Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1010570
To the credit of the best of these Art Department supervisors, with Cedric Gibbons being the first among his equals, they created unique on-the- job conservatory colleges where the greatest generation of studio Art Directors learned their craft while making many enduring motion picture classics, often during a work cycle that demanded three shifts a day and six days a week. The designers that trained under these men learned how to create art for entertainment on a massive industrial scale. Cedric Gibbons remains a true pioneer and innovator of the motion picture Art Department and he was central to the establishing of its standards and practices, authoring many articles on the topic of Art Direction and Set Design, as well as the first in- depth published commentary about Art Direction for the 1929 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It can be said that he was Art Direction's first entertainment industrialist, being equal parts engineer, designer and dreamer. Cedric was indisputably the studio's insider most responsible for the origination and evolution of Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer's visual brand and creative legacy. With tales about the facts and fictions in Cedric's personal biography, World War II production rationing, two other marriages, labor unrest, the Blacklist, the great age of the movie musical, and the twilight of the studio system still to be explored, there remains much more to the story Cedric Gibbons' to be told. ADG A. THE WIZARD OF OZ (MGM 1939). A PREPRODUCTION CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION RENDERED IN GOUACHE, FOR THE CITY OF OZ BY ILLUSTRATOR JACK MARTIN SMITH. B. AN EARLY VERSION OF THE THREE-STRIP TECHNICOLOR CAMERA ENCASED IN A GIANT SOUND BLIMP. THIS WAS THE SAME CAMERA SYSTEM THAT WAS USED FOR THE FILMING OF THE WIZARD OF OZ. C. THE FINAL COMPOSITED SHOT OF THE APPROACH TO THE CITY OF OZ. A B C D E