JUDY BECKER - Production Designer

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SEASON 2 - EPISODE 136 - Judy Becker - Production Designer

In this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with production designer Judy Becker (THE BRUTALIST, CAROL, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN). Judy’s love for art and collaboration began at the age of 3 and developed throughout her childhood, and after discovering the theatre department in high school, she found her way into the New York filmmaking scene. Having worked in a number of projects across many different periods of history, Judy shares how she approaches bringing those spaces to life, and we reflect on the fact that absolute accuracy to a period doesn’t always look real on the screen. Later, during our discussion of her work on THE BRUTALIST, Judy reflects on the challenges of communicating with a crew whose language is nothing like her own, and she reveals how they fought for scraps of plywood and found (and built) post-war America in Hungary. Judy also shares how she approached designing The Institute—the architectural centerpiece of the film—and she reveals how they used the scale model they built in the actual shoot. We also discuss the differences between working on location and in a stage, and Judy shares the creative attraction to working on producer Ryan Murphy’s many television shows.

This episode is sponsored by Aputure

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to season two of the Team Deacons podcast, a collection of informal conversations
0:10.1	between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. We never know where the conversation will take us,
0:16.3	so listen in and see where it goes.
0:28.6	This episode is sponsored by Aperture, a premier manufacturer of LED lighting with the industry's greatest variety of fixtures for your complete lighting needs.
0:33.7	Aperture recently announced the new storm family of lights.
0:37.8	With LED white light quality that matches natural daylight and classic tungsten bulbs,
0:43.5	plus extreme low-end dimming while maintaining color quality.
0:48.2	Discover more about the new storm lights and the complete Aperture lighting ecosystem at Aperture.com.
0:58.6	Today we're speaking with a production designer. Her credits include Brokeback Mountain,
1:03.9	Carol, and The Brutalist. We're pleased to welcome Judy Becker. Judy, thank you for doing this.
1:10.2	Hi, nice to meet you. Hi, it's nice to meet you.
1:12.7	It's a pleasure to be here. We'd love to start with our first question, which is always,
1:18.0	how did you get to where you are today? Where did you grow up? Were you always rearranging the
1:24.0	furniture as a kid? Or did you find something else? Tell us your story.
1:28.5	Well, it's a long story. I grew up in a suburb of New York City and was always coming into
1:36.0	the city with my mother and visiting museums. And I was very interested in art from as long as I can remember, which goes back to three or four years of age.
1:49.0	So when I say when I was a kid, I mean four or five, six.
1:53.2	I don't mean 14.
1:54.9	And art was always my biggest interest.
1:57.5	And then it led to interior design.
2:00.7	And again, when I was six, seven, eight, and my
2:03.4	doll houses and rearranging that furniture. And at one point I realized that if I kept my
	...

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