It's Dick Sylbert's Hollywood...

...we just work in it!

Six years ago this month Richard Sylbert died of pancreatic cancer. He was amazing: one of the few true men of genius I ever had the pleasure to interview. His knowledge of story and of design was profound, and it gave us THE GRADUATE, CHINATOWN, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, ROSEMARY'S BABY, REDS, THE PAWNBROKER, and on and on and on.

I meant to put this out there before now: attention must be paid to this kind of skill. Here's a little peek into his genius through what is probably his most famous film: CHINATOWN. A short segment from MASTERS OF PRODUCTION, a doc I created for PBS a few years back.

I have two regrets about that doc: it isn't available for the many students out there who are struggling (as so many of us have) to understand the junction of story and design, and it's not out there to illustrate what people inside the movie business know:

It's Dick Sylbert's Hollywood, we just work in it.