Past Episodes.
S1E3.
“I’m always drawn to something that’s going to be disruptive.”
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Alex McDowell: design is a sharp knife.
Published: Dec 1, 2024.
“It seems difficult to imagine that something could have that kind of spontaneous impact. But when I saw the Sex Pistols play supporting Adam and the Ants at St. Martin’s, in 1975, it was instantly transformative.”
INTRODUCTION: It’s been almost 50 years since the Sex Pistols played their first gig at St. Martin’s School of Art. Their provocative attitude and bombastic demeanor infected many.
Incensed, one man tore down a student’s profane degree show, and another destroyed his TV. In Chelsea, Vivienne Westwood’s store, Seditionaries, quickly became a place for outcasts and misfits. Worshiping her subversive clothing and sexualized bondage wear, they shattered the sedate English composure. At the same time, former Vogue art director Terry Jones launched the street-style magazine i-D, which brilliantly captured it all.
As the late 70s quickly turned into the early 80s, and the birth of MTV, a new wave of auteurs emerged, experimenters in videography and storytelling, defining a whole new category of cinematic art. Within just a few years, the influence of punk was already transporting a new generation of creative pioneers into our living rooms.
“My final degree show had a lot of sex-based bondage and extreme art, and the vice principal came to the final show and ripped my art from the walls. He wouldn’t let anybody into my little booth. I could have made great press out of that now, but at the time, it didn’t make a big impact—but he literally tore up my drawings.”
RICHARD SMITH: My guest today has had a mind-blowing career. In many ways, the trajectory of his work epitomizes the concept of this show. He’s gone from “Sex” on the King’s Road to Lawnmower Man in Hollywood.
He’s worked with Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, as well as Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, and David Fincher—and Nike, Ford, and Boeing. Oh, yeah—he also teaches narrative design at the University of California.
He believes in demolishing boundaries and that we should question everything. He’s an inspiration and a genius. Please welcome the very talented, the amazing Mr. Alex McDowell. Alex, thank you for being on the show. I appreciate you making this early morning call.
ALEX MCDOWELL: Thank you, Richard.
RS: I’m going to go back to the beginning. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seemed that when you saw the Sex Pistols perform at Central Saint Martins in 1975, it opened up a window into the future for you. What do you think you saw in that moment, back in 1975? Do you remember?
AM: I do. I think, as much as the fog of time allows, it was instantly transformative. It’s interesting because it seems difficult to imagine that something could have that kind of spontaneous impact. But yes, I saw them play supporting Adam and the Ants at St. Martin’s, and then the next day they came and headlined, and they got thrown off the stage.
They headlined at Central School of Art, which is where I was commissioning the bands. I’d met Glen Matlock basically coming in and offering to have a band play for free. Of course, we leapt at it, had no idea who the Sex Pistols were.
“It was this transformative moment of seeing the Pistols on stage, immediately reverberated. I’m here now because of that night. It’s ridiculously simplistic, but I think most of what led to me becoming a designer in film came directly from starting to get involved in music graphics.”
You can imagine there was an audience full of art students who were mostly into rockabilly, wearing drape jackets—that was what was going on at that time. John Rotten was who he is, and who he was known as from the moment he stepped on stage. His persona was fully formed. The band was perhaps a little more traditional rock and roll at that point, but he was completely mind-blowing, and it was incredibly attractive to me.
I was in this space as a painter but already pushing against the convention. We were certainly brought up with 60s painters, but moving into the idea of how you can push against the edges with that. Right away, it was like, “Okay, how can I use my art to be completely subversive? How can I work with these guys?”
Because I got to know Glen quite well, I contacted Malcolm McLaren. I was taken on as their photographer and traveled to the Chalet du Lac gig in Paris—one of the earliest gigs. Traveled in the back of the van, and up to Manchester, got embedded pretty quickly.
Then they saw my photographs, half of which came out unexposed and completely terrible, and so I got fired as the photographer. It’s funny because I’ve found a lot of those pictures again, and Glen’s using them in a documentary he’s making. They’re not as bad as maybe I thought they were.
So then I was in touch with Vivienne Westwood, pretty much as a free printer because we were using the art school screen-printing facility, and started printing all of the T-shirts for “Sex” and then for “Seditionaries.”
RS: You were also designing them, or was it—
AM: No, really not. We were assembling them. We were working with the original artwork. I think my handwriting is on the “Destroy” T-shirt, but on the whole, it was very much providing a service to Vivienne, but working closely and printing every T-shirt they sold, being paid in clothing. It was fun.
By that point, my art was getting very subversive. I was getting close to my final show. My final show had a lot of sex-based bondage and extreme art, and the vice principal came to the final show and ripped my art from the walls. He wouldn’t let anybody into my little booth. I could have made great press out of that now, but at the time, it didn’t make a big impact—but he literally tore up my drawings.
RS: But that must have been—I don’t know—devastating, or maybe you just turned around and said, “F you.”
AM: It was confirmation, really, that it was working. It was great. Then Terry Jones, who was the art director at Vogue, came to that show and, equally trying to shake things up, left Vogue and started i-D. i-D was photocopied the same way as all the fanzines at that time—stapled and photocopied by this group called Better Badges in Notting Hill, who was printing every magazine, Sniffin’ Glue, etc.
So, I worked as an editor on the first four issues of i-D. He was reinventing what graphics were, reinventing street fashion—how you capture it, how you portray it. It was this transformative moment of seeing the Pistols on stage, immediately reverberated.
I’m here now because of that night. It’s ridiculously simplistic, but I think most of what led to me becoming a designer in film came directly from starting to get involved in music graphics.
“Iggy Pop said, ‘“’Do we know anyone who could make music videos? I’ve heard about this thing called music videos.’ And we said, ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ We didn’t know what a music video was, but it was an opportunity. I was working with a great photographer, Brian Griffin, so we asked him to be a cinematographer—he’d never done it either.”
RS: Looking through everything that you’ve done since that moment, and even now and into the future, there’s this strong connection of deliberately wanting to push against convention. Going back to something you said: you struck up a friendship with Glen Matlock from the Pistols, the original bass player, and you founded Rocking Russian together. Is that right? He was in the Rich Kids, I think, around this time. What was your scheme?
AM: So, I started working with Glen, traveling around the country finding the band for the Rich Kids. I went on the road with him, going from gig to gig, meeting musician to musician until he assembled the band. I was privileged to get into that alliance with Glen.
Then he basically said, “I need a record sleeve,” and funded the starting of Rocking Russian for us to do the Rich Kids graphics. The first piece of art was a red square for the single. Rocking Russian was based in the Russian Constructivist graphics that were my main influence. So doing an El Lissitzky red square was the starting point. Then it was logical to be available to other bands.
There were only two or three graphic designers—Barney Bubbles had preceded a generation before, doing Elvis Costello, an amazing transformative graphic designer in music. I was working alongside Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville. Eventually people like Neville Brody, who worked for me.
Rocking Russian had its own little corner. Peter and Malcolm were up in Manchester, and more people were beginning to design record sleeves, but we had a head start because of Glen.
RS: It must have been a great entrée into music and doing work for bands. All of that led to you directing three videos for Iggy Pop, and that’s where you met Tim Pope—is that correct?
AM: Slightly later with Tim, but Glen still being very important in my career because he was working as Iggy Pop’s bass player at that point. This was post–Rich Kids. I’d done a lot of record sleeves by then, but Iggy said, “Do we know anyone who could make music videos? I’ve heard about this thing called music videos.” And we said, “Yeah, we can do that.” We didn’t know what a music video was, but it was an opportunity. I was working with a great photographer, Brian Griffin, so we asked him to be a cinematographer—he’d never done it either.
“There’s never been anything like music videos, and there won’t be again, I think. It’s impossible to get that focus. Because there were only so many genres, there was impetus and money from record companies, because MTV ultimately was the main platform.”
It was completely improvised. It was 3,000 pounds for three videos. It was him in a fridge, basically, very simple, but it did kickstart that access. Then I started working with Peter Care, who was amazing. I did things like Depeche Mode with him. I think very quickly met Tim, who was working with The Cure. We did six Cure videos together, plus lots of others.
At the height of that time in London, I was doing three music videos at a time, one a week. You’d hear about it on Monday, write the script on Tuesday, shoot on Wednesday, edit on Friday, and it was on Top of the Pops on Saturday.
There’s never been anything like it, and there won’t be again, I think. It’s impossible to get that focus. Because there were only so many genres, there was impetus and money from record companies, because MTV ultimately was the main platform.
The economic impact of MTV was massive. By the time I got to the States, Tim and Peter were both starting to get work from American bands, and I’d go over there. We went to do a Bananarama video, which then became a Robbie Nevil video, who was up and coming at the time, and I never went back. I went back six months later to pick up my clothes, essentially. In 1986, I moved permanently to the U.S.
“Music videos were anarchic. They weren’t recognized by the union or recognized as a form. Directors coming out of film school or not, and the crews were just people you met yesterday. Obviously, it formalized quickly. By the time I got to L.A., working with Limelight and Propaganda Films, it was a powerful economic machine. By the time I did Madonna videos with David Fincher, budgets were insane—Michael Jackson was $10 million.”
RS: It’s really interesting. In many ways, you were taking that do-it-yourself ethos of punk. “Oh yeah, we can do a video,” having never done a video before. Now it just seems like, “What do you mean?” But was this something you were pursuing deliberately, or was it really a matter of being in the right place at the right time?
AM: I think it was primarily being in the right place at the right time. My career has been a series of falling off a cliff, falling forward, not having any idea of the implications of taking the next step. But I’m very curious and easily bored, I’d say, and that has driven my career.
The possibility of something like a music video remains true. It’s an anarchic space, and I think I’m always drawn to something disruptive. It’s hard for me to engage in something that appears conventional or follows a conventional pathway—I’m a complete pain for my business partners.
Music videos were anarchic. They weren’t recognized by the union or recognized as a form. Directors coming out of film school or not, and the crews were just people you met yesterday. Obviously, it formalized quickly. By the time I got to L.A., working with Limelight and Propaganda, it was a powerful economic machine. By the time I did Madonna videos with David Fincher, budgets were insane—Michael Jackson was $10 million.
“I didn’t want to be a director or a cinematographer or a producer. But I was in love with design, and each video was an opportunity to test how far you could push design or solve problems.”
We went from £3,000 to that scale, almost a feature-film. David Fincher was hiring Jordan Cronenweth, the top cinematographer in Hollywood, to shoot a Madonna video. There was incredible energy among directors who hadn’t had a foot in filmmaking but were young blood.
That catapulted them into the massively successful directors we know now. A lot of them were playing with the form, using feature-film language. That’s why music videos got more sophisticated—directors used them as a platform into feature film.
RS: In the beginning, you built a reputation for pushing against the grain. After Rocking Russian, you set up the company Da Gama with John Warwicker and continued doing videos. Then at that moment you decided to relocate to Los Angeles. Why did you decide to go into production design?
AM: I was already deeply embedded in design—music graphics, every aspect of graphic design. It’s clear I was a designer, not an artist or painter. I was used to working on commission, and solving problems. I went into music video as a designer, and on reflection, I was a production designer on day one.
I didn’t want to be a director or a cinematographer or a producer. But I was in love with design, and each video was an opportunity to test how far you could push design or solve problems.
Production design is such an open and stimulating form because narrative design requires so many aspects of your brain. You’re looking at 360-degree environments, at emotional context for actors, at embedding an audience into a fictional space that only exists for the day it’s filmed, but it has to engage an audience forever.
“As a designer in narrative, you’re designing and redesigning every second. It’s changed by its inhabitants. Although a camera points in a direction at a specific time—essentially a 2D plane in that 3D space—you have to design for the possibility that the camera might look anywhere. Actors might do anything in that space, and you have to empower the story. You are literally building a container. If you shoot in it for three months, there’s no corner that won’t be filmed. It has to have every possible aspect.”
It has to be deeply embedded in narrative. If you’re doing a film in 17th-century Paris, you embed yourself in what it means to live then. If you’re doing Minority Report, you’re living in a future that doesn’t exist, that no one knows, and you have to engage an audience so they believe it. As a narrative designer, it’s always about time and space, embedding emotion and empathy. It’s constantly engaging. I’ve never been bored with films.
RS: A lot of the movies you’ve made are immaculate in their totality. Fight Club with David Fincher, Minority Report with Steven Spielberg, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Tim Burton. It seemed you were on a natural trajectory to land where you are today in “narrative design.” You touched on it—design is five-dimensional or 360-spherical. Explain that further.
AM: First, my definition of five dimensions is that volume plus time is a given in film. Time is part of production design that doesn’t exist in architecture, for instance. An architect designs a container that stands through time, but it doesn’t shift or change minute by minute.
As a designer in narrative, you’re designing and redesigning every second. It’s changed by its inhabitants. The 360 part is that, although a camera points in a direction at a specific time—essentially a 2D plane in that 3D space—you have to design for the possibility that the camera might look anywhere.
Actors might do anything in that space, and you have to empower the story. That 360 part is literally building a container. If you shoot in it for three months, there’s no corner that won’t be filmed. It has to have every possible aspect. That’s 4D space, right?
“In film, there’s no interactive element for the viewer, but we do fill the drawers. It’s behind the scenes, but it impacts the actor’s performance. For instance, in Fight Club, we designed the Paper Street House from the ground up as a narrative that wasn’t in the script. We had to convince the audience two people are actually three people—that’s the premise. We had to build a set allowing Brad Pitt and Edward Norton to leave and enter a room believably, but never be in the same room at the same time with Helena Bonham Carter.”
Then the fifth dimension is the story. As you understand you’re proactive as a designer, not just following orders from the director or script, you insert a story into time and space. The time-space is brought to life because it tells a story. If the story asserts an influence on the time and space, that’s a completely proactive element. In my view, those five dimensions are inextricable in narrative design.
Now, jumping to the present, I run a studio that solves problems. I’m leading the drive to solve those problems, so there’s no “director,” just business partners, the equivalent of producers. We’re in charge of how narrative drives design. As a designer, I’m responsible for the impact of visual storytelling. It’s always about story.
RS: It sounds like every detail of what you’re looking at tells a story, beyond the story the actor says. The way the building is shaped, the elements in that space—they evoke something.
AM: Exactly. Take Sleep No More, the theatrical space with multiple planes, multiple spaces, and actors simultaneously acting in four dimensions. It’s no longer stage-based. The audience has the freedom to decide what part of that environment is emotive. You can sit in a room, open drawers that are full of artifacts that support the story of Macbeth.
In film, there’s no interactive element for the viewer, but we do fill the drawers. It’s behind the scenes, but it impacts the actor’s performance. For instance, in Fight Club, we designed the Paper Street House from the ground up as a narrative that wasn’t in the script. We had to convince the audience two people are actually three people—that’s the premise. We had to build a set allowing Brad Pitt and Edward Norton to leave and enter a room believably, but never be in the same room at the same time with Helena Bonham Carter.
So, we were designing a French farce. We had a Victorian house with servants’ entrances and a second staircase from the 60s to sublet a rental space, so there were two staircases and two entrances for every room. That is the essence of narrative design—solving complex problems requiring design solutions.
For Man of Steel, we invented an entire language for Krypton in three months. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but we enjoyed it. “How do we build a new language from scratch in three months?”
RS: You must have an amazing book collection. I can’t imagine all of this is just in your head.
AM: I think I have 10,000 books. On each show, I’d take 500 books, then bring them back and put them wherever they’d fit. It’s completely randomized. That’s how my brain works. Designers take stimulus from seeing how things rub up against each other, those accidental juxtapositions. That’s how design evolves.
“As a designer, I’m interested in solving problems. When problems are put in front of me, I immerse myself. I have a system for immersing myself and my team in a holistic world space. Our job is to live in that world space while we solve the problem. If I don’t have that problem in front of me, I don’t think about it anymore. I don’t live in the Matrix unless I’m in the Matrix.”
RS: Many creative pioneers take in so much and then translate it into a physical sense. You’re pushing the boundaries of reality and fiction. Do you feel your life is a constant fantasy? Are we in the Matrix? You must always question reality.
AM: That’s interesting, something I’ve never really talked about. As a designer, I’m interested in solving problems. When problems are put in front of me, I immerse myself. I have a system for immersing myself and my team in a holistic world space. Our job is to live in that world space while we solve the problem.
If I don’t have that problem in front of me, I don’t think about it anymore. So, I don’t live in that space until it’s required. I’m different from the illustrators who keep drawing spaceships in their spare time, embedded in fan fiction.
My particular quirk is that I stop thinking about it when it’s no longer needed. It’s easy for me to switch on and off. I can run four or five projects at once, switching hour by hour. I don’t live in the Matrix unless I’m in the Matrix.
RS: A couple more questions. You started a program at the University of Southern California called the World Building Lab. Obviously, you look to the future in your work. At USC, what are you trying to teach? And what about technology and the future?
AM: I’m teaching a program called World-Building. I joined USC in 2012 and stopped designing films because it’s impossible to do both. I was happy to take a break from film after 22. I’d gotten into a rhythm that was less interesting.
I carried the idea that worldbuilding is a powerful design method. USC wasn’t sure what I’d bring, but I was sure worldbuilding wasn’t understood or widely applied—people threw the term around but in games. In worldbuilding, you design a logic for a world that’s evolutionary.
“People in film school might just learn cinematography. In worldbuilding, I’m saying the world doesn’t work that way. It’s not linear. People are influenced every second by what’s around them. They’re interacting with active narratives they don’t control. There’s a linear time, sure, but we question even that.”
I’m teaching people to solve problems with media that don’t exist yet. Media changes rapidly. Nobody knew what VR or AR would become, or the combination of film and game. People are making films in Unreal, a game engine. They can change the film after release.
So, you have to be massively adaptive, and switch disciplines. But people in film school might just learn cinematography. In worldbuilding, I’m saying the world doesn’t work that way. It’s not linear. People are influenced every second by what’s around them. They’re interacting with active narratives they don’t control. There’s a linear time, sure, but we question even that.
We’re basically saying you have to design and develop with others—it’s collaborative. Everyone has an equal influence on how the world develops. There’s a logic and a set of rules, but the world evolves unexpectedly.
You never end up where you expected. It’s constantly influenced by evolving factors. I’m trying to teach that we have to break the edges of our own discipline. I teach astrophysicists, biologists, journalists, economists, engineers, animators, filmmakers, game makers—people hitting a wall, wanting to break the edges. That’s worldbuilding.
RS: People probably ask you this a lot: Where do you see the future of humankind? With your philosophies—decode, disrupt, provoke, demolish boundaries—you’ve taken that spirit of 1975 and run with it. So where do you see our future?
“At USC, I’m teaching a class called ‘Junk.’ We assume our world has ended, it’s 300 years in the future, and we’re looking back at a destroyed civilization. We only have the building materials left from that collapsed civilization. I’ve been teaching that for three years, six or seven semesters, with 21 different universities worldwide. We’re all looking at that 300-year future, a premise in the students’ hands. It’s representative of my process: set a logical framework, a starting point, and let it go anywhere.”
AM: That’s true. Anarchy is still the driving force, because I’m reacting to how the world works. It’s disruptive. There’s radical change, always has been, but now we see it. We don’t have the stories anymore.
As an example, I’m teaching a class called “Junk.” We assume our world has ended, it’s 300 years in the future, and we’re looking back at a destroyed civilization. We only have the building materials left from that collapsed civilization.
I’ve been teaching that for three years, six or seven semesters, with 21 different universities worldwide. We’re all looking at that 300-year future, a premise in the students’ hands. It’s representative of my process: set a logical framework, a starting point, let it go anywhere.
We see where ideas take us. It’s a basic premise: I know nothing until I solve the problem. We have a thousand students trying to solve that problem. Each says, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have 300 years to discover.” They must think outside their frameworks, outside their disciplines, at a massive scale with radical solutions. So yes, I’d say I’m fundamentally interested in that. It’s unknown.
RS: It’s an interesting answer. The future is unknown and uncertain. You’re posing that question. Brilliant.
Al, thank you. I’ve kept you longer than we had said, and I appreciate you making this early morning call.
AM: You’re very welcome. This was great. Thank you. Your questions were brilliant.
RS: I know you’re someone with a lot going on, and I’m grateful you made the time.
AM: No problem.
RS: Hope you get a break.
AM: Yeah, thank you.
RS: Absolutely. Bye.