Award-winning production designer gives students insights into screen industry careers
Stage and screen faculty students from The Northern School of Art’s BA (Hons) Production Design for Stage and Screen and BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX degrees were given first-hand industry insights in a recent talk by award-winning production designer Matt Gant.
Matt works in film, television drama and commercials and his most recent work includes the Netflix fantasy series ‘Shadow & Bone‘ filmed in Budapest, and the contemporary crime thriller ‘Gangs of London’ for Sky Atlantic/HBO with genre Directors Corin Hardy, Xavier Gens and Gareth Evans.
Nominated twice for both BAFTA and RTS Best Production Design awards and productions, he won the EMMY for Best Drama Series and the BAFTA Audience Award.
In his talk Matt spoke in depth about working in the industry and shared some of his work from Gangs of London.
Charlie Poole, from Middlesbrough, a final year student on The Northern School of Art’s BA (Hons) Production Design for Stage and Screen course, said that he had found the talk very useful.
“Matt spoke about his journey from leaving university and how he got to the position he is in now. We were able to ask questions about his career and how he started off as it is all relevant to us.”
“He spoke a lot about the industry and showed us pieces of his own work from Sky Atlantic’s Gangs of London. He explained the differences of working on a location and a physical studio build which was very interesting as was the explanation of the details about his job and the process of his work.”
Charlie added: “One thing that I didn’t expect Matt to talk about was the use of live animals in the TV production. For one of the scenes in an old abattoir, the production team wanted to include real cows in the background. He explained how he tackled the problems of dealing with them such as how to make sure they were handled safely and how he got them into the building. He told us that at the entrance there was a big drop meaning the cows couldn’t manoeuvre round to the steps, so they built a ramp allowing the cows to safely walk down.
“He also spoke about all the opportunities for students like us who will be graduating soon and gave advice on how to get a foot in which was a big help and inspiration for all of us there.”
Matt Gant www.mattgant.com
Find out more about The Northern School of Art’s range of creative courses here
