North By Northwest – homage to Robert Boyle – Art Director. . .

It was of interest that I read of the passing of Academy Award winning film production designer and art director Robert F. Boyle died recently at the age of 100. This man, responsible for conceiving and realizing the physical look of a motion picture, worked on more than 100 films during an amazing career that spanned six decades.

I always thought that working as an art director for a film would be a phenomenal experience that I think that I would enjoy tremendously. Robert Boyle left his mark in some true classics of American cinema, including  Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" , "The Birds" and Norman Jewison's "Fiddler on the Roof," amongst others.

Since I still won’t have my new studio set up for a few weeks, I felt the urge to make something artistic on the computer. Fittingly, and in homage to the brilliant artistic mind and vision of Mr. Boyle, I digitally reworked some stills from the Hitchcock masterpiece “North By Northwest”. To this day, visuals (a la art direction) from this film still enthrall and amaze – the “cornfield scene” is pure genius and it has been recreated artistically countless times since the film’s 1959 release.

Enjoy.