From working on The Nightmare Before Christmas to the Madagascar series, Kendal Cronkhite shares about life in Hollywood, and what it takes to bring characters from sketch to screen.
From working on The Nightmare Before Christmas to the Madagascar series, Kendal Cronkhite shares about life in Hollywood, and what it takes to bring characters from sketch to screen.
Always jump at opportunities
“I didn’t intend to design for film. I was an editorial illustrator at the time and I was referred to Henry Selick on The Nightmare Before Christmas because my personal illustration style was similar to what they wanted. I love drawing and painting and I got to do that on this movie. I also built models, painted puppets, and did scenic painting and dressing on the sets. I crawled around all those sets adjusting all day! The process really fulfilled all my creative passions and I was hooked.”
The devil is in the details
“A Production Designer designs the entire look of the movie. We hire our art team and work with them to design the environments, characters, props, and lighting. Everything has to be designed, from the leaves on a tree to the shape of an ear.
My days change over the course of a production. In the beginning, I’m mostly at my drawing table or computer designing, collecting references, hiring my team, and having many conversations with the directors about the vision for the movie. Then when the team gets going, I’m over at other artists’ desks looking at their work, sketching ideas and building the look of the film through each relevant department. This happens over a period of three to four years and I’m usually one of the first positions hired and the last to finish the show. The complexities of this process are staggering!”
Have your own style yet be flexible with it
“To be in the business, you need a great artistic foundation – you have to learn to design well, understand composition, color, and art history. Find your particular artistic point of view or style, but be able to have some stylistic flexibility as well, as this will help your longevity in the business and keep you creatively challenged. Watch other movies and understand what makes a well-designed film and how design can support the story.”
Always go with the flow or you’ll be left behind
“I started in stop motion, so my adjustment to 3D Computer-generated Imagery (CGI) was not as bumpy as you might think. I went from designing a 3D world practically to designing it in the computer virtually. I guess that was the biggest bump. I was used to getting my hands on everything, crawling around a set, walking around a sculpture of a character, moving real lights, drawing with charcoal and ink, and painting on paper. Now, everything I judge is on a flat screen. At first, it was hard getting a feel for that and to really understand how texture and color worked in the CGI space. And in the early days, the software capabilities were pretty limited as well. A character could barely cast a shadow on our first CGI film, Antz. Now, we can do very complex things, but [creating] CGI fur is still expensive!”
Career Experience
1989 Graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design
1989 Freelance editorial illustrator in Canada and New York
1991 Assistant Art Director at Skellington Productions/Disney
1995 Art Director at Skellington Productions/Disney
1996-present
Production Designer at DreamWorks Animation
