In this Film Ireland podcast, Gemma Creagh talks to Production Designer Ramsey Avery.
Ramsey is a celebrated production designer and design director whose credits include The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Star Trek: Into Darkness.
Ramsey Avery is speaking at the RENDR Festival, Belfast (23 – 24 February 2023), a festival for inspiring creatives, exploring the space between creativity and technology across film, gaming, animation and immersive.
Ramsey Avery
Starting as a Physics major at the University of Wyoming, with goal of becoming an astronomer, Ramsey has always been interested in how worlds are created. Acting in UW Theater at night, while working differential equations in class during the day, he discovered that there were many worlds to be found, and to be made, here on this one – and they didn’t all have to stick to the rules of science!
In the many years since, Ramsey has had the opportunity to work on a vast array of those worlds. After receiving an MFA in Theater Set Design from CalArts, he started the day after graduation art directing and set decorating the small midwestern townscape of Roseanne and the college world of A Different World. He has gone on to bring to life the Second Age lands of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Along the way, he’s contributed, as an Art Director, to the future worlds of Minority Report and A.I., eventually becoming the Supervising Art Director on projects spanning the breadth of time and space, such as Team America; Star Trek: Into Darkness; Mirror, Mirror; Tomorrowland; and Guardians of the Galaxy, vol 2.
As a Production Designer, Ramsey has designed the films 10 Cloverfield Lane, Hotel Artemis, Peppermint, and the Sundance selections Waitress and Right At Your Door. He recently designed a streaming pilot, The Consultant, for Amazon/MGM, directed by Matt Shakman and starring Christoph Waltz, and the movie No One Will Save You, starring Kaityn Dever. He is now designing Captain America: New World Order for Marvel.
In addition, he has designed a Superbowl spot for Dodge, and national commercials for, among others, Budweiser, Microsoft, and Capri Sun. He was nominated for an Art Department Guild Award for his design of the live action trailer for The Bee Movie and this year for the design of Rings of Power.
Ramsey recently designed the Avenger’s Campus for Disney’s California Adventure in the Disneyland Resort, including the Webslingers multimedia interactive attraction. A previous design of his, the Animation Pavilion, also at DCA, won a THEA award, the themed entertainment equivalent of an Oscar™. He has contributed to other attractions and events around the world, including a Don Quixote attraction in Japan (with flying pirate ships), the original Winterlit streetscape of holiday decoration for Santa Monica, and a Royal Saudi Wedding in Riyadh. Along the way, he has kept a hand in theater, designing award-winning regional theater sets from California to New York, as well as a national Christmas tour for Martina McBride.
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