Stephen Alesch have designed more than 10 films together, including Practical Magic, Search and Destroy, and Addicted to Love - but their work is so sophisticated it seems insufficient to call it set design. Unlike many production designers whose background is in theater, Standefer is an art historian and painter by training and Alesch an architect. Rather than discovering objects and envisioning the society that left them, we have to imagine the end result first and then layer the details and objects to create that mood.
Production design is very comprehensive.
We begin with the architectural concept and then design every detail. Every single object that appears in one of our movies represents a design decision which we have researched endlessly. But we really use the research to intoxicate and inspire ourselves. At a certain point, we leave the books and begin to invent a new reality based in history but with a modern viewpoint. We call it historical minimalism because, while we are committed to accuracy, we use detail sparingly.