Alan Macdonald
Alan MacDonald has worked as a Production Designer for feature films, contemporary dance and the world of pop since the 1980s when he started to conceptualise design sets for pop promotional videos for artists including: Sinead O’Connor, Massive Attack, Morrissey, INXS and New Order.
Alan’s first feature film design was for the biography of the painter Francis Bacon, Love is the Devil, starring Sir Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon with a young Daniel Craig as his lover and muse George Dyer. Following this project, for which Alan gained critical acclaim, came a long term collaboration with the film’s director John Maybury, including the time travel thriller The Jacket and the emotional 2nd World War drama The Edge of Love with Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller. The pair has also collaborated on numerous experimental video pieces such as Remembrance of Things Fast (True Stories/Visual Lies), a study of contemporary themes: aids, terrorism, sexual identity and memory.
He has designed films for other directors such as the legendary filmmaker Stephen Frears, with the Oscar winning The Queen with Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. Most recently, Alan collaborated with John Madden (he of Shakespeare in Love fame) on the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, starring Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, shot recently in Rajasthan, India and the UK.
Working in the world of contemporary dance, Alan has collaborated extensively with Rafael Bonachela, including his early works at Rambert Dance Company – such as 21, the collaboration with Kylie Minogue, exploring the culture of celebrity and identity, through to many repertory works for Bonachela Dance Company including Voices, Ahotsak/Set Boundaries, Square Map of Q4 and the original staging of The Land of Yes & the Land of No.
Other dance work includes design for the works of Jean Abreu Dance – a young Brazilian born choreographer working in the United Kingdom.