Daniel Raim directed two compelling documentaries about production designers- his Oscar® nominated film The Man On Lincoln’s Nose, which focused on legendary Hitchcock designer Bob Boyle (North by Northwest, the Birds) and now his new feature, Something Gonna Live, which follows Bob Boyle as he reunites with master production designers Henry Bumstead (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sting) and Albert Nozaki (The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments) storyboard artist Harold Michelson (Ben Hur, The Graduate) and renowned cinematographers Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and Haskell Wexler (The Thomas Crown Affair, Medium Cool).
AS: What was the process getting everything started in the beginning- what made you want to do either of these projects?
DR: I have to go back to 1997. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, how to enter the film industry, but with my background as a painter and a sculptor I thought production design would be a great way to go. I heard about the American Film Institute where Robert Boyle, then 89 years old, was chair of the production design discipline. I had a one-on-one meeting with him and I felt that this is the guy I want to learn from -not only about production design- but about film making in general.
The first thing you notice is his sort of general humility and humanity and that this guy is a walking, living, breathing artist in the highest sense of the term. Philosophical, artful, humanistic, and extremely talented -which is clear if you watch his designs for Fiddler on the Roof -how he created the entire town of Anatevka from the ground up, the Shtetl, and of course the more prestigious Hitchcock films like North by Northwest which has such a beautiful look to it. It was just so amazing to meet this guy.
The Variety review called the film [Somethings Gonna Live] delightfully rambling and unexpectedly moving and as a student at Bob’s classes that was my experience. When people like Henry Bumstead or Harold Michelson would co-lecture with Bob you’d see these guys on stage and you’d see their shared history and their amazing mastery of film making. They sort of came to life to me as people, not just as names or credits on a movie screen, and that is what I found inspiring.
So the film Something’s Gonna Live, the new film, is an exploration of these masters and their artistry as well as their personalities and their friendships because somehow that pertains to how amazing their work is. It’s through their personalities that I feel you can get close to what their art is. Making a film that investigated them as artists was more interesting to me than just having them sit down in front of a camera and describe their methods. So that they come alive to the viewers as people.
