Grant Major: Oscar-winning designer...

Kiwi production designer Grant Major has worked on many of New Zealand’s biggest films such as An Angel At My Table, Heavenly Creatures, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Whale Rider, and King Kong. In 2004, Major won an Academy Award for his design work on The Return of the King.

In this ScreenTalk, Major talks about:

• Working with Jane Campion to design An Angel At My Table
• Creating highly detailed sets for Heavenly Creatures
• How plans for The Lord of the Rings trilogy changed over time
• The challenges of creating the hill-top Edoras set for The Two Towers
• Trying to find the right ‘feel’ for the look of Whale Rider
• Why King Kong was a true production designer’s film
• Advancing his international career by designing The Green Lantern

This video was first uploaded on 31 July 2012, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside