Jiří Karásek
I am production designer and art director from Prague, Czech Republic. I have a long artistic background since I have been studying in both Stage Design for Theatre and Film Production Design departments at Academy of Performing Arts for last 6 years. I am mainly working as a freelance production designer in commercials and art director for Czech feature and TV movies. In addition, I work in theatres around Europe as a stage, costume and graphic designer.
I started this project as a part of my professional career as a production designer, because I would like to share my thoughts, hints and comments on cinematography, but mainly, because I felt there is a lack of knowledge from audience about what production designers do and do they bring to the movies. I also wanted to create hub, where people interested in production design and art direction for movies can find backstage and making of informations, designs, sketches and documentaries about their favourite movies.
Because big part of our work is also about gathering informations and doing deep research about different topics, I would also like to review different books relevant to our tasks.
You can find more about me here:
jirikarasek.com
facebook page
Film Production Design 
Hello Jiri,
Your blog is amazing, thank you so much, this type of info is really hard to find.
I’m a construction painter, I have studied cinematography , but ended up in the art department in 2016, after a break in film. I am from Portugal where the market is fairly competitive but also tiny and underfunded for film production.
Recently I accepted a job for a Bollywood production, I am supposed to help out the production designer, who is a mega boss in Mumbai, so I have to source everything out for him here in Portugal. I’m really scared because my training is empiric, not academic, also we hardly ever do anything like Bollywood. So I wanted to ask for your advice on what to watch out for when building the set. There are big action explosion gunshots, everything, total madness, I have no idea how these sets are built, in order to protect players during stunts…
Where do I buy specific materials? What course could I take in the future to improve my knowledge?
Thank you
LOOOOOve
Hello Flavia, thanks for reaching out. Having quite a lot experience shooting with Indian productions myself, I can only say, that there is nothing like being prepared for that experience. Their mentality and way of work is very different than what you can expect from EU or US crews. Generally you can try to help out watching documentaries, bonus materials on DVDs which I always found like a miracle source of art dpt informations many ears ago, but generally, what counts are the experience you gather during the years of shooting. My opinion is that on every shooting, especially if you tend to do commercials as well, you learn a new stuff, work with material you never did before, or think a way you never did before. And thats what I find amazing about our job. Its never ending journey of being anxious and nervous about new stuff, that in 99 percents turn into great climax as soon as you see your work in video village monitor. You have to be very cautious – you have to think a lot in advance – dont be afraid to ask if you dont understand something – point out when you feel that the other side is not understanding you – working in film is purely about collaboration – communicate – and I will give you advice that saved my ass many many times – in your head, always have a plan B for everything, because time to react is little and during our work, many things go wrong along the way and surely you will have to improvise… I wish you all the luck. Jiri