From the jump, Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” throws audiences into the devastation of World War II–era London. Told from the point of view of 9-year-old George Hanway (Elliott Heffernan) and his mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), the film takes us on a perilous journey as German bombs rain down on the city.
Oscar-winning production designer Adam Stockhausen had a major hand in creating this sprawling world. Here, he discusses his meticulous research process, how he used visuals to bring viewers into the story, and McQueen’s organic approach to filmmaking.
There’s abundant reference material available from Blitz-era London. How much did you rely on those sources for your research?
It was important to Steve to be as accurate as possible [when it came to] real places like the Café de Paris nightclub: What did the staircase there look like? What did the lighting look like? How big was it? Let’s try to be true to the real footprint of the place. All those things are important.
But then it’s the storytelling part to say, OK, but which of those images do you focus on specifically, and how do you stitch them together to make narrative sense? In this case, it was about telling the story in a way that grounds the audience and helps show them around.
The Subtle Art of Saoirse Ronan The opening sequence of “Blitz,” which depicts firefighters tackling a post-bombing blaze, is incredibly intense. Do you storyboard sequences like that?
We were storyboarding it and doing sketches of it, and we were talking it through. That scene was the elephant in the room, though, because it’s a big, expensive thing, but it’s the intro [to the film]. The entire time, we were trying to think: OK, how can we take what we’re already doing and have it serve a dual purpose to give us this story at the beginning without ever saying we’re doing something just for that [opening sequence]? Because that would be a poor use of our resources.
As the big sets for the movie started taking shape, we were able to storyboard from what we already had. We were trying to find this level of abstraction that Steve wanted, where you’re overwhelmed by the intensity and randomness of it: You can go from perfectly fine to total destruction in the blink of an eye, and you lose your sense of geography and sense of reality, in a way. How do you find that? Since the sets were already being built, we went into it in a storyboarding way and said, “Let’s try to find some images and stitch them together in motion to make a sketch of what this scene ultimately could become.”
The London Tube system is a major setting in the film. How did you approach the sequence that’s set there?
My worry in the Tube scene was: How are we going to do this? We got lost immediately in the mechanical problems. I was obsessed with providing enough geography; I think a place becomes believable when you see how you get there. You go through the door, you go down the stairs, you go past the guy yelling at you about this and that. Then there’s another side passage, or someone’s in your way. It’s only as you experience those things and work your way through that you actually get to the destination.
My obsession is [creating a sense of] scale and scope so the audience will be completely with us by the time we finally get down to the platform. I wasn’t going to worry too much about whatever anyone else had done. I thought the way we were approaching it was probably different and interesting enough that we would end at our own kind of place anyway. I would probably mess myself up by looking at other things.
There’s a key sequence set in a shopping arcade that allows the film to explore the impact of racist, colonial imagery on George, who is Black. Did the space click for you immediately when you found it?
We found it in Hull, but all we found was a semi-occupied shopping arcade that had nothing to do with the British Empire; that [imagery] was entirely brought in by us and Anna. We knew we wanted to use the space, because it was such a great architectural thing. The arcade is exterior but roofed in, so it’s a space where we could justify having a little bit of light on the street. It seemed like this quiet part, this little side eddy in the stream of the street traffic of London, where we could show the moment of George meeting [Nigerian air raid warden] Ife [Benjamin Clémentine].
I took Steve there and he loved it, so we knew we wanted to shoot there. It was only a day or two later that I got a phone call, and Steve’s like, “I have an idea; stop the presses! Empire Arcade—that’s what this is going to be. It’s going to be about George confronting his reality as it relates to the empire in the same moment that he meets Ife.” It’s perfectly Steve, and it comes from his magic as a storyteller.
You’ve worked on multiple projects with Wes Anderson, a filmmaker with a very specific visual sensibility. Do you find yourself bringing elements from your experiences with him into other projects?
In lots of ways, I would say yes. A lot of the team members are shared. Anna Pinnock and I worked on all kinds of films together; we’ve done films with Wes and Steven Spielberg, and then we came to this. We’re bringing everything we’ve learned from those projects to our way of working. There are commonalities between these filmmakers that influence your process; it grows and grows and grows.
For instance, there’s a deep regard for finding specifics in the reference material that you’re going to bring out in the design. That’s something that fits perfectly with Steve McQueen and is at the core of his way of working; it’s a perfect blend of these things. We’ll pick apart research images, find specific stories, and magnify them into big shots in the film.
What advice would you give to someone who’s interested in becoming a production designer?
I started in film as an assistant art director. [Before that,] I worked in theater and did every backstage job you can think of, from hanging lights to building sets to painting backdrops for opera. Then, I transitioned into designing for theater and opera, and from there, I came to film thanks to a series of very fortunate events.
So I would say that there are different paths [into film production design]. The theater path that I took is still a viable one, and other people come from the world of painting. A lot of people come from the world of architecture because, just like me, they have the skills to do the drawings and the drafting, and that’s a way through the door.
I’m not going to say it’s easy, but there’s more opportunity now than ever, simply by virtue of [the fact that] there are more productions than ever; it seems to be growing and growing all the time. One of the things that’s really great and kind of beautiful about the industry is that we are all building our teams from job to job. We have to keep reinventing everything every single time we do that. Some people are able to stay with you, and it’s wonderful when you can work with people again and again.
But we move to different cities, and people move up very quickly. There are people who came into my art department as assistants who are now producing and researchers who are designers or art directors. The industry does allow for that because we reinvent all the time; when somebody works really hard and is capable, they move forward very quickly.
There’s a key scene in a shopping arcade that explores the impact of colonial imagery on George, who is Black. When you found that space, did it click for you immediately?
We found it in Hull, but all we found was a semi-occupied shopping arcade that had nothing to do with the British Empire; that [imagery] was entirely brought in by us and Anna. But we knew we wanted to use the space because it was such a great architectural thing. The arcade is exterior but roofed in, so it seemed like [it would be a good place to film] this quiet part, this little side eddy in the stream of the street traffic of London.
I took Steve there, and he loved it. A day or two later, I got a phone call, and he was like, “I have an idea; stop the presses! Empire Arcade—that’s what this is going to be. It’s going to be about George confronting his reality as it relates to the empire in the same moment that he meets [Nigerian air raid warden] Ife [Benjamin Clémentine].” It’s perfectly Steve, and it comes from his magic as a storyteller.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
This story originally appeared in the Nov. 14 issue of Backstage Magazine.
