Mis-En-Scene

Mad Max: Fury Road
Production Design (Colin Gibson)


I was very excited to be able to look further into what went into creating the world of Mad Max. Mad Max was very successful this year with awards and accolades many of which came from the design process of the film. I choose to analyze the production design process because I was curious about the vehicles that they constructed and used throughout the film which was a good majority of the production design that went into creating this film. In film a production designer is the person responsible for the physical overall look of the filmed event. Production designers have a very strong creative role in the creation of motion pictures and effectively portraying the stories they tell. Working directly with the director and producer, they must select the settings and style to visually tell the story. The ideas and concepts behind the production design had been in process for the last 15 years. This film was in the mind of George Miller back in the early 2000’s but faced many delays and speed bumps in the process of getting filming started and ready to shoot. Miller said that he did not feel he had to top himself in terms of production design compared to the previous films in the series. Instead, he wanted the production design to both reflect back to the earlier films and highlight the changes of the past 30 years. When you make a movie that's essentially one long car chase, you're going to need a production designer who knows cars. Colin Gibson, the production designer, said that they developed an internally consistent history to explain the film's look and justify its use of hot rods. Gibson designed the film's vehicles, all of which are fully functional. Construction of some of the vehicles began as early as 2003.The cars were designed to show characterization and detail in their own unique world, including the characters' feelings of guilt, loss, and their attempts to recycle the remains of civilization. Each was as unique as the characters. One of the things that’s clear in this movie is that everything is recycled. What is new is old again or what is old is new again, that everything is a composite of new and recycled parts, that everything gets repurposed. Something that I found interesting while listening to an interview with Colin Gibson was that each vehicle that was designed served a purpose and was treated as if it was its own character. Names were given to each vehicle and it had its own back story, as well as a planned end about how the vehicle will be destroyed along with the characters who drove them.

The vehicles design process was based heavily on recycled materials from many years and styles of vehicles. Many of them are designed using symmetrical and asymmetrical features depending on the style of the vehicle and the character who drove it. Balance and texture was highly considered in designing the vehicle. The vehicles needed to be fully functional so balancing them within their appropriate layout was crucial considering many different parts were used which brought different texture within the vehicle. Shape, and color were used to design the vehicles based on the salvaged parts as well as in its respect to the character. The use of lines was used in the layout in which they drove through the desert. They each had a respected place in the formation as they stayed in line and in sync as they drove. Also present within their formation is the concept of the figure ground relationship between the vehicles and desert floor. The way they were organized in their formation reminds me of the law of proximity were similar styles were grouped near each other. Other uses of lines were seen within the vehicles that make up their shapes. The vehicles matched the costumes and make-up design mainly due to the idea that the entirety of the movie was designed around the vehicles based from the story board. Essentially the vehicles are very unique but also represent a sense of similarity in color and in style between the vehicles and the characters. Each group was represented with a different style of vehicle but at the same time used the law of similarity based from the idea of using recycled materials from the apocalyptic world in which they operate.