MARK FRIEDBERG - Production Designer

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

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

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SEASON 2 - EPISODE 160 - Mark Friedberg - Production Designer

In this extended (and funny) episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with production designer Mark Friedberg (CAUGHT STEALING, JOKER, THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD). A native New Yorker, it wasn’t until returning to the city after Jack Kerouac-ing around the country that Mark (and his dog) first found work in the film industry as a driver for the Woody Allen production team. Mark was eventually let out of the van, and, throughout our conversation, he reveals how he thought through many of the challenges in his long and impressive career as a designer. Mark is also a staple in Barry Jenkins’ (Season 2, Episode 156) stable of collaborators, and we learn how Mark’s daughter convinced her father to break his own rules to initially meet with the director. We also discuss technology’s place in Mark’s design process, and he shares why he rehired the millennial gamers who built MUFASA’s Africa to digitally visualize the sets of JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX before physically constructing them.

Recommended Viewing: THE ICE STORM

This episode is sponsored by Sandstorm & Aputure

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deacons podcast, a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest.
0:13.7	We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes.
0:21.4	This episode is sponsored by Sandstorm, the Technodali specialist now based at Ealing Studios in London.
0:30.8	The Technodali is a fully repeatable camera crane and motion control in one, allowing cinematographers to hand craft a shot,
0:40.1	and then repeat it instantly and frame accurately for visual effects.
0:45.2	Find them on Instagram and YouTube at Sandstorm underscore films.
0:54.1	This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm. films.
1:02.3	This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm XT52, the industry's most powerful LED point source light.
1:04.8	Brighter than a 6K HMI empowered by Aperture's revolutionary Blair light engine, the Storm XT-52 is both a tunable
1:14.2	white light and also the brightest ever adjustable color LED. Storm XT-52, unrivaled output, only from
1:24.5	Aperture. Today we're speaking with a production designer. Among his only for Mapature.
1:30.4	Today we're speaking with a production designer.
1:35.9	Among his credits are Selma, the Whale, the Underground Railroad, and the Joker.
1:38.8	We're pleased to welcome Mark Friedberg.
1:41.5	Mark, thank you for doing this.
1:43.1	Thank you. It's nice to talk with you.
1:47.3	Our first question is going to be our normal first question, which is, how did you get to where you are today? Is this something you started feeling you wanted to do as a kid, or did
1:53.2	you go down another path and then find it later? How did you get into the business? Where did
1:57.8	you grow up? Tell us your story. Native New Yorker, born on the
2:02.7	Upper West Side, early, early 60s, was a very gritty different place than it is now. My father
2:10.1	was the son of a dairy inspector come to the big city and had made his name as a pretty
2:17.1	successful landscape architect, or in the
	...

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