What do you do?
I’m known as a production designer, which really is what it says: it’s designing a film production. The term came about with William Cameron Menzies, who was given the title by Selznick on Gone With the Wind.
How did you start?
My mother had a boarding house in London in the 1930s, and I was very lucky to meet the Korda brothers there. Alex (Korda) saw that I was painting, and told me he could get me work on a film set to use my work in their experiments with Technicolor. I then met Vincent Korda, who advised me to study architecture. I did, and I’ve been grateful ever since, because it’s a discipline that enabled me to design the giant sets for the Bond movies and be sure they ‘d stay up. Once I had started to make my way as an art director in the mid-1950s, I soon discovered that I wanted to be more involved with the director and script ideas, So I called myself a production designer.
If I told you I was making a sci-fi adventure set in 2050, what would be your first question?
I would ask you how you visualise it. Because if you don’t say that it’s not very respectful to the director, and most directors have ideas about how they want something to look. But basically you start off with a blank sheet, which is the screenplay; you then discuss ideas for sets and so on, with each of you coming up with ideas. It’s a collaborative process.
What if I didn’t like your ideas?
I’m very open-minded, so if I feel that the director has good reason for not liking something then I’ll come up with a different idea. Sometimes, talking things through can work really well. On The Ipcress File, the producer Harry Saltzman — who was also the Bond producer — told me I could have all the latest gadgets and computers for the office of the boss of MI5. But I thought it might be more interesting if the office was empty, with nothing but a trestle table, a camp bed and a bust of a general.
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Sidney J. Furie, the director, loved the idea, so that’s what we did. Harry went ballistic and stormed off the set, accusing me of siding with the director against him, and then came back two hours later saying he loved it. That year I was nominated for Baftas for both Thunderball and The Ipcress File. When Ipcress won, Cubby [Broccoli, the other Bond producer] refused to talk to me!
Who decides how much money you get out of a budget?
The producer, always. When I started I never had enough money, but limitations can be stimulating. It’s often cheaper, for instance on a film such as The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), for me to create my visualisation of a stately home than slavishly to re-create one.
Ken Adam: The Art of Production Design is published by Faber at £20. The Ipcress File special edition DVD is out now.