Jack Fisk has always walked his own path. He is an Academy Award nominated production designer with more than forty years of experience in the film industry, whose non-conformist attitude has characterized his whole professional life.

Jack Fisk, photo courtesy of The Skouras Agency
Jack Fisk was the production designer of all five films directed by Terrence Malick (the sixth is under way). Aided by his masterfully designed sets, Malick and his directors of photography were able to turn their cinema into visual poems. Most recently, Fisk designed the upcoming Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project (a.k.a. "The Master"), having previously teamed with Anderson on "There Will Be Blood", for which Fisk received an Academy Award nomination, as well as an Art Directors Guild Award and a BAFTA Award nomination. Although his career in films was launched in the early 70s, this American production designer has worked on only twenty-some projects. Nevertheless, they were productions that had an enormous influence on the development of cinema as an art form.

Jack Fisk is a good friend of David Lynch; they met early in high school and developed their friendship over the years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. They have worked together on “The Straight Story" and “Mulholland Drive". Fisk had a small acting part as the "man in the planet" in Lynch's "Eraserhead", and he contributed financially to that first feature, which insured Lynch's cinematic visions would be realized.

Fisk has been so selective about his projects because he perceives the cinema as an art form, and he prefers to work again and again with directors who share his vision.

Still from "There Will Be Blood"
When Terrence Malick took a hiatus from filmmaking after “Days of Heaven", Fisk put his knowledge of filmmaking to work directing his own films. His first, “Raggedy Man" in 1981, starred his wife, the actress Sissy Spacek. This was followed in 1986 with “Violets are Blue...". But when he heard that Malick planned his return to cinema with “The Thin Red Line", he realized his real passion was in Production Design and quickly reunited with Malick on that film.

When preparing a project, Fisk carefully researches the era he aspires to recreate. “Recreate" is the most suitable word, as Fisk is a perfectionist who - if he is able to - brings the film reality to life in the same way as it was built and constructed decades or centuries before. This is most evident in his work on "The New World" and "There Will Be Blood".

Fisk searches for inspiration in the work of other artists (e.g. Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon) and real life, but avoids researching for ideas in other films. He perceives film settings as a sculpting experience and as a sculptor-demiurge, he not only supervises the process but enjoys working physically himself - for Jack Fisk loves to experience the tangibility of his creations; to paint and build with his own hands and to listen to the sound of a hammer hitting nails into planks. That is why he is often called a ‘hands on' production designer, losing himself completely in a given project.

Still from "Days of Heaven"
Paul Thomas Anderson told in one of the interviews that when he presented Fisk with his uncompromising vision for “There Will Be Blood", the production designer said: “I have no idea how to do this, but I really want to do it".

Just as the directors he admires, Jack Fisk is a true artist. We consider it a great honor that we will be able to distinguish him with Special Award for the Production Designer with Unique Visual Sensitivity during XIX Plus Camerimage.