ADG Perspective

6 P E R S P E C T I V E | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 2 2 M I C H A E L D E N E R I N G is a native Californian who began his career as an apprentice Scenic Artist at CBS Television City in 1978. From there, he moved to the Center Theatre Group and Grosh Studios. The love of motion pictures led him to the Warner Bros. Scenic Art Department, where he spent 30 years creating backdrops, billboards, murals and trompe- l'oeil for over 200 feature films. He also had the opportunity to work with many highly skilled artists, as well as talented and award-winning Art Directors making movie magic. As a member of IATSE for 44 years, he served on the Board of Directors of the former Local 816 and Local 800 after the merger in 2003 with the Art Directors Guild. He also cochaired committees for Gallery 800, the Figure Drawing Workshop and the Cowboy Festival, all events that the Guild sponsored. He has also created murals for Atlantic City-Golden Nugget, Las Vegas-The Venetian, Italy, Japan, China, Spain and France, Warner Bros. and had a 10-year relationship with Fox Studios. O L I V I E R A D A M is currently working as an Art Director at Illumination Mac Gu in Paris, France. He finished the production of Sing 2, directed by Garth Jennings in November 2020 and Despicable Me 3 directed by Pyer Con, Kyle Balda and Eric Guillon in January 2017. Olivier Adam has traveled globally to lend his talents—he worked as the Set Design Artistic Director for the film Arthur Christmas, directed by Sarah Smith and Barry Cook from Aardman Studios in Bristol, England, and Sony Pictures Imageworks in Los Angeles, California. He is also credited as the Supervising Art Director and set dressing supervisor 3D of The Tale of Despereaux, directed by Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen, a Universal production in London, England. He has worked previously as a layout director and workbook director for Disneytoon Studios in Sydney, Australia, and as a layout supervisor for Walt Disney Feature Animation France. F R A N Ç O I S A U D O U Y was born in Toulouse, France, and raised in a small town north of Los Angeles, where his passion for movies grew from habitual visits to the Towne Theater, which showed one film a week on its single screen. Seminal movies that hit like sledgehammers during this time included E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future…and of course, Ghostbusters. Over a 25-year career, François has contributed concept and graphic designs to doens of films and won two ADG Awards. François has always been an early adopter of new design technologies, and in the mid '0s was one of the first union illustrators working digitally. As Production Designer, François designed the films Dracula Untold, directed by Gary Shore; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, directed by Timur Bekmambetov; The Wolverine, Logan, and Ford v. Ferrari, directed by James Mangold; and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, directed by Jason Reitman. C O N T R I B U T O R S François has also created conceptual designs for such film franchises as Men in Black, Spider-Man, Transformers, Avatar and Jurassic World, and has designed music videos for such artists as Coldplay, BS, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Camila Cabello and Harry Styles. Last year was the first time that the ADG recognied a music video with an Excellence in Production Design Award, honoring Franois' designs for Harry Styles' video Falling.

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