A film's art director is in charge of the set, from conception to construction to furnishing. This short film walks the viewer through art directors' responsibilities and the demands on their talents. They read a script carefully and design a set to capture the time and place, the social strata, and the mood. They must be scholars of the history of architecture, furnishings, and fashion. They choose the colors on a set in anticipation of the lighting and the mood. Their work also sets styles, from Art Deco in the 20's to 30s modernism. Then it's on to the next project. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphre...

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces an...

One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incu...
Documentary short film reporting on the activities of the American Red Cross and the useage made of ...

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The cost...

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each wa...

A lyrical recreation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start s...

The Town was a short propaganda film produced by the Office of War Information in 1945. It presents ...

Les Blank's poetic documentation of 1967's Los Angeles Easter Sunday Love-In. Preserved by the Acad...

A portrait of artist, actress, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, it shows images of her paintings...

This is a film made in Toronto, in memoriam, so to speak - a memory piece, a "piecing-together" of t...

Kavery Kaul’s engaging documentary traces the history of calypso and soca music from their birth in ...

A sideshow barker uses magic and visual aids to alert the public that proper food management is both...

A propaganda short about the 1944 United States presidential election, produced by the Office of War...

Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "ch...

This Oscar-winning documentary tells the story behind Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura's 1970 effor...
Bay Area filmmakers and Canyon Cinema co-founders Ben Van Meter and Bruce Conner were invited to L.A...

This short on movie sound men starts with a short history of sound in the movies. We then see how th...

A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender perso...

Follows a crusading lawyer as he embarks on a campaign to save an African-American man, Paul Crump, ...