This thesis will explore how the production design in the film Off-Track (2024) presented memory to resonate via shared experiences between filmmaker and reader. This thesis will highlight the significance of memory as a source for improving the conceptualisation period of the production designer, and how a designer can authorise creative agency through the utilisation of memory as a creative tool. This thesis will bring to the surface the ethical setbacks, a designer may be challenged with during this process and suggest how they can choose to overcome these issues.
The chapter looks to explore the validity of film as a memory agent and the methods by which film practitioners can evoke memory. The chapter will present psychoanalytic theories surrounding memory and the unconscious, that support reasonings behind the evocation of memory into film practice as a tool to connect to a deeper emotional resonance for both practitioner and reader. The chapter will then narrow its focus onto the implementation of production design as a memory agent, exploring the potential for conflict with the director during this process. The chapter then looks to demonstrate how the production designer can resolve this issue by examining methods of improving relations with the director and gaining creative authorship. Finally, the chapter will close through an analysis of the research period for the production, highlighting the experience of discovering a cultural memory that could be represented on screen, and the ethical challenges that arise in the research period for the contemporary production designer, such as concerns surrounding the manipulation and appropriation of memory.
The second chapter will analyse the practical performance of the production design in Off-Track surrounding the implementation of memory. This chapter will be supported considerably by the academic content of Jane Barnwell, senior lecturer of contemporary media and experienced production designer. The chapter will be supported by her development of the methodology ‘Visual Concept Analysis’ (VCA). This conceptual tool will aid the structure of the chapter, detailing the elements of the design process from conceptualisation to execution. The thesis will showcase the practice artefact through the factors of space, colour and set decoration, and analyse these design elements independently, as well as their interaction with each other to create visual cohesion. Through VCA, this chapter will analyse the production design in Off-Track on the presentation and evocation of memory and highlight the creative and ethical challenges that were faced concerning these actions.
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