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I'm a Concept Artist (and Industrial Designer) working in feature film. Well, it all started from an early age in Limerick city Ireland. I had a strong talent for creativity, observing and absorbing detail and a mind with a high level of intuition that could understand how things worked before taking them apart. As a child I broke all my toys and all my brothers and sister's toys. I just had this need to know what was inside and how they worked. I even broke all the clocks in the house especially the one that had to get us up in the morning for school but could never get them back together, so I was always caught red handed with bit of cogs everywhere.  One time I cut the eyes out of my sister's doll, I wanted to know why the eyes closed and opened when you placed her on her back, mayhem ensued when my sister turned the doll around and found the eye cut out - it was like something from a horror film - that was the beginning of my long journey that today finds me working in the film industry, at least I think it is, and my love for story telling and design that's in my blood. 

 

The curiosity I have for all things in life has stood to me - curiosity is the seed of creativity. Stop and look at the world around you, there are natural and man-made things. Look up and look down not just straight ahead, there are things happening that most people overlook, your journey is on a winding path not a straight one and the longer your journey to your destination, the more you learn. Most of what I've learnt in life is self taught -apart from my degree in industrial design. When I found an interest in the film industry I had to know how all the creative jobs worked, from the writing of a script to the Art Department's building of a world, to SFX, to camera filming techniques of a scene and the equipment used in all areas of a film project.   

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So what do I do on a day to day basis? The concept artist's role is to generate ideas and also to take ideas already in development from Art directors in the art department and help them also sell a design to the director and producers of the project. These areas of design are development of sets, props and establishing environments in a film using artwork. These designs and images are key to the whole flow of ideas through all the departments on the production, VISUAL IMAGES are the keystone of a film production, without them every thing can grind to a halt.

 

Its true in my job, a picture does paint a thousand words. I do a concept and the Art department, the FX department and the shooting crew feed off the visuals, but first it will go through the Production Designer for editing and direction and then onto the Director and Producers to get the OK to build the set. If the set doesn't get the OK then the set doesn't get built and its back to the drawing board. Hundreds of quick ideas can be generated depending on the project and Production designer, so the responsibility of the concept designer is to get the Director to say "I love it" which is a lot harder than it looks. So what is my job?  In one simple statement "I oil the wheels of a production to help the Art department move the design process forward by idea generation and illustration" creating a visual world from the script. I've even influenced script writers to change their description of a scene on paper because they like my design,  but the key figure above us all is the Production Designer in the art department, who is the conductor of talented people beneath them. They know who to give what job to and how to get the best use of their talent, they brief you on the design direction to go in so that we are focused and productive.

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