Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
10 P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 contributors As a child, JUDY BECKER loved music and art. Her mother took her to galleries and museums by the age of five, and she still remembers her first trip to the Guggenheim Museum and her astonishment at its architecture. Growing up, her favorite activities were drawing and making things for her dollhouse (which contained no dolls), building additions for them out of blocks, complete with secret rooms and towers. After four years of college musicology and ear training, she turned back to art and she began working as an Art Department assistant. Working her way up the ladder was "The best training anyone could receive. Combined with my own love of art, photography and design, it was the education I needed to become a Production Designer." She received Oscar ® and BAFTA nominations for American Hustle, and an ADG Award for the pilot of Lena Dunham's Girls. When not working on location, Ms. Becker lives in Manhattan's Washington Heights with her husband, film editor Michael Taylor. Born and raised in New York City, JAMES CHINLUND studied fine art at CalArts in Los Angeles, experimenting in light sculpture and large-scale installation work. After graduating, he returned to New York and started his film career as a carpenter before finding his first opportunities as a designer on independent films and music videos. During this period, he worked with frequent collaborator/director Darren Aronofsky, in addition to other directors in the New York independent film world, including Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader and Spike Lee. Mr. Chinlund has been active in commercials and fashion as well, collaborating with Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Spike Jonze, Fredrik Bond, Lance Acord, Gus Van Sant and Harmony Korine. In 2010, he won both the Art Directors Guild and the AICP awards for Absolut World, a commercial with director Rupert Sanders. In 2012, he completed work on The Avengers for Marvel. Mr. Chinlund now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Clare and daughter Ruby. "Are you from Germany?" is the first question MARCO MIEHE gets asked when he speaks with his Teutonic accent, and he replies: "I am from Berlin...I grew up as an American citizen in a well-protected sector of West Berlin, and I am an American Berliner living in Los Angeles since 1994." For young Marco, the first exposure to Set Design came at an early age watching set construction for a carnival. Since 1961, the American Freedom Forces created the annual Deutsch-Amerikanisches Volksfest, featuring constructed sets representing the United States by place, culture and history. Similar to studio backlots, these cultural sets represent locations from Hawaii to Massachusetts, San Francisco to New York, US history from the Alamo to Native American villages. After moving to Hollywood, he has worked as a Set Designer on series such as Boston Legal, 90210, Revenge and Rosewood. He was nominated for an ADG Award with Production Designer Carlos Barbosa on 24. Since beginning his career as a fine artist, TODD FJELSTED's critically lauded gallery pieces have included paintings, sculptures, installations and photography. He segued into print and commercial art direction and photography in the early 2000s, and among his prolific work included album packaging; movie posters; advertising campaigns for shows such as Lost, Revenge and Desperate Housewives; and celebrity editorial photography for GQ, Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly. In 2003, his short film The Firefly Man screened at the Telluride Film Festival, won Best Animated Short at WorldFest-Houston, and sold to the Sundance Channel. Mr. Fjelsted's recent projects include The Adderall Diaries, starring Amber Heard, James Franco and Ed Harris; the ABC movie Exposed for director Patty Jenkins; and the 2014 period thriller White Bird in a Blizzard for director Gregg Araki, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. He lives in Los Angeles. Blame JOHN MUTO's high school years—a city boy trapped in an arid, Central Valley farm town—for his eventual career in this crazy business. He graduated from UC Berkeley in English literature, but skipped film school because joining an avant-garde dance troupe seemed like more fun. Recalling the instructional documentaries on Walt Disney 's Wonderful World of Color led him into animation, which in turn led to creating sequences for an Oingo Boingo band feature called Forbidden Zone. That work landed him a job at Roger Corman's Venice visual effects facility. Designing effects took him to Production Design, first, Night of the Comet, next, River's Edge. He went mainstream with Home Alone, Species, and T2 3-D: Battle Across Time. He founded the Art Directors Guild Film Society, out of "a selfish desire to get to know the oldtimers before they were gone." Mr. Muto lives in a storybook-style home in Los Feliz with his wife, costume designer Mary Vogt, and two shorthair cats, a Bengal and a Bombay.