Production Designers

Here is how this works in practice. We place production designers who define the look of features, series and commercials shooting in the Czech Republic. Our production designers research and conceive the visual world, design sets and locations, lead the art director and the construction, set-dressing and props teams, and steer the design from concept art through to camera-ready environments.

Here is the short of it. The Czech Republic is one of Europe's top design environments: Barrandov Studios, founded in 1933, offers stages and construction workshops; Prague's medieval, baroque and art-nouveau cityscape provides standing period architecture; and castles such as Karlštejn and Loket and UNESCO towns like Český Krumlov extend the palette. Our production designers set up with the director and director of photography on the visual approach, manage the art-department budget against the Czech Film Fund's 20% cash rebate, and work fluently in English with crews accustomed to global productions.

Here is the breakdown. The Czech Republic's reputation as the 'Hollywood of the East' rests heavily on its production design. 'Amadeus', filmed in Prague in 1984, used the city's intact 18th-century architecture to recreate imperial Vienna and won eight Oscars; since then 'Hellboy', 'Blade II', 'The Brothers Grimm', 'The Illusionist', 'Snowpiercer' and series such as 'Carnival Row' and 'The Wheel of Time' have built ambitious worlds at Barrandov and across Czech locations.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. The country's design talent trains through FAMU — the Prague film school founded in 1946 — and through the studios' workshop traditions, producing designers fluent in period grandeur, fantasy and today's realism. A Czech production designer brings not only craft but knowledge of where the country can deliver a look: which streets double for which European capital. This castle suits which era, and how to build cost-good at Barrandov.