Mis en Scene

Simon Lamont.
Art director, production design.

- The Dark Knight
-The Prestige
- Batman Begins
- Harry Potter
- Casino Royale
- Hellboy

Simon Lamont has worked with Christopher Nolan on several occasions, but mostly has worked on television. Nolan's The Prestige was nominated for an Oscar for best Art Direction.

An art director's job essentially is to visually translate emotion or a message on screen, using production and set design. They also communicate directly with the personnel like the Art department coordinator and construction coordinator.

What the art/production design did in this scene was focused on set design. They filmed this scene in an old abandoned factory, so the task was to make it look just like a hospital. It started out as a candy factory in Chicago. This scene payed very close attention to detail in that regard when showing in the inside of the hospital. You can see clipboards hanging up and gurneys throughout the hallway as it's being destroyed.

The outside of it was painted to look more like a hospital and "Gotham General Hospital" was added on, although it's barely in the film. You can also see the colors and the "EMERGENCY"that was added at the top right there.

The attention to detail solidifies the reality of the film and pulls the viewer, in a sense, into the world. That is the task that every art director has on a film.

Axioms of Web Design

Socio-Design is a graphic design studio based out of London. Their website reflects their experience with design because it's appealing to look at and easy to navigate.
1. Because the website fairly simplistic, it gives you just a few options to select that will take you to their designs, their information, how to contact them, etc. You can navigate the entire website in a couple minutes, yet it gives you everything they provide.
2. The grid use in here is obvious. Although it doesn't require much scrolling at all, the small grid they use gives you everything you need on the website.
3. The lower right hand side shows symbols that link to their Instagram and Twitter, not necessarily any images.
4.The way I looked at this page was the top first, and then left, down, right and then up. By establishing everything up front and organizing it very simply, they give you everything to look at.
5. This is very intuitive. It makes it as simple as possible. Even for someone who doesn't use the internet that much could figure it out in a short time.
6. The products in the images have a pastel sort of color to them, subtle but really colorful against the plain white background.
7. I think good design in terms of usability is made easy with a minimalistic approach like this. Not only is it aesthetically interesting, but it functions really well.
8. The website converts to mobile perfectly. The design on the mobile is different, more minimalistic and just as easy to navigate.

Composing a Frame

Rule of thirds: The focal point of this picture is the tip of the cigar, which is in the bottom left hand side of the frame. Adding those invisible lines in their, everything would be separated into their own spots of the picture. The upper half is out of focus, making the lower quadrants stand out more.

Diagonal rule: The background provides vertical lines from the wall, to the gate, and the grill. The center piece of focus is the cutter, which is facing diagonally from the bottom left to the upper right.

Vectors: The movement of this picture goes towards the background, the top of the frame. The bottom half of the picture is more in focus than the top, making it seem closer.

Contrast, Balance and Harmony

I love this photo. This is one of those pictures I look at and feel awesome about. A photographer took this for Radio City, which you can see in the background. The only words in this are "Radio City" and it was taken to be used by them for a band concept, but it was turned down so it just hangs up in the actual building. I love how calm everything is like it's a normal busy day in the city and even this astronaut who is on fire is passively walking at the cross walk. I feel good about this one because it makes me feel like this is my calling in life: to make music videos or just awesome things like that. In terms of contrast, it's a lot lighter on one side and darker on the other because of the smoke from the flames. The color of the flames in on itself varies a bit from dark red and orange to yellow, on top of the white astronaut, which makes it the focus of the picture. This picture is asymmetrical, but the astronaut is perfectly centered and the light on one side and dark on the other give it a greater purpose to be that way. It actually has a bit of depth because the photographer took this photo at an angle and we see the cars going down the street.

Rogue beer is known for its interesting designs. And great taste. Rogue beer has a few different kinds of beers that are shown above and they all have a very interesting concept and design. Basically, they're all different kinds of people on each of the bottles from different walks of life, but they're all doing the same thing: drinking beer and raising a hand or a fist, meaning they're united in their love for the beer.
As far as contrast goes, the design is very simplistic but very affective.  Each bottle has a two-dimensional design of a man using only a few different colors to illustrate them. The colors are bright and inviting to make it stand out against the very dark brown bottle. The men is perfectly centered on each bottle, partially covering up the logo on the bottle.

Design is reminiscent of quality in this case. Natural Light has an overall boring design. The can has a dull silver plain aluminum look, along with the boring text in the logo make it very overlooked when you walk past it. There is a faint texture behind the logo going horizontally across the can and at the bottom there's a blue gradient. In terms of contrast, the logo is blue and red, a dark color and a light color which makes the logo stand out slightly. Everything you need to see on the can is bunched up very tightly on a vertical axis. 

Both beers are simplistic in design, but one is dull and boring and the other has a charm to it.