another student who
was going to get that job.
But what set me apart wasbecause I had met the people at
(16:56):
Art Greenberg and I knew thatSaul did titles and I was
interested in titles and I wasinterested in film.
So that little leg up, thatkind of kindness that was given
to me, it was kind of like alittle gem that I had a secret
password that allowed me to workfor Saul.
When I say work for Saul, Imixed paints.
That's a lot of my job.
(17:18):
It was called Chromatex.
You don't do the same workbecause you can get a color
printer.
But at the time if you wantedto lay out a logo or whatnot in
color, you had to mix the paintcustom and then you had to lay
it on a piece of plastic, thenyou'd lay the glue on there and
then the designers could go rubthat down and it was a pretty
(17:40):
noxious job.
So when I say I worked at SaulBass, I made a lot of.
Stefan Dechant (17:45):
I made a lot of work down yeah.
Jennifer Coronado (17:47):
Yeah, but it was still cool to be there.
And again, the people that youcome across that just have this
kindness and willingness to letyou see behind the curtain his
archivist, I remember oneweekend he said let's meet at
the studio.
We went there, we went in thebasement and I saw all the
original storyboards for Psychoand the opening of West Side
(18:09):
Story.
It was cool.
He gave me all these Japanesemagazines that had articles
about Saul.
It's like oh, we have tons ofthese, take them in.
So that was what's wonderful.
And actually that led me to ILM,because Harley Jessup, who was
running the art department, wasa big fan of Saul, and so that's
how I got my job at ILM.
I remember on the phone he'slike listen, I really don't,
(18:31):
you're not going to be doingwhat you think you're going to
be doing at ILM.
And I said, no, right now I'mjust leaving a job at Solvass
where I'm buying birthday cakesand whatnot.
You know, I like I know that,but I need to get inside and see
it.
You know, somehow things justfelt lucky.
Yeah, and I'm not.
I don't know what I believe.
(18:53):
To tell you the truth, I don'tknow if I believe in bigger
things happening?
I'm going to say yes Because Iremember before I got the job at
ILM, I got off the phone withHarley and it had been a couple
of weeks and I had a dream thatI was walking through the front
doors on Kerner and StuartRobertson answered the door and
he said congratulations, andthen we just walked through the
(19:15):
lobby and that was the end ofthe dream.
And then about a week later Igot a call that I got the job at
ILM, and so sometimes I see mycareer as kind of like surfing.
I'm trying to look at the waves.
The waves could be anythinglike what do you think is
happening?
Who do you think you need tomeet?
Where do you think you need togo?
(19:36):
But a lot of it's a force ofnature that I'm just reckoning
with.
Stefan Dechant (19:40):
I want to ask you two questions about the
internships, and I want you tolook at it two ways.
And the first way was I'm ayoung kid coming in here to be
an intern and here's what Iexpect to learn.
And then the other way to lookat it is I'm Stefan of now, and
here's what I actually learnedwhen you were in those
internships?
Jennifer Coronado (19:59):
That's a really good question.
When you were working as anintern, that's a really good
question, I think.
When I went in to ILM, Ithought that I could maybe learn
how to storyboard and see howit's done and then work on the
weekends and improve my craft.
And what I realized was that Ilacked those drawing skills.
(20:25):
I lacked the the hardcoredesign skills that that was
needed for that job.
Now I could be there and see ithappening.
But, um, as a kid I think thatwas my expectation.
But I had wonderful mentorsthere.
You know Ty Ellingston, who isa designer, has worked a lot
(20:46):
with Guillermo and did a lot ofdesign work on Avatar for
Cameron.
He kind of took me under hiswing and I remember one night we
were having beers and he goes.
I just want you to know you'rereally not that good and if
you're going to work here,you've got to be better.
And I didn't take it as aninsult, I just thought, yeah,
(21:08):
he's right, I really need towork on things.
So I had an expectation ofdoing that.
But in a sense, some of thathappened.
We only had one Mac in the artdepartment and if you wanted to
use Photoshop, get in line and Iwas asked could I composite
this car in front of thesebuildings and could I bend the
(21:31):
buildings like they were blowingin the wind?
It was Steve Beck and he had abeautiful marker rendering of
the car.
All he wanted was the car cutout and put in and the
building's bent.
I'm like, yeah, I can do thatand it's the kind of thing you
give an intern right.
But I stayed all night torepaint the car so it looked
photo real and had the paintcoming off and I don't know how
(21:54):
good it was, but they loved it.
And then they had some morecommercial stuff and they gave
me.
So in some ways my expectationswere met.
Okay, so that's my kid's pointof view.
As an adult, looking back,there's a couple of things I
learned.
One is I learned that ILM was avendor.
It wasn't like Star Wars, itwasn't like you were building
(22:17):
all that stuff up from scratch.
A lot of this stuff had beendesigned, I think.
Also, I learned how to navigateproduction and then the person
who's directing it and then the,the art department.
I got to see what that was likein terms of you know cultures
and working around and seeinghow those people work together.
It's such a good question.
I think part of it is.
(22:39):
I've told this story so oftenthat I make my own myth up, and
so it's hard for me to kind oflike look at it, you know, like
when you start creating your ownstory.
One of the best pieces of adviceI got from there, doug Chang.
He was showing me his reel thathe had before he went to Iowa
and he said you know what youshould do.
You should make up your ownproject and storyboard it.
(23:00):
And so I did.
What I wanted to do wasultimately be a PA on Jurassic
Park at ILM, and so when I cameback to Cincinnati, I hit the
professors up to write ascreenplay for Jurassic Park
just the T-Rex attack and then Iwould storyboard it and I would
typeset those storyboards.
So that was how it'd be graphicdesign.
(23:21):
So I'd make a book and myboards would be in there, and
that ended up being a reallyimportant thing for me when I
went for my job at Jurassic Park.
That was why Rick Carter, theproduction designer, hired me.
The way that Doug John Bell,mark Moore, harley, ty, mark
Moore, harley, ty, paul Houston,claudia Mullally, you know the
(23:47):
way that they helped guide mewas so important that, as an
adult, I'm very conscious ofthat, and so I like bringing in
PAs.
I like bringing in people whohave that experience underneath
their belt and then going well,how can I guide this person to
get what they want out of theircareer?
Like, ultimately, maybe my roleas a designer is not really to
(24:09):
kind of go.
People look back and go oh didyou ever see the work that
Stefan did?
But maybe my role as a designeris actually I'm in a place that
I can help other people achievethings, and maybe greater
things than I've done.
Stefan Dechant (24:19):
Well, I want to jump into that because you know
you are a production designernow, but you've played several
roles in film art departments.
You've been an illustrator, astoryboard artist, an art
director, a supervising artdirector, you know, and now
production designer.
But for people who don't know,I like to dive into some of the
differences between roles.
(24:39):
So's start with the illustrator, and am I allowed to mention
Waterworld?
Jennifer Coronado (24:42):
Yeah, waterworld, listen, the first
three films I had were the firstone was Jurassic Park yeah,
right, so that was pretty cool,right, I met Steven, I got it.
I had a photograph in CinefixChildhood dream I was in the
making of book.
Couldn't get any better.
Next film is, uh, forrest Gumpbest picture, right, working
(25:04):
with Zemeckis pretty cool.
Third film is Waterworld, and Ilearned it's really, really
important that you're workingwith people that you love,
because you could be on a filmfor two years, but that film is
only going to be in the theatersfor two hours at the moment.
Stefan Dechant (25:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you that whatdoes an illustrator do on a film
Like what is their role in thefilm.
Jennifer Coronado (25:26):
Basically, you're working with the
production designer to get theirvision of what the look of that
film is on paper.
So at the time when I started,the way that you did that was
they could be pencil sketches,they could be marker sketches,
or there would also be people.
Part of the way that you didthat was it could be pencil
sketches, it could be markersketches, or there'd be there
(25:48):
also be people who did amazinggouache paintings, right.
So those were kind of like thethree, three ways of kind of
doing it.
And you, you either laying outan environment you know, this is
, this is what the environmentlooks like, this is what the
streets gonna look like when weredress it or could be more
conceptual, like this is whatthis kind of special vehicle is
going to look like.
And I got into that rolebecause I knew photoshop and so
(26:10):
I wasn't a great illustrator,like like I said, but no one
else was doing photoshop and Icould do things that the effects
house had seen before, ilm hadseen it, but people in our
departments had.
So I remember thinking that Iwasn't really providing what
they probably wanted on ForrestGump, so I needed to save my job
(26:33):
somehow.
So on my own.
I scanned in a drawing thatJames Haggis had done of Sally
Field's home and I was modelingit out as super blocky, super
blocky 3D models very primitive.
But then I painted over that inPhotoshop so it could look
photo real and then I thoughtI'm probably going to get in
(26:53):
trouble for this.
This is probably not right.
And then Rick saw it, he lovedit and he showed it to Bob and
that was Rick Carter again.
Yeah, rick Carter, yeah, who'sa mentor.
That kind of runs through myentire career.
So for a long time my skill asan illustrator was tied into
Photoshop and I'd be workingwith other illustrators, artwork
(27:15):
and whatnot, and it was alwayskind of to get it to look photo
real and it was up to me in myown time to discover how to be a
better illustrator.
Doing that and when thathappened was Minority Report.
It's like I had a violin and Iwas playing Mary had a Little
Lamb, and people were like checkit out.
And then all of a sudden, artCenter, these guys are coming
(27:37):
out and they're playing Vivaldi,and so you have people like
James Klein, who's just anincredible illustrator, and I
remember working on MinorityReport.
I wouldn't even hang out withthose guys.
I wouldn't have lunch with thembecause I knew they were going
to see that it was a fraud.
At a certain point I needed togo to them and say I need help,
can you help me be a betterillustrator?
And they were so kind.
(27:57):
I remember Jim explaining likeoutdoor light, indoor light how
I could make my paintings lookbetter.
So I started as an illustrator.
I started doing Photoshop andletting the technology kind of
hold me up.
More people came in as anillustrator and more work was
just being done purely inPhotoshop.
I was learning from my peers onhow I can be better in
(28:19):
Photoshop.
I was learning from my peers onhow I can be better On those
shows.
It might be like this is whatthe T-Rex nest is going to look
like, or this is what I rememberon Waterworld.
I did marker and pencilsketches of what the weapons
look like, that the smokers had.
Or I did 3D models of whatKevin's boat was going to look
like or what the Exxon Valdez.
(28:41):
I did a Photoshop painting ofthat.
So that was the kind of work Iwas doing as an illustrator.
It's pretty.
Production designer based.
Your relationships with theproduction designer, yeah, which
will lead me to storyboardingWaterworld.
Kevin Reynolds asked me if Iwould storyboard some scenes and
I said I really don't dostoryboards.
Rick Carter had invited me overand I told him that this
(29:02):
conversation happened and hesaid no, whenever you can get
out of the art department and bewith the director, be with the
director, go back, tell him youcan do it.
And so I did.
I told him oh, you know what Ithink I can do those storyboards
.
Now it was horrible, my figureswere awful and whatnot, but I
was going to get in and do thatjob and and so storyboarding is
awesome.
I love storyboarding.
(29:22):
That's when you're incommunication with the director
and you're you're kind of doinga comic strip of of what that
person wants, how, how they wantto shoot the film, and that can
be very specific, where adirector will say I'm going to
do this shot, I'm going to dothis and I'm going to do that,
and you're drawing that to getit laid out.
But the best.
(29:44):
The absolute best is when adirector gives you kind of a
framework.
You know, like Zemeckis, onwhat Lies Beneath.
I was an art director but I wasdoing a lot of storyboarding
because I had that dual card asan illustrator and he might go,
wow, steph Harrison's going tocome in here, then she's going
to drown, he's going to do thisto Michelle and this will happen
(30:05):
and this will happen.
And he'd give me a couple shotswithin there.
But I could come in and lay outthe scene and riff on it.
So it's almost like you'replaying music with the director.
The director is kind of layingdown a riff and you're coming
back and then they're you'reriffing off each other until the
scene gets done.
And that's that's when it's theabsolute best.
(30:25):
And zemeckis was the director Iliked working with the best.
Stefan Dechant (30:29):
He was just fun it's interesting because I'm
going to jump past art directorto supervising art director, and
the reason that I'm doing thatjumping from illustrated to that
is because that's like thefirst time you got a deal of
money, because a part of what asupervising art director does is
help manage that budget andthat takes you out of the
(30:51):
creative as much.
Right, so can you talk about?
What was that like, fittinginto that role and how did that
feel?
You've done it on jarhead.
You did it on avatar.
What did that feel?
You've done it on Jarhead?
You did it on Avatar.
What did that feel like for you?
Jennifer Coronado (31:03):
Okay.
So this is how it happened.
I had art directed a coupleshows for Rick and I did Cast
Away of what Lies Beneath withRick, and those were special
projects.
Those were a productiondesigner, knowing what I could
give, giving me the title of artdirector.
I was helping sets along, but Ididn't come from drafting,
(31:26):
getting the sets built, workingwith construction.
How do you make it happen?
I was learning while I wasdoing that, but I was in a
special role.
It was hard for me to get a jobas an art director with someone
I didn't know, because I wasn'tsure I was going to live up to
what they wanted me to do.
Stefan Dechant (31:43):
And.
Jennifer Coronado (31:44):
I hadn't had all the groundwork underneath me
.
My career has been kind of likerunning on top of crocodiles I
just kept moving from one thingto the other and trying not to
get eaten.
My personal life was such thatI couldn't commit the time that
needs to be committed to artdirecting as well.
So I went back to illustrating.
And then I was illustrating onJarhead and the supervising left
(32:08):
the show and I seriously thinkDennis Gassner who I love him
and again another mentor of minewas just looking across the
hall and like, well, this is nottoo difficult, I'll just have
Stefan do it.
So I became the art director onJarhead and I know enough now
from how I moved from crocodileto crocodile to like when the
door opens, man, stick your footin it, make sure it doesn't
(32:29):
shut, and move through.
But I didn't really know thescope of that show.
You know how it was going toget done.
I was smart enough to go.
These are the things that needto get done.
This is the money I need totrack.
This is how I'm going to do it.
I don't know particularly, butI'm going to say I need to have
these drawings by such and sucha date right, and doing that.
Now I also needed another artdirector, or needed an assistant
(32:52):
art director.
And they said Dennis said callChristy Wilson.
And so I called her up and shesaid well, I'm really hunting
for it.
I'll do it if I can get an artdirector title and one of the
things I've seen with Rick isnot to get all caught up in
titles and whatnot I'm like sureyou can be an art director, I'm
fine doing two art directors onthis show.
So I went to Dennis and I said,okay, she'll do it, but she's
(33:14):
going to be an art, she wants tobe an art director, a
supervising art director.
So that is how I got it and Ididn't know what the hell I was
doing and she could have come inand just thrown me under the
bus, but she didn't.
She helped me with her.
She had a vast experience ofart directing, more than I did,
(33:35):
but she helped me plan out likethis is when the drawing needs
to get done, this is where thenumbers are, and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and I couldn'thave done it without her.
What I took supervising artdirector to mean is like I'm
going to help on this otherlevel, get the film designed
with dennis and, and how Irelate to sam mendez, the best
(33:56):
part about anything in thisindustry is you can kind of
invent what you are, yeah, but areal.
What I need when I'm a designerand a supervising art director,
I need someone's got.
They're making the hires,they're they're running those
numbers, they're tracking thatnumber, they're tracking it, you
know, and actually they'rehaving the battles.
So I don't have to have thebattles, so I can be the good
cop.
(34:16):
You know, sometimes you got tohave some deep conversations
with construction and theproducers like, how are we going
to get this done?
I wasn't that person.
I don't know what I was, but Isurvived that show.
I only became that personactually because I did another
show, lady in the Water, whereChristy was a supervising art
director and I saw how sheprotected Martin Child, I saw
(34:39):
how she organized that artdepartment.
So when I was hired on Avatar,I was hired as an illustrator
and at that point I just sawthat my skills couldn't, that I
couldn't compete.
I just wasn't on that level.
You really needed to commit andthat you're going to work on
your skills at this level.
But I did see that certaindepartments were a mess, and not
(34:59):
in a bad way.
They were trying to do it thebest they could, but they needed
an art director to come in,organize them, say this is how
we're going to get it done, thisis how we're going to get it,
we're going to hit our markshere.
And that all came from Christy.
As a supervising art director,I could really I mean, you're
not going to learn more thanworking with Rick for two years
on a Jim Cameron movie.
So when we did Alice and RobStromberg was designing for his
(35:23):
first time, I could be thatperson that I knew he could rely
on and go.
I got it.
Rob, you just keep painting,designing, do whatever you want.
We'll keep you covered on thisother side, where the sets get
done.
One thing I realized in mycareer is I've been a bit of a
manipulator.
When Rob hired me to do OzGreat and Powerful, I didn't
(35:49):
want to do the numbers anymoreand I remember Rick and Rickard
calls me because how's it going?
I go.
It's great.
I made a new position formyself.
He goes, what's that?
I go.
I'm Tom from the Godfather.
He goes.
That's a perfect position.
I go, it is.
I hired another art director whocan handle all the budgets and
I'm there working with rob.
He's got great vision, but Ican be a guide, helping to go
okay, we need to get this turnedover.
We need to get the drawingshere.
You know, I liked being in thatposition more than I liked
(36:13):
doing the numbers, so I was abit of a manipulator, but a good
supervising art director andI've worked with quite a few.
They run that art department.
They should really be havingmore credit than they get.
It really frees you up thatyou're in this create.
You can be in this zone that'sup here above everybody else.
(36:36):
You can see it in the bigpicture and you can work with
deeper ideas than you can whenyou're really handling the
day-to-day in and out of it.
It's a tough job.
It's a really hard job.
Stefan Dechant (36:47):
So I'm hearing lots of themes through your
career before we launch intoyour production design, and lots
of themes I'm hearing areconnections, long-term
relationships, mentoring, termrelationships, mentoring.
And then I'm hearing anothertheme which is a little bit of
Stefan not necessarily thinkinghe was the right person for the
(37:09):
role that someone just gave him,and so I want to ask you about
moving into production designand how that happened for you
and what are the best things,things about that and what are,
like, the personal stressorsaround having to own a film
production art department.
Jennifer Coronado (37:30):
I think when you have a combination of
Catholicism and Midwest, thatyou're very susceptible to
imposter syndrome, and I do havethat a bit.
So that's that part that mightbe coming out.
(37:52):
I'm not sure how to deal withit properly, right, but I try to
use it to work harder to gosomewhere deeper.
So, to answer your otherquestion, in terms of production
design, I had been working onOsgrate and Powerful and I
actually couldn't take that filmthrough because my kids were
born.
I have twins and once we foundout we were having twins oh, by
(38:14):
the way, I ended up marryingChristy.
Stefan Dechant (38:16):
Well then, she managed everything really well.
She still does.
Jennifer Coronado (38:20):
Trust me, we did quite a few films together,
so one where I was supervising,one where she was supervising
About a year after we hadsettled in our new house and the
twins they were doing well.
I was hired to kind of overseereshoots, because Robert
Stromberg wasn't available andyou're given the title
(38:41):
production designer but me doingreshoots for Oz.
I was not the productiondesigner, I was still a
supervising art director,protecting Rob's designs and
creating a couple of new sets,but making sure that I did that
in the way that Rob would have.
And when I was doing that, peteDeming, the DP, was talking
with his agents about me and soICM called and said they wanted
(39:05):
to rep me and so I had somemeetings with them and they said
what you need to do is you'vegot to focus on being a
production designer now and youcan't be an art director, which
is hard because that just meansyou're not bringing your money
coming in.
And I started having meetingsand I was really good at being
the second choice on a lot offilms.
(39:33):
And the thing about connectionscame in the producer of Jarhead,
who I had met before earlier.
He was a guy named Sam Mercerand while I was in this dry
patch of being everyone's secondchoice.
Sam took a chance on me and atthe time I was helping again
Rick Carter as he comes back in.
I was helping him out on BigFriendly Giant and I flew down
(39:57):
to New Zealand and I was workingwith Weta Workshop and Weta
Digital on getting the assetsbuilt for Big Friendly Giant and
Sam said, if you come in and dothis, I can sit you up for the
interview for another film thatI was interested in.
But Legendary was very kind andcalled me and said we're going
to hunt for another film for you, and that film ended up being
(40:23):
Kong.
And I met Jordan Voight-Robertson Kong, skull Island yeah,
skull Island and we had a prettygood meeting and I got a call
from my agent saying look,jordan likes you, but he doesn't
know what you're going to beable to provide.
So I was able to leave NewZealand early, come back.
But at that night I went out andsketched out some keyframes and
(40:45):
then I called friends and saidcan you help me?
Could you illustrate somethingfor free for me?
And so in a week I had threeoutside illustrations and three
illustrations I had done and Imet with Jordan and that's what
got me the job.
So now you're in a positionthat you don't know what.
You don't know Like I've neverproduction designed before.
(41:06):
I don't know how I'm going tomake this happen.
I'm just stepping in to make ithappen and I have instincts and
I have a very young directorwho's not like the directors
I've worked with before, and itcan be intimidating, and one of
those intimidations was that hehad brought in all these
illustrators.
He had like maybe eight, nineillustrators working across the
(41:28):
globe and they were working forhim, and I was very intimidated
by that, and so it was very hardfor me to get in sync with him,
and it was over Christmas thatI thought oh wait, here's the
way I'm going to see this.
John Barry was the designer ofStar Wars.
John Barry designed those sets.
When you're a kid, all you hearabout is Ralph McQuarrie and
(41:50):
Joe Johnson, but you don't hearCal and Cal.
Well, all these other guys youdon't hear about John Barry that
much.
As a kid, I was like okay, Idoubt John Barry was going
around going oh, this RalphMcQuarrie is doing stuff.
So it was a way for me to kindof take what I had already known
instinctively as a kid andthrough my moving up to my
(42:12):
career, and apply it and go OK,this is where I'm going to go.
Jordan is George and, as Irecall, a lot of guys in London
were like what is this guy doing?
I'm going to have faith in himbecause he's going to be my
George Lucas.
I'm going to follow his lead.
He's got it so much in the head.
He's working with theseillustrators.
That's fine.
They're going to be the Ralphand the Joe Johnston of the show
(42:34):
.
I'm going to be the John Barryand I'm going to design the
environments and the sets towork with what Jordan's doing
and make that happen.
The way I work is I layeverything out either in my mind
some of it's like a whiteboardin my mind and it's making the
connections.
(42:54):
What are these connections thatweren't existing before, and
sometimes even as a designer, Ihave to make those up not to
keep me interested, but it mightbe something that the
director's not there going foror I share with the director he
likes.
So, for example, for Welcome toMarwen, about a guy who
rebuilds his world with dolls,the idea I had was that scale is
(43:17):
a way of keeping people away,protecting himself.
They can't enter that world,but at the end, when he shares
it, when he has his photographs,at the end of that movie, we're
gonna.
Scale is broken, so we'll printthese things so their life size
, that either.
Bob took that idea and he likedit.
I was able to go with Jordanlike to look at these disparate
images and go, oh, I see thestory that's happening here.
(43:39):
Maybe this leads to this.
So Jordan has a guy and thenatives and they're painted with
electronic keyboards on theirface, right, it looks like
electronics.
And I'm thinking, like what,why are they doing that?
And then I thought, well, maybe, maybe it's their language and
they're writing the language injordan like that.
(44:01):
It was like that was cool.
I go, but wait a minute, maybewe could do this too.
Maybe we write the language onthe walls, so it's also like a
camouflage, so that wheneverthey, if they can, get to a
place they built that has thispattern on it.
That's how they, they protectthemselves, which jordan dug too
.
Now, any idea you come up with,whether you're the storyboard
(44:23):
artist, the art director, the paproduction designer, you give
it to the director.
Once you give it to thedirector, it's their idea.
So it's not me saying this, ismine alone and I'm responsible
for it.
It's like I found a way to makethese connections to make a
fertile area that Jordan couldgrow something out of mixing all
(44:46):
kinds of metaphors there.
Stefan Dechant (44:48):
For me that all wraps back up to something,
stefan, and then I don't know ifyou see it in yourself which is
being a kid growing up outsidechagrin falls, ohio, seeing the
different things in yourgrandparents world and how they
look differently and how theycan be little stories and how
you were drawing.
Like all of that stuff has comeinto fruition in you just being
(45:11):
a production designer.
Jennifer Coronado (45:13):
Yeah, I think it's about dialogue too.
Like I appreciate this dialoguewith you because it helps me
think about my own process and Ithink it's important for people
to be in dialogue with thepeople they work with.
Like I would love it if it wasoutside of even this podcast to
just kind of see you and Daveand the guys and just kind of
(45:33):
talk, continue the conversationon even a larger term.
But, like you said, I am indialogue with myself, so much so
that I was designing mattepaintings for True Grit and when
the little girl rides away onBlackie, one of the buildings in
(45:55):
the background says BollingerCut right, it's the name of the
building.
And that was the drugstore thatI used to go to in my
grandparents' town and that'swhere I would buy my Star Wars
comic books and my silly puttyand bad model kits and whatnot,
and it was just a way for me toweave that all back in there.
Stefan Dechant (46:15):
Thank you very much for your time today.
Jennifer Coronado (46:17):
Thanks, thank you.
Stefan Dechant (46:19):
Thank you for listening to.
Everyone Is.
Everyone Is is produced andedited by Chris Hawkinson,
executive producer is AaronDussault, music by Doug Infinite
.
Our logo and graphic design isby Harrison Parker and I am Jen
(46:46):
Coronado.
Thank you for listening.
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