Moving Image Master Class Series Opens With Production Designer Mark Friedberg, 3/25

To inaugurate a new quarterly series of in-depth conversations with top behind-the-scenes talent from film, television, and video-game production, Museum of the Moving Image will present an afternoon with celebrated production designer Mark Friedberg. In coming months, the Moving Image Master Class series will feature leading cinematographers, editors, special-effects artists, game designers, and more. "The Master Class series is in keeping with the Museum's mission to not only show the best moving image works, but also to explore the creative and collaborative process," said Executive Director Carl Goodman.

On Sunday, March 25, 2012, at 3:00 p.M. Friedberg will discuss and show how he created the physical environments of films as wide-ranging as The Darjeeling Limited (2007), The Ice Storm (1997), and Pollock (2000). Following the program, at 6:00 p.m., he will introduce a screening of Synecdoche, New York (2008), the dreamlike film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman for which Friedberg designed an elaborate facsimile of New York City within a warehouse.

Tickets for the conversation are $20 public / $12 Museum members (free for Silver Screen members and above) and include Museum admission. Advance tickets are available online at movingimage.us or by calling 718 777 6800. Tickets for Synecdoche, New York are free with Museum admission and must be picked up at the admissions desk.

Mark Friedberg has collaborated with directors including Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, Ang Lee, Julie Taymor, Jim Jarmusch, Mira Nair, Ed Harris, and Jodie Foster. Trained as an artist, Friedberg has brought his inventive sensibility to a wide range of independent films. In this two-hour program, presented with clips, he will discuss how he created the elaborate sets on a moving train in The Darjeeling Limited, represented Depression-era California while filming MildrEd Pierce in New York, oversaw the creation of hundreds of paintings for Pollock, and transformed a flood-ruined town for Ride with the Devil.

Synecdoche, New York (124 mins.) features Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director who attempts to create an alternate-reality New York City within a warehouse, giving Friedberg one of his most challenging projects. For the design of this film, Friedberg created sets of vast scale as well as intimate spaces that reflect the emotional truth of the film's characters. Samantha Morton and Michelle Williams also star.

Moving Image Master Class offers media professionals and general audiences alike an insider's view of working in film, television, and video-game production. The series is organized by Collection Curator Barbara Miller and moderated by Chief Curator David Schwartz.