Articles & Texticles

Preamble & Introduction

A long, long time ago, when I was a recent graduate and just starting to earn a crust in London, I found this book in a second hand bookshop in Covent Garden. I’d already spent my book budget for that month on a copy of the 1944 edition of Robert D. Field’s “The Art of Walt Disney”, but I could not resist overspending when I saw “Art & Design in The British Film”.

It is subtitled: `A Pictorial Directory of British Art Directors and their work´. The book was compiled by Edward Carrick, and published by Dennis Dobson Ltd, in 1948, if my latin numeral skillz still work properly. MCMXLVIII if they don’t.

In brief, the book consists of thirty one short chapters that summarize the work of film art directors working in Britain during the preceding 20 years, all arranged in alphabetical order.

There are some short reviews at the back of the book showing the work of a further 16 film artists.

Over the coming months, I’m going to post the images and the accompanying biographies of these artists. I have derived such value from them that I think it is only proper to share this excellent material.

I frequently use these images when lecturing animation students about composing images for film and TV, and they always ask for reference copies. I hope these coming posts wil satisfy those demands. It also explains why I’m including small captions with the pictures that point out the major compositional devices present in the pictures.

Just about all the illustrations in the book are in black and white, which in my view adds to their worth, especially given the subject matter.
I’ll post all the colour pictures in colour, of course.

I hope you all enjoy these pictures and texts, and that your own composition skills grow as a result of analysing how these art directors conveyed meaning from author to audience with such superb clarity.

Here’s the first Art Director in the series: W.C.ANDREWS

( Look for use of : Planar design, Tonal contrasts, Radiating lines )

( Look for use of : Tonal contrasts, Formal elements )

( Look for use of : Planar design )

( Look for use of : Depth of Field, Radiating lines )

The text of the entry for W.C. Andrews is below the fold. >>

W. C. Andrews

BILL ANDREWS left an interior decorating business of his own and began his film career in 1932 at the Gaumont Studios in Shepherd’s Bush, (West London). He started as a draughtsman and during the next 11 years learnt from Alfred Junge and other designers all that he could about the application of decor to films.

In 1941 he first worked as an art director on a film entitled ‘The Day Will Dawn’ and, as he says himself ‘. . . after many years as a draughtsman and an assistant I was at last to have that pleasant experience of expressing myself in my own handwriting’. The next film he worked on was Noel Coward’s ‘In Which We Serve’, and this time Andrews shared the art direction with David Rawnsley. The film was made during the war but Noel Coward did not, however, let this fact hamper the construction of his story, for the subject was epic. The backgrounds were to match. For certain scenes giant hydraulic rams gave the impression of rocking battleships on high seas, while in others explosions blew sailors into seas of oil.

Rawnsley’s unresting vigour, coupled with Andrews’s composure and decisiveness produced the most prodigious feats in the way of art direction that set the film world talking.

Between 1942 and 1947, ten more films proved Andrews’s worth as a designer. They were ‘Squadron Leader X’ directed by Lance Comfort; ‘Escape to Danger’ (Lance Comfort); ‘Hotel Reserve’ (Lance Comfort and Max Greene); ‘Yellow Canary’ (Herbert Wilcox); ‘Great Day’ (Lance Comfort); ‘I Live in Grosvenor Square’ (Herbert Wilcox); ‘Piccadilly Incident’ (Herbert Wilcox); ‘Gaiety George’ (George King); ‘The Courtneys of Curzon Street’ (Herbert Wilcox); ‘Mine Own Executioner’ (Anthony Kimmins).

Although Bill Andrews is a great admirer of the bold and almost scribbled sketches of some of his contemporaries, some of whom indicate a piece of furniture or an ornament with a few charcoal scratches,he is himself very precise. Through his studies he became an’expert on period furniture and decoration and is in the enviable position of being able to draw it all with ease.

When a design is made to be regarded solely as an adventure in one of the graphic arts, the more that is left to the imagination the better. But this is not so in films where a drawing has to be interpreted in the Studio by many assistants, set dressers and cameramen. Misinterpretation is disappointing. Artists like Andrews, Daniels, Junge and Irving avoid this by never being indefinite in their designs.

Andrews was elected a Fellow of the Incorporated Institute of British Decorators in 1931 and a member of the Foundation Committee of the Association of Artists in Commerce in 1932.