RobGillies
- Production designer
During his career as a production designer, Rob Gillies has drafted plans for subterranean caverns (Under the Mountain), 60s era Kiwi garages (The World's Fastest Indian) and a slew of palaces, forts and magical kingdoms. Along the way he has won awards for a number of productions, including Fastest Indian and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Screenography
Biography
Rob Gillies first got interested in design in his father's garage workshop in Whanganui. There, among other things, he got busy turning surplus doors into tree huts.
Keen on painting, Gillies went on to study at Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts, where he joined Split Enz as horn player. Distinctive visuals were a key part of the band's armoury. "We started to make our own film clips," Gillies recalls. "We were regarded as pretty impertinent when we turned up at the studio with a few ideas of our own on how we wanted to present ourselves". Gillies and fellow Enz musician Noel Crombie collaborated frequently on the band's early stage production and music videos, including the London-shot 'My Mistake' and the distinctive band-against-white clip for 'Bold as Brass' (1977).
Awards
2006 Air New Zealand Screen Awards
Best Production Design (shared with J. Dennis Washington): for The World's Fastest Indian
2002 TV Guide New Zealand Television Awards
Best Production Design: for Jack of All Trades, 'Shark Bait'
Nominated for Best Production Design: for Xena: Warrior Princess, 'Devi' episode
“Doing 15 to 25 sets a week allows me as a designer a bit of scope to design sets, which you don’t always get in New Zealand. It’s like a mechanic always having a car to work on.”