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Gregory Hill

KU alumnus Gregory Hill's sketch for the "cattle gun" used in "No Country for Old Men."

Miramax Films Photo

Anton Chigurh, played by Oscar winner Javier Bardem, moves through the Texas landscape of "No Country for Old Men" dispatching victims with a "cattle gun."

Special to the Journal-World

Gregory Hill sketched the remote crime scene that would become a pivotal location in “No Country for Old Men.”

One of the most iconic images found in movies this last year involved the merciless killer Anton Chigurh (played by Oscar winner Javier Bardem), who moves through the Texas landscape of “No Country for Old Men” dispatching victims with a “cattle gun.”

This unorthodox weapon — specifically, a captive bolt pistol — became Gregory Hill’s entry into working on the Coen brothers’ acclaimed project.

“The first job I had on the film was designing Chigurh’s gun,” Hill recalls. “I say ‘design’ because I didn’t create it from scratch. They exist. It was going through the process of what he’s carrying. How big is it? How simple is it? Is it a gun, or what we ended up using with a big tube that shoots a piston out.”

This item represented just one of the many decisions Hill eventually wrestled with during his stint as graphic designer on the 2007 Best Picture winner.

Hill, a 1971 Kansas University theater graduate, will talk about his cinematic experiences as part of the department’s “Alums Come Home 5.” His presentation, “The Making of ‘No Country for Old Men,’” takes place at 1 p.m. today at the Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall.

The talk will mostly focus on the design process of the job.

“That’s what I can give the most background on, starting day one with the script. What is the world of this film going to look like, other than Texas? What is the tone? What do you want to capture? I try to give some visual clues through sketches and color schemes and research. I try to give clues to everyone else through lighting and mood,” he says.

For “No Country,” the 58-year-old designer began by making concept sketches in order to visualize the world of the Cormac McCarthy novel. Once those were approved by the directors and cinematographer, his attention moved to handling the specific graphic chores. In this instance, that involved working on key plot items such as reproducing a 1980 Southwestern Bell phone bill to larger-scale concerns such as rendering a Mexican border-crossing station.

“People don’t know what an art department does if a film looks real. Like if I were to tell somebody that all the interior sets on ‘No Country’ — such as the hotel rooms — were built sets on a stage, they’d say, ‘What?’ It just seems so seamless and integral and real. If you do your job really well, it’s kind of invisible,” he says.

Artistic eye

Hill never actually set foot on the set of “No Country for Old Men” (“I was actually happy not to be there in most cases. Frankly, it’s boring. And I heard it was really hot,” he says.)

He also never had any direct collaboration with quirky filmmakers Joel or Ethan Coen. Instead, he worked closely with production designer Jess Gonchor, with whom he previously collaborated on “Capote” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”

“Greg brings a wonderful sense of design, an unbelievable artistic eye and fresh ideas that I haven’t gotten before out of a lot of people,” says Gonchor, who won an Art Directors Guild award for his work on “No Country.”

“What’s good about him is his wide range of experience in all mediums: films, theater, corporate design, everyday design. That’s what you need in a film. I find so many people just work on movies, and they don’t have the experience with everything else out there. Greg is just so well-rounded.”

Tough assignments

Hill earned his first introduction to the movies eight years ago courtesy of Spike Lee.

He was recruited to work on the filmmaker’s controversial comedy “Bamboozled,” in which a frustrated African-American TV scribe proposes a minstrel show in protest, only to watch the debacle become a hit.

“The designer asked me to come up with a stereotypically grinning, big-lipped, minstrel blackface that could be the show’s logo. That was tough. But I did it, and they used it everywhere. It’s on the posters and used for the show within the movie. God, it was uncomfortable.”

“Spike would say, ‘That’s good, but it’s not quite stereotypical enough. It’s got to go further.’”

Following that, Hill spent a few seasons in television, working as an art director or assistant art director on all three “Law & Order” series and “Deadline” for NBC.

“Greg displays an extraordinary insight into the architecture and characters of a scene, with an almost omniscient sense of angle and lighting,” says Rick Butler, production designer on “Deadline.” “It is the rare artist who can capture the real ‘drama’ in a scene using pencil and a little bit of color.”

Hill’s ensuing film work included “The Fighting Temptations” and, most recently, “Baby Mama,” which was released nationwide today.

For the new Tina Fey comedy, Hill helped flesh out the faux offices of the Whole Foods-style corporate headquarters where Fey’s character works. This included creating the company’s logo, signature look, store design and products. He also got to fake photos showing the high-profile associations of a character played by Sigourney Weaver, placing her alongside people such as Princess Diana and Hillary Clinton.

As for future projects, the New Jersey-based designer wouldn’t mind tackling one situated in a not-so-pragmatic setting.

“I’ve not yet had the chance to work on a big-budget fantasy movie where what the art department does is right there on the screen — you know every shot somebody designed that fantastic castle or that wild whatever,” Hill says.

KU impact

Hill admits attending KU didn’t necessarily equip him for a smooth transition to a Hollywood career, which he blames mostly on the school’s geographic distance from the industry hubs.

“On the other hand, working and learning theater at KU and having a Midwest work ethic has prepared me incredibly well for the range of tasks I’m asked to do,” says Hill, who also taught set design at the university from the mid-’70s to early ’80s.

“No two days are the same,” he adds.

“I’m illustrating a film one day, set sketching another day, doing floor plans the next day, doing graphic work the next day. There are people who go to film school to just do ‘this’ or ‘that.’ They can’t do those other things. It’s not part of their world.”