John Muto – Production Designer
John Muto is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, with a degree in English Literature. An entry-level job with a San Francisco commercials house was his first experience in film. He had made several short animated films on his own, and was working concurrently in educational media, when some college friends offered him the opportunity to come to Hollywood and create the surreal animated sequences for the Elfman brothers’ and Oingo Boingo Band’s musical cult fantasy feature Forbidden Zone. His drawing and animation skills made it possible for him to move on to Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, working as an effects animator on Battle Beyond the Stars, and as illustrator and storyboard artist for Galaxy of Terror. Moving up to Visual Effects Art Director / Designer and/or Second Unit Director he contributed to several feature films including Strange Invaders and Jaws 3D.
A lecture series featuring Production Designers from old Hollywood inspired him to leave effects work in order to move into creating the entire look of the feature film. For his first time out as Production Designer, he created the pop neon look of the sci-fi cult hit Night of the Comet (1984). John went on to design films in a number of genres, among them the blockbuster comedy Home Alone (1990); the science-fiction thriller Species (1995); the grimly realistic Rivers Edge (1986); the romantic fantasy Hearts and Souls (1993); and the Victorian melodrama Flowers in the Attic (1987). He created the enormous post-apocalyptic sets for visionary director James Cameron’s Terminator 2 / 3D: Battle Across Time, the ground-breaking action / effects special venue picture shot in 65mm 3D, for the Universal Studios Theme Parks in California, Florida, and Japan.
Through his firm Design for Production, Mr. Muto offers a design consulting service, in which he develops a set of practical approaches, tailored to each picture’s special demands, to guide the producer and director in deciding on the most appropriate techniques and personnel with whom to create the motion picture’s imagery. The goal is to find, early on, the best possible balance of cost, efficiency, and production value.
For the American Cinematheque and the Art Directors Guild, John founded the Art Directors Film Society, dedicated to screening neglected masterworks of film design. He has conducted onstage interviews with Hollywood’s greatest designers, including Sir Ken Adam, Richard Sylbert, Robert Boyle, Henry Bumstead, Harold Michelson, and William Creber. Guests from other filmic arts, like directors Ridley Scott and Joe Dante, have been included, as well as academicians such as archaeologists, film preservationists, and historians. For the San Diego Comic-Con, he annually assembles a panel of designers from the year’s leading genre feature films and television shows, and moderates a panel discussing the unique contribution of film design.
As a filmmaker / lecturer, he has spoken at UCLA, the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, the University of New Orleans, Columbia University, the University of Kansas, the University of Leicester in the U.K., and in Brazil, at both the Rio International Film Festival and the Ribeiro Escuola de Cinema, in Rio de Janeiro. John is a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, serving on the Executive Committee of the Designers Branch.