Bobby Miller
March 22, 2021
Creative Industry Insight Podcast (Instagram)
Creative Industry Insight is a podcast that is dedicated at looking at various roles undertaken in the creative sector.
Production Designer Donald Burt join us to talk about their work on Mank.
Executive Produced by Daniel Miller and Monika Ditton
Artwork Designed by Piotr Motyka
Music by ELPHNT
Contact: creativeindustryinsight@gmail.com
Listen to the podcast:
Gary Collinson
March 12, 2021
Flickering Myth
You would be forgiven for thinking production designer Donald Graham Burt works exclusively with David Fincher. His talents are visible in confirmed classics including Zodiac, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which he received an Oscar. Beyond that his work can also be appreciated in Donnie Brasco, Christian Bale headliner Hostiles and most recently Outlaw King featuring Chris Pine.
In conversation Donald is self-deprecating, effortlessly engaging and eloquent on his process. Mank appears to be the culmination of a professional relationship spanning more than a decade, which uses Citizen Kane as its backbone to explore broader issues. Adorned in the garb of a Thirties film noir, Mank is masterful at evoking a bygone era. Much of that success comes through the pitch perfect production design, which would have been impossible without Donald Burt.
Following on from his nomination at the British Academy Film Awards, he took time out to talk to Flickering Myth’s Martin Carr about what was required to bring Mank to life, as well as what a collaboration with David Fincher really involves.
Queue gets behind the scenes with a look at Mank’s defining locations.
March 9, 2021
Netflix Queue
Shot in black and white, David Fincher’s Mank transports audiences through the sights and scenery of Golden Age Hollywood and 1930s and 40s California. With the help of soundstages, matte paintings, and a lot of research, the team behind Mank’s locations communicates the glamour and history of an epic era of moviemaking.
Queue explores some favorites.
Nodding to Citizen Kane’s art while exploring fresh perspectives in David Fincher’s Mank.
It’s long been debated whether Shakespeare actually authored all of his acclaimed writings or if, instead, Christopher Marlowe was responsible for a significant amount of his body of work. And in the early 70s, a similar thesis developed: that co-screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz was in fact the primary writer on Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Though it’s solidly refuted by Kane scholars, the myth continues to flourish.
And now, Director David Fincher arrives with Mank: a screenplay by his late father about Herman Mankiewicz and his development of the screenplay for Citizen Kane. After a six-year feature film hiatus, Fincher tapped Erik Messerschmidt, ASC to DP, after working with Erik on Gone Girl as a gaffer and cinematographer for both seasons of Mindhunter.
Mank’s visual aesthetic is subtle, but not to be overlooked. Upon its release, the film’s cinematic elements were overwhelmingly acknowledged by critics and audiences alike. It’s an approach owing much to Erik, who saw the value in referencing the artistic quality of Citizen Kane while also developing a fresh lens through which the classic story could be seen.
Oscars (YouTube)
March 6, 2021
Mank director David Fincher, actors Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, the cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, production designer Donald Graham Burt and sound designer Red Kyle walk you through a boisterous San Simeon house party sequence and the recreation of William Randolph Hearst’s famed zoo.
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
February 28, 2021
Join acclaimed director David Fincher, actors Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, and the cast and crew of Mank, for a peek behind the curtain of Netflix’s black-and-white ode to Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Brian Blueskye
February 23, 2021
Desert Sun
If you’re watching the film “Mank,” you may notice some familiar scenes. That’s because it was filmed in part at the Kemper Campbell Ranch in California’s high desert.
A production crew of 80 people arrived in Victorville in December 2019 with trucks containing vintage items, automobiles from the 1930s and more to take the historic property back to the 1940s.
“Mank,” which premiered on Netflix last December, is the story of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz‘s struggle to finish the screenplay for Orson Welles’ 1941 film “Citizen Kane.” He arrived at the property, then known as North Verde Ranch, in 1940 to finish the script.
Nominated for six Golden Globe awards, the film stars Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz, Amanda Seyfried as actress Marion Davies and Lily Collins as Mankiewicz’ secretary Rita Alexander. It was directed by David Fincher.
For production designer Don Burt and set decorator Jan Pascale, it was important to make the film feel as authentic as possible. After some research on the North Verde Ranch, Burt learned it was still mostly intact.
Thomas A. Walsh
February 5, 2021
Netflix Awards FYC
A conversation with Production Designer Donald Graham Burt and Set Decorator Jan Pascale on behalf of Mank. Moderated by Thomas A. Walsh.
Edward Douglas
February 18, 2021
Below the Line
Continuing Below the Line’s look at the crafts behind David Fincher’s Mank, we spoke to Production Designer Donald Graham Burt, his sixth go-round with Fincher after the first worked together on 2007’s Zodiac. A year later, Burt would win the Oscar for Production Design for his work on Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Besides performing those duties for six Fincher films, Burt also played a significant role in the designs for Fincher’s Golden Globe-winning Netflix series, House of Cards.
Burt’s definitely a bit of an old school Hollywood vet, going back to some of his work in the ‘90s like The Joy Luck Club and Dangerous Minds. Still, Mank offered Burt a number of new challenges, the first one being the fact that the film would be shot entirely in black and white, the second would be how it would task Burt and his team to recreate some of Hollywood’s most iconic locations from the ‘30s and ‘40s. You only have to watch the movie or look at some of the images below to agree that Burt and his art department came through with flying colors… even without having any actual color.
Below the Line spoke with Burt over the phone for the following interview.
Donald Graham Burt, Production Designer
January 2021
Perspective Magazine (ADG, Art Directors Guild)
I’ve never read a script from David Fincher that was anything less than smart and purposeful.
This held true with Mank.
Mank is the story of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and his scripting of the film Citizen Kane for Orson Welles and RKO Studios. While the film primarily deals with Mankiewicz’s tumultuous struggles in completing the screenplay, including his uneven relationship with Welles, it also addresses early filmmaking in 1930s Los Angeles and the behavior of the studio power brokers for whom Mankiewicz had been previously employed. Woven into the story are larger social issues of the era and the influencers—namely William Randolph Hearst—who in conjunction with studio executives (and to Mankiewicz’s dismay) manipulated the populace on political matters through wealth, deception and media control. All of this converges to shape the scribing by Mankiewicz of Citizen Kane.
After preliminary discussions with David about his vision for the film, we began the initial production process by scouting locations together in July of 2019.
Read the full magazine:
Perspective Magazine (ADG, Art Directors Guild)
January-February 2021 Issue
Read the ADG Awards Mank presentation:
The Fincher Analyst 