Paul Zabihi
Production Designer & Art Director
Biography
Paul is a Production Designer for film, television and commercials living in the UK and a postgraduate of the Royal College of Art, London. He has been in the film industry for over 20 years, working for, collaborating with leading Art Directors, Production Designers, Directors and Producers.
Paul has won several awards as a Production Designer and Art Director including nominations for BAFTA and the Academy Awards for the films he has collaborated and devised.
Although trained in traditional cinematic design processes and techniques (pencil on paper, in camera VFX etc) he is an advocate of and user in all new digital technologies where appropriate. This starts in pre-production and concept stage within the art department through to construction and along the VFX pipeline. I thrive in being involved with any form of project which involves world building from the get go, or includes complex set design, prop design, construction or VFX. He also thoroughly enjoys adapting and building in/on existing locations.
Beginning his career as a Public Artist & Sculptor working for esteemed artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Andy Goldsworthy and Antony Gormley he found himself drawn to film and retrained as a draftsman, storyboard artist and set illustrator, eventually progressing through the ranks to Art Director/Senior Art Director. In this role he has been fortunate enough to work both within the Art Department overseeing large set constructions and Set Decoration overseeing complex prop design and makes. Paul has worked across several genres and themes from period, action horror, comedy and futuristic, in both TV and film.
One of his key strengths is the ability to quickly and confidently visually communicate through the drawn image, be it a quick sketch to full construction drawings or rendered conceptual illustration (either as a 3D computer model or 2D). He is extremely competent in all forms of construction drawings and methodologies and he's always looking for new methods/technologies to communicate in a better, clearer and quicker visual language. He is a 'hands on' designer and am often found on set with paint brush in hand.