Phillip Barker

Phillip Barker is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, and production designer, based in Toronto, Ontario.

As a production designer, his work includes eleven feature films and two live operas with director Atom Egoyan. In 2006, Barker received a Directors Guild of Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design for his work on Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies.

Barker's production design has also been featured in films by directors such as Brian De Palma, Mira Nair, Lisa Cholodenko and Neil LaBute and Adam Bernstein.

Recently a retrospective of his own films (written and directed by) was presented at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, the Festival du nouveau cinéma, Toronto International Film Festival, the Kaohsiung Film Festival (Taiwan), the Danish Film Institute and the Canadian Film Institute. The retrospective was accompanied by a 200 page book Strange Machines, The Films of Phillip Barker by writer and film maker Mike Hoolboom.

EarthWorm, a new short film written and directed by Barker, and co-created with Seungwoo Park, won the Canadian Grand Prix at Regard film festival, and was selected as Canada's Top Ten by the Toronto International Film Festival, 2024.

Early life Phillip Barker was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. His father was an auto mechanic and his mother a nurse.

Barker's interest in filmmaking began in 1967, when his father brought home a Super-8 camera and projector. Barker's family moved to Canada the following year. He completed his high school education at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School in Peterborough, Ontario, where his brother Mike was a founder of the city's Folk Under the Clock concert series.

He attended the Ontario College of Art, starting with commercial illustration, later transitioning to more experimental forms of art, including installation art that incorporated elements of film and video. In 1986, he debuted his performance piece titled Trust a Boat, 'Film-sculpture for a House inside a canal house on the Keizersgracht. These scenes consisted of a mixture of live performance and film projections set to music.

Upon his return to Canada, Barker continued to create installation pieces that incorporated elements of film, video, sculpture and live performance, often exhibited in public places. His work consisted of a flooded tent set up in the middle of a vast pond. Images of Canadian ecological disasters were projected onto the walls of the tent. and was also featured on TVOntario's two-part series Exposures: The Art of Film and Video, which aired in 2005. The film features composite images that were made by combining nine frames, all shot in Super 8 film and arranged into a grid that was then transferred to 35mm film.

Barker worked on Egoyan's stage production of Richard Strauss's opera Salome, presented by the Canadian Opera Company in 1996. Barker created elements of projected film and video for the performance. The first of many collaborations with Egoyan, the two met after Egoyan attended one of Barker's shows that was being held in an abandoned building once owned by the CBC. The work involved a delicate paper house that was suspended over a shallow pool of water and projected on the walls were black-and-white super 8 film images of various people floating on a river. Egoyan said of the experience: "Sometimes it just happens. You see a piece by a new artist and it answers something within you in a direct and powerful way. I had that experience nearly twenty-five years ago when I first came across Phillip's work." Barker was nominated, along with Patricia Cuccia, in the category of Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design at the 18th Genie Awards for their work on the film. He also worked with Egoyan in 1997 on a film featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma that aired as the fourth episode of the six-part television film series Inspired by Bach. as well as with Egoyan on his production of the chamber opera Elsewhereless by Canadian composer Rodney Sharman.

The following year he released his film Soul Cages, which features a grid of forty-five Super 8 film frames arranged into one frame of 35mm film—an expansion of the technique that he employed in A Temporary Arrangement. and, with producer Simone Urdl, Barker shared a nomination for Best Live Action Short Film at the 21st Genie Awards.

The 2000s saw further collaborations between Barker and Egoyan. Barker was the production designer for the films Ararat (2002), Where the Truth Lies (2005), Adoration (2008) and Chloe (2009). Barker received Genie award nominations for his work on Ararat His work on the sets for the film were featured in an issue of Canadian Interiors magazine that same year. Barker built a 3,000-square-foot presidential suite at London's Shepperton Studios, inspired by the architecture and design of Morris Lapidus during his Miami Modern architecture period, for the film. In 2013 Malody received the Prix Créativité (creativity prize) at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, in addition to the Le prix Hors Pistes (the "off-track" or "off-road" prize) at the Festival Hors Pistes held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Barker served as production designer for the television series Reign from 2013 to 2015, as well as on the 2016 CBS series American Gothic. He was nominated, along with Robert Hepburn and Brad Milburn, for Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series for his work on Reign at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards. In the film, a fisherman teaches his son about the use of the "shadow nette", a traditional fishing device worn by the fisherman that projects their silhouette on to a screen. It was also featured on the CBC series Canadian Reflections.

Also in 2019, Barker and fellow filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, launched a tour featuring a retrospective of Barker's films, titled Strange Machines: The Films of Phillip Barker. The tour also featured the release of a book by the same title that was edited by Hoolbloom. the Canadian Film Institute,

Barker also sat on a panel of production designers at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, alongside François Audouy (The Wolverine, Logan, Ford v Ferrari), Craig Lathrop (The Lighthouse, The Witch), and Zosia Mackenzie (Castle in the Ground.)

In 2020, Barker served as production designer in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. He was suggested to the show's executive producer, Alex Kurtzman, who had seen some of Barker's experimental films.

Filmography

Film

As production designer

As director

Year Film Notes 1984 I Am Always Connected Short film 1996 A Temporary Arrangement Short film 1999 Soul Cages Short film 2003 Regarding Short film 2008 Night Vision Short film 2010 Slow Blink TV short Little Films About Big Moments One in a series of short films 2012 Malody Video short 2015 Dredger Short film 2017 Shadow Nettes Short film 2024 EarthWorm Short film

Television

Year Film Creator(s) Notes 2013-15 Reign Laurie McCarthy and Stephanie SenGupta 2016 American Gothic Corinne Brinkerhoff 2020 Star Trek: Discovery Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman Season 3 2021 The Sinner Derek SimondsSeason 4

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Nominated work Result 1996 Melbourne International Film Festival Best Short Experimental A Temporary Arrangement 1997 Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design (shared with Patricia Cuccia) The Sweet Hereafter 2001 Genie Award Best Live Action Short Drama(shared with Simone Urdl) Soul Cages 2003 DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film (shared with film crew) Ararat Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design 2006 Genie Award Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design (shared with Carolyn 'Cal' Loucks)Where the Truth Lies DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film (shared with film crew) 2009 DCG Craft Award Production Design - Feature Adoration 2010 DCG Team Award Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film (shared with film crew)Chloe DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Feature Film 2012 Bratislava International Film Festival Best Short FilmMalody 2013 Montréal Festival of New Cinema Creativity Prize 2015 Canadian Screen Award Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design The Captive 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival Best Canadian Short Shadow Nettes 2018 Canadian Screen Award Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series (shared with Aidan Leroux, Joel Richardson and Rob Hepburn) Reign 2019 DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Feature FilmGuest of Honour 2021 Canadian Screen Award Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design DCG Craft Award Outstanding Achievement in Production Design - Dramatic Series Star Trek: Discovery