Harold Michelson Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Born New York City, moved to Hollywood 1947, started at Columbia Pictures 1949, worked at Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM, 20th Century Fox, RKO, Disney, Universal. Nominated for Academy Awards on Star Trek the Motion Picture and Terms of Endearment.
Harold Michelson was instrumental in the lay-out of the fore shortened "Irma, la Douce" Parisienne $350,000 "Rue Casanova" street stage set, as designed by the French production designer Alexandre Trauner. Michelson, consulting with Trauner, with Trauner's set designers, scaled the street set's architectural details, as illustrations, for the set designers floor plan, elevation drawings and architectural details. Calculating the plan of the three converging street building facades' false perspective was a major contribution in the sets layout; this was in addition to Michelson's set illustrations and script storyboard analysis illustrations. In Michelson's approach to the 'forced' false perspective analysis, the elevation and plan layouts were back (rear) projected to scales related to actual full scale facades. Harold Michelson's expertise on perspective principles, Michelson's Paris street stage set 'forced' false perspective was built on two stages at the Samuel Goldwyn Film Studio, located in Hollywood. The camera's lens calculated horizon line, positioned as an average height of 5'-6". The set plan was based upon a 'T' floor plan, with the street's forced 'false' perspective at the bottom of the 'T', and at the end tips of the top 'T'. The main center of "Rue Casanova" street set, constructed and designed at standard architectural scale, was positioned at the front center of the Goldwyn studio stage, with the right 'T' tip extending through an inside stage door connecting with the adjacent stage. This side was built with less forced perspective. The bottom part of the 'T' Paris street stage set had the most forced perspective built on the stage. With the floor ramped, raising off the wooden stage floor approximately 2'-6", at the back end of the 'T'. The set's street cobblestone treatment, had the cobblestones size and scale reduced appropriately to the false perspective. Michelson also dictated the heights of street miniature lamp fixtures; atmosphere extras, positioned in the middle of the 'T' rear reduced perspective street set, utilized dwarfs and midgets as background performers.
2
Harold Michelson, during WWII, flew as a member of a B-17 bomber flight crew over Germany on nightly bombing missions. Nazi Germany armament installations were their priority during the nightly bombing raids. More U.S. service men died in the Army Air Corps than the Marine corps while completing the required 30 missions, as airmen's chance of being killed was 71%.
3
Michelson was one of the professional Hollywood film cadre teaching at the Chouinard Art School's film program during the early 1960s. Jack Senter taught film and stage set design/drafting. Mentor Huebner taught life drawing. Tad Haworth taught story board/continuity sketching. Harold's class specialized in continuity script story board presentation, and a serious perspective projection layout system for set illustration. This projection system was plotted from a 1/4" set designer's schematic floor plan, pin pointing the camera's floor spotting position, projecting the perspective positions of the floor plan on a horizon line, factoring in the set's elevation wall corners, camera's lens height, to the illustration's horizon line, and then accurately depicting ceiling heights and the scale depth of field within the lens ratio. Conferencing with a director and the director of photography, the plan and plotting for camera determined how much of the set was required to be built, based upon the director's plan for the actor's scene motivation. Harold Michelson's Chouinard Art School's film illustration class was extremely popular, often attended by NYC illustrators making a move to the West Coast, intending on cashing in on studio illustration jobs. Prior to the 1990's computer programs, this perspective projection illustration system was the most accurate drawing tool of the production designer and art director. Presentation set design sketches were the producer's portfolio in raising financing for their film's expenses.
4
Some of his strikingly illustrative storyboards showing Moses parting the Red Sea for the half-century-old production of The Ten Commandments (1956) were featured in a two-page spread in the Summer 2013 issue of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Quarterly.
5
Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Art Directors Branch).
Art Director
Title
Year
Status
Character
Dick Tracy
1990
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
1987
Spaceballs
1987
Terms of Endearment
1983
Mommie Dearest
1981
Can't Stop the Music
1980
Mame
1974
Two People
1973
Johnny Got His Gun
1971
Catch-22
1970
The Thousand Plane Raid
1969
Pretty Poison
1968
Gomer Pyle: USMC
1965-1967
TV Series 48 episodes
The Andy Griffith Show
1965-1967
TV Series 48 episodes
Art Department
Title
Year
Status
Character
Duplex
2003
storyboard artist - uncredited
Death to Smoochy
2002
visual consultant
Matilda
1996
art department visual consultant
Three Wishes
1995
illustrator - uncredited
A Walk in the Clouds
1995
visual consultant - uncredited
Screen Two
1995
TV Series illustrator - 1 episode
Josh and S.A.M.
1993
storyboard artist - as Harold Michaelson
Hoffa
1992
art department visual consultant
Graveyard Shift
1990
visual consultant - uncredited
The Two Jakes
1990
storyboard artist
The Earth Day Special
1990
TV Special storyboard artist
The Fly
1986
art department visual consultant
Running Scared
1986
illustrator - uncredited
White Nights
1985
visual continuity
The Cotton Club
1984
illustrator - uncredited
Firestarter
1984
illustrator - uncredited
History of the World: Part I
1981
artistic advisor
Winter Kills
1979
production illustrator
Ravagers
1979
storyboard artist
Hair
1979
art director: California
The Big Fix
1978
production illustrator - uncredited
The Turning Point
1977
illustrator - uncredited
Cross of Iron
1977
illustrator - uncredited
The Master Gunfighter
1975
continuity artist - uncredited
The Day of the Locust
1975
illustrator - uncredited
Portnoy's Complaint
1972
assistant art director
Fiddler on the Roof
1971
illustrator - uncredited
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
1971
production illustrator
Catch-22
1970
storyboard artist - uncredited
The Graduate
1967
storyboard artist - uncredited
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1966
storyboard artist - uncredited
Ship of Fools
1965
illustrator - uncredited
Marnie
1964
storyboard artist - uncredited
Wild and Wonderful
1964
illustrator - uncredited
Cleopatra
1963
storyboard artist - uncredited
Irma la Douce
1963
illustrator - uncredited
The Birds
1963
storyboard artist - uncredited
X-15
1961
storyboard artist - uncredited
General Electric Theater
1960
TV Series illustrations by - 1 episode
The Apartment
1960
illustrator - uncredited
Journey to the Center of the Earth
1959
illustrator - uncredited
Ben-Hur
1959
storyboard artist - uncredited
Teacher's Pet
1958
illustrator - uncredited
The Ten Commandments
1956
storyboard artist - uncredited
Track of the Cat
1954
illustrator - uncredited
Miss Sadie Thompson
1953
illustrator - uncredited / storyboard artist - uncredited