Ebook: William Cameron Menzies

He was the consummate designer of film architecture on a grand scale, influenced by German expressionism and the work of the great European directors. He was known for his visual flair and timeless innovation, a man who meticulously preplanned the color and design of each film through a series of continuity sketches that made clear camera angles, lighting, and the actors' positions for each scene, translating dramatic conventions of the stage to the new capabilities of film.
Here is the long-awaited book on William Cameron Menzies, Hollywood's first and greatest production designer, a job title David O. Selznick invented for Menzies' extraordinary, all-encompassing, Academy Award--winning work on Gone With the Wind (which he effectively co-directed).

It was Menzies--winner of the first-ever Academy Award for Art Direction, jointly for The Dove (1927) and Tempest (1928), and who was as well a director (fourteen pictures) and a producer (twelve...