Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720
14 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7 contributors When CARY WHITE was an art major at the University of Texas, thumbing through the course catalog, he discovered that he could actually get college credit for going to movies. Wow! He was hooked, switched majors and ended up with a master's degree in film. The Motion Picture Academy nominated his student film as the Best Dramatic Film of the Year, so he moved to Los Angeles after graduation...but returned to Austin to design his first feature film. He initially feared that trying to work as a Production Designer out of Austin might constitute career suicide, but that has not been the case. He designed a TNT project, Final Verdict, that Production Designer Jack Fisk directed, has worked on projects in Los Angeles (Just Like Heaven) and Austin (Spy Kids), and received Emmy ® nominations for the miniseries Buffalo Girls and Lonesome Dove. He still considers it a rare stroke of luck that he is able to work on television series like Friday Night Lights, Revolution and The Son in his hometown, Austin, TX. Born in 1961 in Tlemcen, French Algeria, JEAN RABASSE has sowed his genius in many areas, from film sets to the theater to designs for dance, opera and circus productions. The settings for the Opening Ceremony of the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville: that was Jean Rabasse. He was nominated for an Academy Award ® and won the César for his sumptuous, elaborate designs for the 2001 film Vatel. His other film credits include The Dreamers, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, The City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Norman Jewison's The Statement and Christophe Barratier's Faubourg 36, for which he received another César nomination. In 2009, he designed the sets for the opera L'Amour de loin, presented by the English National Opera in London. A versatile artist, M. Rabasse reinvents the craft of forms. "I make no distinctions between the disciplines in which I work. In movies, I always stress theatrical effects, to give the film soul. In the theater, I use cinematic elements." CHARLES WOOD started his career studying the restoration and conservation of fine arts. A lucky break led the native of England to Hollywood: "A friend of mine was working on a film in Los Angeles called Army of Darkness. I went to help out in the Art Department." Then, Fearless afforded him the opportunity to collaborate with Australian filmmaker Peter Weir while Mr. Wood was working with Introvision, a visual effects company. He started off as a visual effects Art Director creating designs for Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: The Dark World. "It's a helpful background because these types of films require an inherent knowledge of visual effects. The time when movies don't need sets anymore is probably a long way off, but I do think that the worlds of Art Direction and visual effects are becoming more allied. I know it's true because our offices are located closer to each other." Mr. Wood currently lives in Bath in the United Kingdom with his wife Vicky and two sons, Alfie and Stan. WYNN THOMAS holds a BFA from Boston University, where he studied theatrical set design. He designed sets for the Negro Ensemble Company off-Broadway, The Public Theatre, and Arena Stage in Washington DC, and then assisted Richard Sylbert, Patrizia von Brandenstein and Stuart Wurtzel early in his film career. He has designed movies for Spike Lee, Ron Howard, Tim Burton, Harold Ramis, Robert DeNiro and Barry Levinson, and he has a long-term collaborative relationship with Spike Lee. His ten films with Mr. Lee started with She's Gotta Have It, and continued through the most recent Inside Man. Mr. Thomas is the first African-American Production Designer in the history of movies, and the first to become an ADG member and to be nominated for an ADG Award (for Mars Attacks!). Some of his work includes the Academy Award ® -winning A Beautiful Mind, Malcolm X, Cinderella Man, Wag the Dog and Get Smart. He lives in New York City. PATRICE VERMETTE was born in 1970 in Montreal, Quebec, and studied at Concordia University in Montreal. Over the past 25 years, he has designed over six hundred television commercials in Canada and abroad, fifteen feature films and over forty music videos. His feature film career took off after the release of the Canadian independent coming-of-age movie C.R.A.Z.Y., for which he won the Genie Award. He followed up with The Young Victoria, for which he received an Academy Award ® nomination in 2010. Elements of his work on the film have been displayed in the exhibit De Fil en Aiguilles at Le Musee de L'Amerique Francaise in Quebec City. Patrice's recent film credits include Enemy, Prisoners, Sicario and the newly released Arrival. Outside of Canada and the United States, Patrice has filmed in France, England, Hungary, Tunisia, Morocco, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chili, Mexico and Fiji. PETER WENHAM began his career working at the BBC, after studying interior design and architecture at De Monfort University. He moved on to Independent Television (ITV) and London Weekend Television (LWT) in the United Kingdom as an Art Director on a range of successful television programs, including Agatha Christie's Poirot, among others. He then ventured into film and television movies and received Emmy Award ® nominations for both Hornblower: Mutiny and Hornblower: Duty. This led to working as a Supervising Art Director in feature films in the United Kingdom on The Bourne Supremacy, Kinky Boots, The Queen, which was nominated for an ADG Award, and Blood Diamond. Bourne Supremacy led to his becoming the Production Designer for The Bourne Ultimatum, which was nominated for an ADG Award. In the United States, Peter designed Battle Los Angeles, Fast Five, 21 Jump Street and Now You See Me. He is currently preparing M:I6 at Paramount.