Gary Hustwit, filmmaker

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 10:19:00 GMT

Gary Hustwit, leading documentary filmmaker and photographer...

...talks about his Design Trilogy – Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized – and his latest project, The Olympic City.

STUDENTS from the School of Art. Design and Architecture met the renowned independent filmmaker and photographer Gary Hustwit when he paid a special visit to the University recently to give a lecture about his illustrious and varied career.

A former independent book publisher Gary founded the film production company Plexi along with business partner Sean Anderson in 2001.

A year after the launch of Plexi, Gary produced his first award-winning film called I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a documentary about the band Wilco with director Sam Jones. Since then he has produced a further eight documentaries.

After making his directorial debut in 2007 with Helvetica, a documentary about graphic design and typography, he received a nomination for the Truer Than Fiction award at the Independent Spirit Awards. It was this film which then marked the beginning of a design film trilogy, with Objectified, about industrial design and product design following in 2009, and Urbanized, about the design of cities, in 2011. Gary has recently released a book of transcripts from the hundreds of hours of interviews which didn't make it into the Design Trilogy called Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized: The Complete Interviews.

Projects at the moment include an on-going photography documentary called The Olympic City with fellow photographer Jon Pack. This project looks at the legacy of the Olympic Games in former host cities around the world to see what has happened to the amazing pieces of architecture, like the famous Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, once the events are over, the medals have been handed out and the Olympic flame extinguished.