Making a movie is a really a team work, in which the production designer is one of the pillars: together with the cameraman and the director works on the production design of the film and he/she is responsible for creating this „world” in front of the camera. This task requires creativity, good communication skills and managerial attitude as he/she needs to pay attention to the design, execution, budget in cooperation with the design sections within a certain time.

First of all, I approach a film by looking at the story’s dramaturgy and the actors. Of course, there are feelings, visual plans in my head from the beginning but these do not unravel at the time of writing a script or thinking over the film’s trailer. For me as a director the production designer is an indispensable colleague who helps the film’s visual layers to function, resonate each other or get into contrast. With regards to this we find the scenes together. The places shown in the film need to be authentic; true to the story and all the elements need to come together as a whole.

Every film festival and film award raising attention to the creative film professional’s work calls the awareness to the fact that making a film is done by many people and it is team work. On the occasion of the Alexandre Trauner ART/Film Festival the creative and practical film making can reveal itself. The production designers finally can show their faces and they have a chance to give their knowledge at the programs and meetings to the curious audience and the beginner filmmakers too.

With the production designer of Valan, Csaba Damokos and his crew I have various exciting stories. One of them is a lifelike example, an action scene of the Balanbánya cemetery, where one of the suspects had to climb through the fence. We have tried to create an authentic moment which slows down his movement, stops his escape and the policeman catches him up. Csaba simply stood in front of the crew, he showed it but he slipped on the icy boards which fell down on the steep hills, at the last moment he grabbed himself. He looked at us and said the scene is ready. In connection with filming most of the times the easier is the greater, there is no need to over combine a scene.