Design Better guest Autumn Durald Arkapaw wins an Oscar!
And other noteworthy guests who have been nominated or won this year and past years.
Aarron and I had a special reason to pay close attention to the Academy Awards this year: two of our guests, Autumn Durald Arkapaw and Fiona Crombie, were nominated for an Oscar.
And we weren’t disappointed—while unfortunately Fiona didn’t win for Production Design on Hamnet, Autumn did take home the statue for her cinematography work on Sinners. It was a historical win too, as the first woman, and first woman of color, to win that category.
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We chatted with Autumn about her creative process, including any “rules” she has (and when she breaks them), the overlap between photography and design, and how technology including AI and pre-visualization is changing the process of making films and television.
Other former guests on Design Better who’ve been nominated or won Academy Awards:
Fiona Crombie (nominated in production design this year for Hamnet).
In our conversation with Fiona, we explored how production design shapes performance, how historical accuracy balances with storytelling, how a visual “mission statement” guides an entire crew, and what it means to create environments that carry grief, love, and memory.
Shirley Kurata (nominated in costume design for Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022).
We spoke with Shirley Kurata about how working with a limited budget inspires creativity, how costume designers think about color in their work, and how they collaborate with directors and other colleagues to execute on the vision for the film.
Watch a short trailer from Shirley’s episode, paired with a trailer from our interview with production designer Yashar Kassai, in the clip above.
John Cleese (nominated for best original screenplay in 1988 for A Fish Called Wanda).
We spoke with John about his book Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, and also about creative collaboration in the midst of friction, how to be comfortable with ambiguity, and creating boundaries of space and time to get in a creative mode.
Ed Catmull (multiple Academy Awards for Technical Achievement, Scientific and Engineering Award, and more).
We chatted with Ed about his transition from creating things himself, to leading creative teams; the elements of a sustainable creative culture, and how to give people feedback so they’ll actually listen to you. Ed also collaborated with Steve Jobs longer than probably anyone else who knew him—for over 30 years—and we heard some stories that haven’t been told anywhere else.
Bonus: What designers can learn from filmmakers