Phillip Barker
Born1955
Bradford, Yorkshire, England
NationalityCanadian
Alma materOntario College of Art
Known forProduction design, film direction, screenwriting, installation art
Awards
Websitephillipbarker.com

Phillip Barker (born 1955)[1][2] is a Canadian production designer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario.[1][3]

He is best known for his work as a production designer, particularly his work with director Atom Egoyan, which includes ten feature films and two live operas. In 2006, Barker received a Directors Guild of Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design for his work on Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies.

Barker's production design has also been featured in films by directors such as Brian De Palma, Mira Nair, Lisa Cholodenko and Neil LaBute, as well as on the television series Reign (2013–2015), American Gothic (2016) and Star Trek: Discovery (2020).

Shadow Nettes, a short film written and directed by Barker, won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Early life

Phillip Barker was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England.[4] His father was an auto mechanic.[5]

Barker's interest in filmmaking began in 1967, when his father brought home a Super-8 camera and projector.[6] Barker's family moved to Canada the following year.[4] His father had purchased the film camera to document the trip.[7] He completed his high school education at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School in Peterborough, Ontario, where his brother Mike was a founder of the city's Folk Under the Clock concert series.[8]

He attended the Ontario College of Art, starting with commercial illustration, later transitioning to more experimental forms of art, including installation art that incorporated elements of film and video.[4]

Career

Barker spent a year and a half in Paris, before moving to Amsterdam, where he lived from 1982 to 1987, supporting himself by working as a scenic painter.[4][9] In 1986, he debuted his performance piece titled Trust a Boat, 'Film-sculpture for a House' inside a canal house on the Keizersgracht.[1] The performance was viewed from the street below as scenes were performed in nine windows of the three story building.[1][10] These scenes consisted of a mixture of live performance and film projections set to music.[1] Barker also served as production designer for the 1987 Dutch film Zoeken naar Eileen (Looking for Eileen), by director Rudolf van den Berg.[11][12]

Upon his return to Canada, Barker continued to create installation pieces that incorporated elements of film, video, sculpture and live performance, often exhibited in public places.[4][9] He also worked on commercials and rock videos to help support himself.[4][9]

At the Seville Expo '92, Barker contributed an art piece to the Canadian pavilion.[13] His work consisted of a flooded tent set up in the middle of a vast pond. Images of Canadian ecological disasters were projected onto the walls of the tent.[13]

In 1995, Barker released the short film A Temporary Arrangement. The film won the Best Experimental Film Award at the 1996 Melbourne International Film Festival,[14] and was also featured on TVOntario's two-part series Exposures: The Art of Film and Video, which aired in 2005.[15] The film features composite images that were made by combining nine frames, all shot in Super 8 film and arranged into a grid that was then transferred to 35mm film.[16]

Barker worked on Egoyan's stage production of Richard Strauss's opera Salome, presented by the Canadian Opera Company in 1996.[17] Barker created elements of projected film and video for the performance.[18][19] The first of many collaborations with Egoyan, the two met after Egoyan attended one of Barker's shows that was being held in an abandoned building once owned by the CBC.[20] The work involved a delicate paper house that was suspended over a shallow pool of water and projected on the walls were black-and-white super 8 film images of various people floating on a river.[21] Egoyan said of the experience: "Sometimes it just happens. You see a piece by a new artist and it answers something within you in a direct and powerful way. I had that experience nearly twenty-five years ago when I first came across Phillip's work."[21] After the show, Egoyan left Barker a note in the show's guestbook, inviting Barker to work with him.[20]

Barker and Egoyan next worked together on the film The Sweet Hereafter.[22] Barker was nominated, along with Patricia Cuccia, in the category of Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design at the 18th Genie Awards for their work on the film.[23] He also worked with Egoyan in 1997 on a film featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma that aired as the fourth episode of the six-part television film series Inspired by Bach.[22]

In 1998 Barker worked with director Mira Nair on the TV film rendition of the novel My Own Country,[24] as well as with Egoyan on his production of the chamber opera Elsewhereless by Canadian composer Rodney Sharman.[22] Barker also released his short film I am always connected, which used repurposed footage from an installation piece that he made for the Lumen Travo gallery in Amsterdam in 1984.[25]

The following year he released his film Soul Cages, which features a grid of forty-five Super 8 film frames arranged into one frame of 35mm film—an expansion of the technique that he employed in A Temporary Arrangement.[16] Soul Cages won best short film at The Atlantic Film Festival,[3] Best Dramatic Short from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers[26] and, with producer Simone Urdl, Barker shared a nomination for Best Live Action Short Film at the 21st Genie Awards.[27]

The 2000s saw further collaborations between Barker and Egoyan. Barker was the production designer for the films Ararat (2002),[28] Where the Truth Lies (2005),[29] Adoration (2008)[30] and Chloe (2009).[31] Barker received Genie award nominations for his work on Ararat[28] and Where the Truth Lies.[29] In 2006 he was presented with a Directors Guild of Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design for Where the Truth Lies.[32] His work on the sets for the film were featured in an issue of Canadian Interiors magazine that same year.[33] Barker built a 3,000-square-foot presidential suite at London's Shepperton Studios, inspired by the architecture and design of Morris Lapidus during his MiMo period, for the film.[33]

The Toronto International Film Festival included Barker's short film, Malody, in their list of Canada's Top Ten Short Films of 2012.[34] In 2013 Malody received the Prix Créativité (creativity prize) at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal,[35] in addition to the Le prix Hors Pistes (the "off-track" or "off-road" prize) at the Festival Hors Pistes held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.[36]

Barker served as production designer for the television series Reign from 2013 to 2015,[37][38] as well as on the 2016 CBS series American Gothic.[39] He was nominated, along with Robert Hepburn and Brad Milburn, for Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series for his work on Reign at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards.[37]

In 2017 Barker released his short film Shadow Nettes.[40] In the film, a fisherman teaches his son about the use of the "shadow nette", a traditional fishing device worn by the fisherman that projects their silhouette on to a screen.[40] Using their projected gestures, the fisherman draws prey to their nets.[40] Shadow Nettes was featured at several film festivals internationally in 2017 and 2018 and won the prize for Best Canadian Short Film at the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival.[40][41] It was also featured on the CBC series 'Canadian Reflections.[40]

Barker again collaborated with Egoyan on the film Guest of Honour, which was released in 2019. His work on the film earned him a nomination for Achievement in Art Direction / Production Design at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards.[42]

Also in 2019, Barker and fellow filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, launched a tour featuring a retrospective of Barker's films, titled Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker.[43] The tour also featured the release of a book by the same title that was edited by Hoolbloom.[43] The retrospective was presented at the TIFF Bell Lightbox,[44] the Canadian Film Institute,[43] as well as the 2019 Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in France.[45]

Barker also sat on a panel of production designers at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, alongside François Audouy (The Wolverine, Logan, Ford v Ferrari), Craig Lathrop (The Lighthouse, The Witch), and Zosia Mackenzie (Castle in the Ground.)[46]

In 2020, Barker served as production designer in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.[47] He was suggested to the show's executive producer, Alex Kurtzman, who had seen some of Barker's experimental films.[47] He was also nominated for a Directors Guild of Canada award for Best Production Design – Dramatic Series, for his work on the show.[48]

Filmography

Film

As production designer

Year Film Director Notes
1987 Zoeken naar Eileen (Looking for Eileen) Rudolf van den Berg
1997 The Sweet Hereafter Atom Egoyan
Bach Cello Suite #4: Sarabande Atom Egoyan Short film, later televised
2000 Ararat Atom Egoyan
2004 Cavedweller Lisa Cholodenko
2005 Where the Truth Lies Atom Egoyan
The River King Nick Willing
2006 The Wicker Man Neil LaBute
2007 Redacted Brian De Palma
2008 Camille Gregory Mackenzie
Adoration Atom Egoyan
2009 Chloe Atom Egoyan
2011 Breakaway Robert Lieberman
2013 Cottage Country Peter Wellington
Devil's Knot Atom Egoyan
2014 The Captive Atom Egoyan
2017 Perfect Citizen Paris Barclay TV movie
2019 Guest of Honour Atom Egoyan

As director

Year Film Notes
1984 I Am Always Connected Short film
1996 A Temporary Arrangement Short film
1999 Soul Cages Short film
2003 Regarding Short film
2008 Night Vision Short film
2010 Slow Blink TV short
Little Films About Big Moments One in a series of short films
2012 Malody Video short
2015 Dredger Short film
2017 Shadow Nettes Short film

Television

Year Film Creator(s) Notes
2013-15 Reign Laurie McCarthy and Stephanie SenGupta
2016 American Gothic Corinne Brinkerhoff
2020 Star Trek: Discovery Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman Season 3
2021 The Sinner Derek Simonds Season 4

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominated work Result
1996 Melbourne International Film Festival Best Short Experimental A Temporary Arrangement Won
1997 Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design
(shared with Patricia Cuccia)		 The Sweet Hereafter Nominated
2001 Genie Award Best Live Action Short Drama
(shared with Simone Urdl)		 Soul Cages Nominated
2003 DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film
(shared with film crew)		 Ararat Nominated
Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design Nominated
2006 Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design
(shared with Carolyn 'Cal' Loucks)		 Where the Truth Lies Nominated
DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film
(shared with film crew)		 Won
2009 DCG Craft Award Production Design - Feature Adoration Nominated
2010 DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film
(shared with film crew)		 Chloe Nominated
DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Feature Film Nominated
2012 Bratislava International Film Festival Best Short Film Malody Won
2013 Montréal Festival of New Cinema Creativity Prize Won
2015 Canadian Screen Award Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design The Captive Nominated
2017 Vancouver International Film Festival Best Canadian Short Shadow Nettes Won
2018 Canadian Screen Award Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series
(shared with Aidan Leroux, Joel Richardson and Rob Hepburn)		 Reign Nominated
2019 DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Feature Film Guest of Honour Nominated
2021 Canadian Screen Award Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design Nominated
DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Dramatic Series Star Trek: Discovery Nominated

Bibliography

  • Hoolboom, Mike, ed. (2018). Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker (PDF). Phillip Barker and Pleasure Dome. ISBN 978-1-9994252-0-3.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Trust a Boat, a film/performance by Phillip Barker" (PDF). Cantrills Filmnotes. No. 56. Melbourne, Australia: Arthur and Corinne Cantrill. May 1988. p. 46. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via phillipbarker.com.
  2. ↑ McGinnis, Rick (4 August 2001). "Masters of illusion". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. W1. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. Barker, 46, is a slim, soft-spoken man in black jeans and a white shirt.
  3. 1 2 Dinoff, Distin (30 October 2000). "Art direction: The art of Phillip Barker". Playback. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Brunico Communications. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 McGinnis, Rick (4 August 2001). "Masters of illusion". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. W4. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. Born in England, Barker moved to Canada at 13. By high school, he knew art was his calling, and went to the Ontario College of Art, moving from commercial illustration to experimental and video art by the time he graduated. He spent a year and a half in Paris, busking with his mandolin in the metro, moved to Holland, where he got a job as a scenic painter, then came back to Canada and worked as a set builder on David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, gradually rising up the film hierarchy, working on commercials and rock videos to fund his "art habit."
  5. ↑ Hoolboom, Mike, ed. (2018). Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker (PDF). Phillip Barker and Pleasure Dome. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-9994252-0-3. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via mikehoolboom.com.
  6. ↑ Barker, Phillip (Winter 2003). "Trust a Boat, a film/performance by Phillip Barker" (PDF). Montage. Directors Guild of Canada. p. 36. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via phillipbarker.com.
  7. ↑ Hoolboom, Mike, ed. (2018). Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker (PDF). Phillip Barker and Pleasure Dome. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-9994252-0-3. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via mikehoolboom.com.
  8. ↑ Werner Bergen, "Former city man nominated for Genie Award". Peterborough Examiner, January 27, 2001.
  9. 1 2 3 Watch production designers behind films like Ford v. Ferrari and The Lighthouse spill trade secrets. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: CBC. 18 September 2019. Event occurs at 4:43. Retrieved 25 September 2021. I've always been an artist--a painter, a sculptor--and it's like my habit, you know, that I had to support myself by working in films. So like many of my friends at the time, we would get jobs as scenic painters. I was a special effects technician for a number of years, I've built props, all the time making my own art, which was like installation using film, using film projection in buildings, exterior performances. So I continued now to still make my own art and support it by working commercially in the film business. So I find they both go hand in hand, and I sort of need them both, you know? I need to make art to feel good about myself and working in film as a production designer, it's super creative and I get to experiment and try things I normally wouldn't be able to afford, and work with teams, which I really like doing--the collaboration aspect of filmmaking.
  10. ↑ Hoolboom, Mike, ed. (2018). Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker (PDF). Phillip Barker and Pleasure Dome. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-9994252-0-3. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via mikehoolboom.com.
  11. ↑ "Zoeken Naar Eileen (1987)". BFI. Archived from the original on 23 November 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  12. ↑ "Phillip Barker". Directors Guild of Canada. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  13. 1 2 McGinnis, Rick (4 August 2001). "Masters of illusion". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. W4. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. All the while, he was gaining an international reputation for his installations and graphic pieces, usually involving film projection. At the 1992 Seville Expo, he represented Canada with a controversial project. The chosen theme was water. "is this your work?" a bureaucrat from the Quebec ministry of culture asked Barker, looking at a flooded tent set up in the middle of a vast pond where images of Canadian ecological disasters—dead moose being airlifted from the floodplains behind the James Bay project -- lit up the canvas walls from the projectors inside. "It's s---," the bureaucrat pronounced.
  14. ↑ "MIFF Archive: A Temporary Arrangement (1995)". miff.com.au. Melbourne International Film Festival. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  15. ↑ "Program 2". Exposures: The Art of Film and Video. 7 July 2005. TVOntario. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  16. 1 2 Hahn, Tina (September–October 1999). "Compositing the Soul" (PDF). LIFT Newsletter. Vol. 19, no. 5. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. p. 11. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  17. ↑ Dault, Gary Michael (30 November 1996). "Dancing With Salome". The Financial Post Magazine. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. 144. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. Atom Egoyan concedes that it was a great marketing ploy for the Canadian Opera Company to ask a film director who made a remarkable movie about a strip clubto stage an opera with the Dance of the Seven Veils.
  18. ↑ Dault, Gary Michael (30 November 1996). "Dancing With Salome". The Financial Post Magazine. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. 148. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. Finally, working with set designer Derek McLane (who had provided sets, previously, for the COC's Jenufa and Lulu) and artist/filmmaker Phillip Barker, a definitive vision of Salome came into focus—almost literally.
  19. ↑ "Archive: Atom Egoyan". Dialogue. 1 October 1996. 22:51 minutes in. TVOntario. Retrieved 25 September 2021. Yeah. There are projections, there is film, and I'm working with a really great collaborator, Phillip Barker, who is designing a lot of the video and film projections.
  20. 1 2 McGinnis, Rick (4 August 2001). "Masters of illusion". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. W4. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. At a show held in an abandoned CBC building, Egoyan saw Barker's work and left a note in the guestbook, inviting Barker to work with him. Barker thought the note was a joke and didn't call Egoyan for six months. Since joining the movie business, Barker has designed two other films, directed several short films of his own and hopes to direct his own feature art film soon.
  21. 1 2 Hoolboom, Mike, ed. (2018). Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker (PDF). Phillip Barker and Pleasure Dome. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-9994252-0-3.
  22. 1 2 3 McGinnis, Rick (4 August 2001). "Masters of illusion". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. p. W4. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com. Barker has worked with Egoyan on one other feature, The Sweet Hearafter, as well as a television film featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and two operas, Salome and Elsewhereless. Their working relationship resembles any that Egoyan shares with the rest of his regular cast and crew: rigorously polite, based on shared aesthetics and a common vocabulary. It might not have happened as Barker, until very recently, never had any intention of becoming a movie production designer.
  23. ↑ "The full list of nominations for the 18th annual Genie Awards". Montreal Gazette. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 5 November 1997. p. F8. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  24. ↑ "My Own Country (1998)". BFI. Archived from the original on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  25. ↑ "I Am Always Connected". cfmdc.org. Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  26. ↑ "CSC Awards and Nominations: The 2000 Winners and Nominees". csc.ca. Canadian Society of Cinematographers. Archived from the original on 15 August 2000. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  27. ↑ Lacey, Liam (13 December 2000). "Maelstrom storms the Genies". The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  28. 1 2 Dillon, Mark (19 December 2002). "Ararat shines with nine". Playback. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Brunico Communications. Archived from the original on 1 December 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  29. 1 2 "2006 Genies Nominees". Playback. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Brunico Communications. 6 February 2006. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  30. ↑ Holden, Stephen (7 May 2009). "Atom Egoyan Weaves a Tapestry of Symbols and Animosities". The New York Times. New York City, United States. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  31. ↑ Rochon, Lisa (4 April 2009). "Egoyan gives Toronto the close-up it deserves". The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  32. ↑ Mr. Ed (16 October 2006). "Full list of 2006 Directors Guild of Canada Awards". SooToday. Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada: Village Media. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  33. 1 2 Sobchak, Peter (March–April 2006). "Setting the scene" (PDF). Canadian Interiors. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: iQ Business Media Inc. p. 40. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via phillipbarker.com.
  34. ↑ Wilner, Norman (4 December 2012). "Some surprises spice up yearly list of best Canadian films". Now. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  35. ↑ "Archives". nouveaucinema.ca. Festival du nouveau cinéma. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  36. ↑ "Out Show, projection : Circuitto Off". centrepompidou.fr (in French). Centre Pompidou. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  37. 1 2 Furdyk, Brent (19 January 2016). "2016 Canadian Screen Awards Nominees Announced". etcanada.com. Entertainment Tonight Canada. Archived from the original on 15 June 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  38. ↑ Reign (TV Series 2013–2017) at IMDb
  39. ↑ McFarland, Melanie (20 June 2016). "TV Review: 'American Gothic'". Variety. Los Angeles, California, United States. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 "Canadian Reflections: Shadow Nettes". cbc.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Company. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  41. ↑ "VIFF Announces BC and Canadian Award Winners for the 36th Annual Festival" (Press release). Greater Vancouver International Film Festival Society. 7 October 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  42. ↑ "Bell Media Congratulates TV and Film Production Partners on 181 Nominations for the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards" (Press release). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Bell Media. 30 March 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  43. 1 2 3 "Café Ex: Phillip Barker". cfi-icf.ca. Canadian Film Institute. 28 February 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  44. ↑ "TIFF Bell Lightbox". National Post. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 30 November 2018. p. B4. Retrieved 25 September 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  45. ↑ "Short and Sweet at Clermont-Ferrand". RDVCanada.ca. Telefilm Canada. 24 January 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  46. ↑ Watch production designers behind films like Ford v. Ferrari and The Lighthouse spill trade secrets. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: CBC. 18 September 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  47. 1 2 Eagan, Daniel (22 June 2021). "Emmy Watch: Star Trek: Discovery Production Designer Phillip Barker". Below The Line. Los Angeles, California, United States. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  48. ↑ "Nominees Announced For 20th Annual DGC Awards". Directors Guild of Canada. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
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