Jack Fisk (There Will Be Blood) There Will Be Blood
Jack Fisk — the production designer who built the worlds of Terrence Malick's films from Badlands (1973) through Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) — constructed the town of Little Boston from the ground up on a Texas ranch for There Will Be Blood. His work earned a Best Art Direction nomination at the 80th Academy Awards.
Fisk found the organizing principle for Little Boston in Marfa's own layout
Anderson and Fisk selected the 50,000-acre McGuire Ranch near Marfa, Texas as the primary location. While scouting the property, Fisk noticed that Marfa itself had been built parallel to the railroad tracks, and he adopted that pattern for the fictional town of Little Boston.
"I remember one day on There Will Be Blood, we broke for lunch, and the art director and I were sitting down by the railroad tracks, and I could suddenly see the whole town of Marfa, Texas, and the way it was built right parallel to the tracks. And that became the inspiration for the town of Little Boston that we built for the movie." — Jack Fisk, IMDb News
Fisk had roughly fifty carpenters building the town. He and Anderson planted sticks in the ground to mark building locations, physically walking through the landscape to determine where structures should sit. The process was collaborative and spatial — figuring out the story through geography rather than blueprints. (alltherightmovies)
Fisk builds complete environments, not facades
Fisk's design philosophy — construct the whole building, not just the camera-facing wall — aligned with Anderson's shooting style. Anderson does not use fixed camera positions or conventional coverage plans. He wants the freedom to shoot in any direction at any moment, which requires sets that hold up from every angle. Fisk never struck the Little Boston sets during production, keeping them standing so Anderson could return to any location whenever the story evolved. (screenanarchy)
This approach extends from Fisk's long partnership with Terrence Malick, where the same principle applied for different reasons. With Malick, the sets needed to survive the director's habit of discovering scenes in the space itself. With Anderson, they needed to survive his habit of reinventing scenes once he saw what the actors were doing.
Fisk built a period room behind Day-Lewis's house for character immersion
To support Day-Lewis's extended preparation process, Fisk constructed a period-accurate room behind the actor's house in Marfa. The space allowed Day-Lewis to immerse himself in the time period between shooting days — living in an environment consistent with the early twentieth century rather than returning to a modern house each evening. The room was not a set but a preparation tool, built by a production designer for an actor. (alltherightmovies)
Anderson shared his research archive with Fisk before design began
Anderson had compiled a notebook of more than 100 photographs from the era while writing the screenplay. He shared this archive with Fisk before design work started, ensuring that both director and production designer were working from the same historical foundation. The shared research base meant Fisk could build with confidence rather than guessing at what Anderson had in mind — a collaborative efficiency that the compressed production schedule required. (cinephiliabeyond)
Fisk's career bridges Malick, Anderson, and Lynch
Fisk's filmography spans three of the most distinctive visual directors in American cinema. He designed Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), The New World (2005), and The Tree of Life (2011) for Malick. He designed There Will Be Blood and The Master (2012) for Anderson. He designed Mulholland Drive (2001) and other projects for David Lynch. In each collaboration, his approach remains consistent: complete environments, period accuracy through research rather than decoration, and a willingness to let the director discover the space rather than prescribing how it should be used. (wikipedia)