Blueprint Documentary - Post Production

My name is Linda Carfagno, filmmaker, and daughter of Edward Carfagno, the Academy Award winning Art Director/Production Designer of The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and Ben-Hur (1959). He received thirteen nominations. Childhood memories of riding my bicycle through the sets of Ben-Hur and around the circus where the famous and infamous chariot race sequence with Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd and pioneering stuntman Yakima Canutt would be filmed always resonated with me as a special and magical moment in time, when going to work with my father meant traveling to another dimension full of creativity, craftsmanship and breathtaking scale – during the making of Ben-Hur we were not only living in Rome, we were living in Ancient Rome as it resurfaced at Cinecitta Studios. Cameras, lights, and inventive thinking always present as long as I can remember. As a little girl the experiences of travel, being carried on my dad’s shoulder through the mystery of Pompeii, watching him scout locations, walking wide eyed onto the stages of MGM Studios not fully understanding them but feeling their intensity and grandeur, made me unafraid later on of things larger than myself. Within my family I always knew freedom of expression and imagination were valued. Decades later I would be behind a camera at Cinecitta filming Laurence Bennett, 'The Artist' in my film honoring my dad's profession. Rather than enter the film industry after college, I travelled to Greece where I lived for a year, entering the mythos of Delphi while based on the islands of Rhodes and Crete. These experiences growing up led to my diverse career in photography, an award-winning documentary, and my current project of passion celebrating my father and his craft. Luckily dad had a 16mm camera and filmed his work from our family’s perspective. I’ve been on a journey, a quest of a lifetime, searching for that magic which makes movies come to life in our sensory collective – magic which is conjured by production designers who orchestrate the elements of art to create the foundation on which movies are made.

Blueprint: The Genius of Production Design is a feature documentary project spanning over a decade and the world over searching for stories, personalities and artwork that represents the core of this magical cinematic craft – the visual creation of what we see on screen, and what the characters of movies exist in; the past, present, and future all represented and explored. During this journey we have compiled many hours of footage of some of the most prolific and groundbreaking filmmakers speaking in depth about their careers, creative process and experiences making some of the greatest movies ever made through the production design lens. This film will be the last interview for some of our participants including Peter Lamont (Aliens, Titanic), Haskell Wexler (In The Heat of the Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Dean Stockwell (Dune, Blue Velvet) and Larry Paull (Bladerunner, Back to the Future). We were granted access to locations such as Pinewood Studios in London, Cinecitta Studios in Rome, and JC Backings SONY Studios in Los Angeles, as well as the personal archives of many of our designers

and filmmakers.

My journey making this film has reached the final stage – postproduction and release. Now through editing, mastering, dynamic animation, and stunning visual effects, Blueprint becomes a definitive representation of the craft of cinematic production design and the talented people who work tirelessly to make movie magic. From postproduction, the advertising and marketing of the film commences with our ambitions having no ceiling.

Your donation will make this happen and will make you a part of bringing this project of hard work and passion to the screen while making it accessible to generations, and hopefully inspiring some of them to become designers and filmmakers to carry on our important cinematic legacy. After 10 plus years of dedication, perseverance and navigating out of pocket financing for this project, I am excited to invite you to join the proverbial Thief of Bagdad magic carpet ride to fund and complete this film. Jump on!

Linda Carfagno

August 2023, Santa Fe, New Mexico