Around the holidays, cinephiles often head to the movies for eagerly awaited new releases. December 25, 2025, sees the drop of Song Sung Blue, the Focus Features film directed by Craig Brewer and starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. Based on a 2009 documentary of the same name, it’s the story of down-on-their-luck musicians Mike Sardina (Jackman) and Claire Stengl (Hudson). He’s a recovering alcoholic and Vietnam War vet. She’s a singer à la Patsy Cline struggling to raise two kids as a single mother. Their shared passion for music leads to shared personal passion. Ergo their Neil Diamond tribute band called Lightning and Thunder, and, yes, both stars sing. The film unspools in 1990s Milwaukee with New Jersey standing in for locations that obviously feature in propelling the story forward. For this, cue production designer Clay Griffith.
His own life, peripatetic and filled with interwoven plot lines, plus early ties to film, has a cinematic quality of its own. His earliest years were spent in Bedford, New York; his father ran a Manhattan-based company producing and shooting commercials through the 1960s. Upon sale of the business, the mise en scène shifts to St. John in the Virgin Islands. Griffith was seven and lived there for 10 years. The breakup of his parents’ marriage led to “chaotic schooling” between the island, New York’s Rudolf Steiner School, and a Connecticut boarding school. A gap year brought Griffith back to the Virgin Islands where he worked at a resort and in the hotel’s shipyard. Subsequent classes at the University of Tennessee were followed by work in Manhattan as a photographer’s assistant.
His world changed when his sister Melanie (yes, that actor) set him up in the art department of Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild in which she was starring. Griffith found his world. A subsequent introduction to Cameron Crowe led to a longstanding collaboration encompassing a T.V. series and seven films including Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. His filmography also lists credits for As Good As It Gets, Sleepless in Seattle, and Dolomite is My Name, another Craig Brewer picture. To date, Griffith counts 48 motion pictures, two award nominations and one win. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1998, he lives in a 1926 Spanish colonial revival house in Los Angeles with wife Heather and UCLA-attending son. Let’s go behind the scenes.
Clay Griffith Pulls Back the Curtain on Production Design
Interior Design: What is the role of a production designer?
Clay Griffith: We create the look and tone of a film, working in conjunction with the other creative department heads including the director, cinematographer, costume designer, and the creative producers. Once the tone is agreed upon, the production designer provides the physical sets and locations put before the camera. The idea, for me, is always to create a visual world through color palette and artistic details. Everything is based on and guided by the script.
ID: It takes a village to visually create a film. What are the differences between a production designer and set designer? Whom do you report to and who gets final cut?
CG: As a production designer, I head the art department where I oversee a large and diverse group of craftspeople. The core of the art department consists of art directors, set designers and decorators, graphic designers, and assistants. There is also a construction coordinator, locations manager, and team of location scouts. At the beginning of a film, the production designer divides time between scouting locations and designing the sets. The shooting schedule determines the design process. It’s a supreme juggling act. I report to the director. “Final cut” comes from contract negotiations between the studio and director.
ID: Do actors get involved in the production design process?
CG: Rarely. Actors’ input is usually a large part of costumes, hair, and makeup.
ID: Tell us about your process, particularly for Song Sung Blue.
CG: It’s complete immersion starting with reading the script. This story is set in early 1990s Milwaukee, but we filmed in New Jersey. With robust working-class neighborhoods and a topography and infrastructure that matched Milwaukee seamlessly, the Garden State became our canvas. We had the documentary as an extraordinary reference and we chose to interpret rather than copy it.
Another immersion was to make myself familiar with the neighborhoods and urban architecture around Milwaukee. I was able to track down the location of where Mike and Claire actually lived and some of the venues they played in. Recreating the 1990s was accomplished through color palette, wardrobe, period-correct automobiles, authentic signage, graphics, and the wonderful lack of digital electronics.
ID: What about those color palettes do you deem so important?
CG: I created two. One was for Mike and Claire’s homes away from performance stages. It was based on mid-century colors accented with saturated earth tones. The second was for the performances using more of the primary color spectrum. A mixture of reds, blues, greens, whites, and blacks were accented with shimmery golds and silvers. I believe the color palette was a protagonist for Song Sung Blue.
ID: What are some of your favorite films in which production design plays a role as protagonist?
CG: I love this question and will name just a few. Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, William Friedkin’s The French Connection, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, The Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator.
ID: What are the differences between designing a film’s interior and designing one in real life or “the private sector” as you call it?
CG: As film makers, we are driven by shooting schedule, budget, and storyline. The storyline is the real client on a film, and I design to serve the story in every way possible. That’s the biggest difference. It’s also amazing to have so many talented craftspeople working at your fingertips with a singular vision.
ID: What particular personal talents led to success?
CG: I am a visually oriented person. Often when I read a screenplay, I can envision the design in my head. Collaboration, communication, and leadership are essentials. As so many moving parts are going on at all times focus and determination are good to possess in one’s toolkit.
ID: Have changes in the industry, such as the prevalence of streaming and creating for the “small screen” affected your work?
CG: In my experience, the film industry is and always has been in a constant state of change and evolution. It is truly art versus commerce. That can be a tenuous relationship depending on how one navigates the course. I design for stories no matter what screen they may ultimately end up on. So, in a way, changes have not really affected me. What does affect me are nation-wide labor strikes. They affect us all.
ID: If you hadn’t been a production designer? What’s next?
CG: I would have probably ended up in a kitchen somewhere. I love to cook. For me, it’s much like telling a story, and I find the whole process stimulating and relaxing at the same time. I also watch a lot of movies when not working on some part of my 99-year-old house. I just finished designing an independent film called Diamond, written and directed by Andy Garcia, also the lead actor. It is about a private detective in Los Angeles living his life as if it were in the 1940s, yet it is really 2026. All shot in iconic L.A. locations.
