Jeannine Oppewall
Encyclopedia
Jeannine Claudia Oppewall (born November 28, 1946) is an American
film
art director
. She has worked on more than 30 movies in such roles as art decorator
, set decorator
and production designer
, and has four Academy Award nominations for Best Art Design
for L.A. Confidential
, Pleasantville
, Seabiscuit
and The Good Shepherd
. Many of her film sets represented different time periods within the 20th century, including movies from the 1930s like Seabiscuit, from the 1950s like L.A. Confidential and Pleasantville, and from the 1960s like The Big Easy, The Bridges of Madison County
and Catch Me If You Can
.
with a Calvinist
upbringing. Her father was a tool and die maker Garrett Oppewall and her mother was Eva Boutiler . According to The New York Times
, Oppewall was determined to be "the family intellectual." Oppewall attended and graduated from Calvin College
in Grand Rapids, Michigan
, where she met future husband, Paul Schrader
, who would go on to become a film director and screenwriter.
She then studied medieval history at Bryn Mawr College
in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania
. There she discovered the furniture of designers and filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames
, which inspired her to switch her focus to modern design. Oppewall said of the Eames designs, "I was so attracted by the contemporary feeling, the shapely sexy lines: totally different from the Sears, Roebuck
middle-class stuff I'd grown up with. I looked at it and said, 'This is me.'"
Oppewall obtained her master's degree
from Bryn Mawr in 1969 and moved to Los Angeles
, California
. At age 22, she was given a job answering phones at the Venice
studio of Charles Eames. According to some sources, Paul Schrader arranged an interview between Oppewall and Eames when he was writing a magazine article about the Eameses. Oppewall, however, has claimed she got the job while visiting the Charles Eames office as a guest and, upon leaving, casually asked a secretary whether there were any jobs available. Upon taking the job, Charles Eames told Oppewall, "I can teach you how to draw, I cannot teach you how to think or see. If you can think and you can see, you can stay." Oppewall worked with him for eight years, during which time Eames, in Oppewall's words, "saw something in me I didn't know was there." By the end of her time with Eames, she was helping design and organize Eames museum exhibits. Eames made more than 100 small personal and educational films in that time and, as a result of her exposure to them, Oppewall said she got into the film business "by accident."
in the early 1980s, with such films as the 1981 Brian De Palma
thriller Blow Out
. Oppewall was responsible for overseeing the finding of locations for her films and the design and construction of sets and interiors; according to a profile in The New York Times, she was "responsible for everything an actor walks in front of, sits on, drives through or picks up."
One of her earlier movies was Tender Mercies
, a 1983 film about an alcoholic
country singer
played by Robert Duvall
. Director Bruce Beresford
praised Oppewall as "absolutely brilliant," especially for her attention to very small details, "going from the curtains to the color of the quilts on the floors." A large portion of the movie was filmed in the home of Duvall's character, which Beresford created from an old house that had been sitting abandoned by a highway in Waxahachie, Texas
, where the majority of the movie was filmed.
Oppewall said of her career, "What I do for a living is not dissimilar from what an actor does. I have a different set of tools, but it's the same process. The reason that it's fun to design sets is that it allows you to try on personalities that you'd never otherwise experience." Gary Ross
, director of Pleasantville
and Seabiscuit
, said of Oppewall, "Jeannine doesn't suffer fools gladly, and she hasn't suffered me gladly when I've been a fool. She's fastidious, restrained and refined, and yet she has this impulsive side where she just takes off and chases butterflies." Gary Hoblit, who directed the 1996 Oppewall-designed film Primal Fear
, said he particularly appreciated her flexibility and versatility: "While she may prefer a world in which less is more, she can still create an opulent and gooey world that is appropriate for someone unlike her."
Part of the set for Seabiscuit was set in Tijuana
during the Prohibition era
, Oppewall and her staff consulting vintage postcards in order to create the set; she said this part of the film was especially difficult to research because, "A Tijuana Historical Society didn't exactly exist back then." She also built a replica of the ranch owned by Charles S. Howard, the owner of the racehorse Seabiscuit
, out of fir planks
. Actor Jeff Bridges
, who played Howard, was so impressed with the set that he made an unsuccessful attempt to buy it and have it shipped to his property in Montana
, despite Oppewall's assurances that it was just a set and was not built to last. In a similar episode, the owners of the Santa Anita
racetrack were so impressed with her design for a tote board
that they wanted to keep it.
When Oppewall was assigned art director for the 2006 spy film The Good Shepherd
, it took her a week to organize the number of set locations due to the large amounts of settings in the script, which included Cuba
, Guatemala
, Léopoldville
, London
, Moscow
, New York
and New Haven, Connecticut
, among other places. Although the vast majority of the movie was filmed in New York, the only scenes that are actually set in New York take place in a house in Far Rockaway, Queens
. As a result, many sets had to be constructed under Oppewall's direction, including a Skull and Bones
headquarters and the Berlin set, which was built on the Brooklyn Navy Yard
. Oppewall built sets based on Skull and Bones, Central Intelligence Agency
and other clandestine organizations after she consulted with a former CIA operative and researched books of interviews with spy agency insiders. Since the lead character played by Matt Damon
originally aspired to be a poet, Oppewall incorporated many visual poetic symbols into the film, including a large number of mirrors to represent the duplicity of the CIA, full rigged ship
s as symbols of the state and eagle
symbols, which were used in ironic situations such as suspect interrogations.
she is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
. She is also a world-traveled amateur lepidopterist
. , she also serves on the Art Directors Guild's
education and workplace issues committees. In 2000, Oppewall tore down the bungalow and built a larger modern house in the style Charles and Ray Eames because she "did not want my house to conflict with my (Eames-designed) furniture," which she bought while working for the Eameses.
for L.A. Confidential
in 1997, Pleasantville
in 1998, Seabiscuit
in 2003 and The Good Shepherd
in 2006.
She was part of the team that won an Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award
for the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can
; Oppewall also received nominations for the same award for the films L.A. Confidential, Pleasantville, Wonder Boys
, Seabiscuit and The Good Shephard.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
. She has worked on more than 30 movies in such roles as art decorator
Painter and decorator
A house painter and decorator is a tradesman responsible for the painting and decorating of buildings, and is also known as a decorator or house painter...
, set decorator
Set decorator
A set decorator is in charge of the set dressing on a film set, which includes the furnishings, wallpaper, lighting fixtures, and many of the other objects that will be seen in the film. Props and set dressing often overlap, but are provided by different departments...
and production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
, and has four Academy Award nominations for Best Art Design
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
for L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential (film)
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
, Pleasantville
Pleasantville (film)
Pleasantville is a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Marley Shelton and Jeff Daniels. Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Jane Kaczmarek, and J. T. Walsh are also featured.The film...
, Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (film)
Seabiscuit is a 2003 American biographical film based on the best-selling non-fiction book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand...
and The Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd (film)
The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, with an extensive supporting cast. Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the...
. Many of her film sets represented different time periods within the 20th century, including movies from the 1930s like Seabiscuit, from the 1950s like L.A. Confidential and Pleasantville, and from the 1960s like The Big Easy, The Bridges of Madison County
The Bridges of Madison County (film)
The Bridges of Madison County is a 1995 American romantic drama film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Robert James Waller. It was produced by Amblin Entertainment and Malpaso Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment...
and Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical comedy-drama film based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor, and a Louisiana parish prosecutor...
.
Early life
Jeannie Oppewall was born on November 28, 1946 and was raised in Uxbridge, MassachusettsUxbridge, Massachusetts
Uxbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was first settled in 1662, incorporated in 1727 at Suffolk County, and named for the Earl of Uxbridge. Uxbridge is south-southeast of Worcester, north-northwest of Providence, and southwest of Boston. It is part of...
with a Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
upbringing. Her father was a tool and die maker Garrett Oppewall and her mother was Eva Boutiler . According to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Oppewall was determined to be "the family intellectual." Oppewall attended and graduated from Calvin College
Calvin College
Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1876, Calvin College is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reformed tradition of Protestantism...
in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
, where she met future husband, Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
, who would go on to become a film director and screenwriter.
She then studied medieval history at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania
Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania
Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and part of the Pennsylvania Main Line. As of the 2010 census, the township had a total population of 57,825...
. There she discovered the furniture of designers and filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames
Charles and Ray Eames
Charles Ormond Eames, Jr and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Eames were American designers, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film.-Charles Eames:Charles Eames, Jr was born in...
, which inspired her to switch her focus to modern design. Oppewall said of the Eames designs, "I was so attracted by the contemporary feeling, the shapely sexy lines: totally different from the Sears, Roebuck
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
middle-class stuff I'd grown up with. I looked at it and said, 'This is me.'"
Oppewall obtained her master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from Bryn Mawr in 1969 and moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. At age 22, she was given a job answering phones at the Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
studio of Charles Eames. According to some sources, Paul Schrader arranged an interview between Oppewall and Eames when he was writing a magazine article about the Eameses. Oppewall, however, has claimed she got the job while visiting the Charles Eames office as a guest and, upon leaving, casually asked a secretary whether there were any jobs available. Upon taking the job, Charles Eames told Oppewall, "I can teach you how to draw, I cannot teach you how to think or see. If you can think and you can see, you can stay." Oppewall worked with him for eight years, during which time Eames, in Oppewall's words, "saw something in me I didn't know was there." By the end of her time with Eames, she was helping design and organize Eames museum exhibits. Eames made more than 100 small personal and educational films in that time and, as a result of her exposure to them, Oppewall said she got into the film business "by accident."
Film career
Oppewall began her film career helping Paul Schrader on his 1979 film Hardcore, for which she was credited as a "project consultant." Oppewall and Schrader were divorced sometime after the film's release. She began her career as a set and production designerProduction designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
in the early 1980s, with such films as the 1981 Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
thriller Blow Out
Blow Out
Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a...
. Oppewall was responsible for overseeing the finding of locations for her films and the design and construction of sets and interiors; according to a profile in The New York Times, she was "responsible for everything an actor walks in front of, sits on, drives through or picks up."
One of her earlier movies was Tender Mercies
Tender Mercies
Tender Mercies is a 1983 American drama film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay by Horton Foote focuses on Mac Sledge, a recovering alcoholic country music singer who seeks to turn his life around through his relationship with a young widow and her son in rural Texas...
, a 1983 film about an alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
country singer
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
played by Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
. Director Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
praised Oppewall as "absolutely brilliant," especially for her attention to very small details, "going from the curtains to the color of the quilts on the floors." A large portion of the movie was filmed in the home of Duvall's character, which Beresford created from an old house that had been sitting abandoned by a highway in Waxahachie, Texas
Waxahachie, Texas
Waxahachie is a city in Ellis County, Texas, United States, and a southern suburb of Dallas. The population was 21,426 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Ellis County....
, where the majority of the movie was filmed.
Oppewall said of her career, "What I do for a living is not dissimilar from what an actor does. I have a different set of tools, but it's the same process. The reason that it's fun to design sets is that it allows you to try on personalities that you'd never otherwise experience." Gary Ross
Gary Ross
Gary Ross is an American writer, director, and actor. He is best known for directing Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, both of which featured Tobey Maguire in the lead role...
, director of Pleasantville
Pleasantville (film)
Pleasantville is a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Marley Shelton and Jeff Daniels. Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Jane Kaczmarek, and J. T. Walsh are also featured.The film...
and Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (film)
Seabiscuit is a 2003 American biographical film based on the best-selling non-fiction book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand...
, said of Oppewall, "Jeannine doesn't suffer fools gladly, and she hasn't suffered me gladly when I've been a fool. She's fastidious, restrained and refined, and yet she has this impulsive side where she just takes off and chases butterflies." Gary Hoblit, who directed the 1996 Oppewall-designed film Primal Fear
Primal Fear (film)
Primal Fear is a 1996 American crime drama thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. The film tells the story of a defense attorney, Martin Vail , who defends an altar boy, Aaron Stampler , charged with the murder of a Catholic archbishop. The movie is an...
, said he particularly appreciated her flexibility and versatility: "While she may prefer a world in which less is more, she can still create an opulent and gooey world that is appropriate for someone unlike her."
Part of the set for Seabiscuit was set in Tijuana
Tijuana
Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...
during the Prohibition era
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
, Oppewall and her staff consulting vintage postcards in order to create the set; she said this part of the film was especially difficult to research because, "A Tijuana Historical Society didn't exactly exist back then." She also built a replica of the ranch owned by Charles S. Howard, the owner of the racehorse Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. From an inauspicious start, Seabiscuit became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression...
, out of fir planks
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...
. Actor Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
, who played Howard, was so impressed with the set that he made an unsuccessful attempt to buy it and have it shipped to his property in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, despite Oppewall's assurances that it was just a set and was not built to last. In a similar episode, the owners of the Santa Anita
Santa Anita Park
Santa Anita Park is a thoroughbred racetrack in Arcadia, California, United States. It offers some of the prominent racing events in the United States during the winter and in spring. With its backdrop of the purple San Gabriel Mountains, it is considered by many as the world's most beautiful race...
racetrack were so impressed with her design for a tote board
Tote board
A tote board is a large numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track or at a telethon .The term "tote board" comes from the colloquialism for totalizator , the name for the automated...
that they wanted to keep it.
When Oppewall was assigned art director for the 2006 spy film The Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd (film)
The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, with an extensive supporting cast. Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the...
, it took her a week to organize the number of set locations due to the large amounts of settings in the script, which included Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, Léopoldville
Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, among other places. Although the vast majority of the movie was filmed in New York, the only scenes that are actually set in New York take place in a house in Far Rockaway, Queens
Far Rockaway, Queens
Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens in the United States. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood starts at the Nassau County line and extends west to Beach 32nd Street. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community...
. As a result, many sets had to be constructed under Oppewall's direction, including a Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....
headquarters and the Berlin set, which was built on the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The United States Navy Yard, New York–better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the New York Naval Shipyard –was an American shipyard located in Brooklyn, northeast of the Battery on the East River in Wallabout Basin, a semicircular bend of the river across from Corlear's Hook in Manhattan...
. Oppewall built sets based on Skull and Bones, Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and other clandestine organizations after she consulted with a former CIA operative and researched books of interviews with spy agency insiders. Since the lead character played by Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
originally aspired to be a poet, Oppewall incorporated many visual poetic symbols into the film, including a large number of mirrors to represent the duplicity of the CIA, full rigged ship
Full rigged ship
A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. A full rigged ship is said to have a ship rig....
s as symbols of the state and eagle
Eagle
Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
symbols, which were used in ironic situations such as suspect interrogations.
she is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
. She is also a world-traveled amateur lepidopterist
Lepidopterist
A lepidopterist is a person who specialises in the study of Lepidoptera, members of an order encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
. , she also serves on the Art Directors Guild's
Art Directors Guild
The Art Directors Guild is an American labor union and branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees representing almost 2,000 motion picture and television professionals....
education and workplace issues committees. In 2000, Oppewall tore down the bungalow and built a larger modern house in the style Charles and Ray Eames because she "did not want my house to conflict with my (Eames-designed) furniture," which she bought while working for the Eameses.
Awards and nominations
Oppewall has been nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Art DesignAcademy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
for L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential (film)
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
in 1997, Pleasantville
Pleasantville (film)
Pleasantville is a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Marley Shelton and Jeff Daniels. Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Jane Kaczmarek, and J. T. Walsh are also featured.The film...
in 1998, Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (film)
Seabiscuit is a 2003 American biographical film based on the best-selling non-fiction book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand...
in 2003 and The Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd (film)
The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, with an extensive supporting cast. Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the...
in 2006.
She was part of the team that won an Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award
ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards
The ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards are an award presented annually by the Art Directors Guild to recognize excellence in production design and art direction in the film and television industries.-Feature Film :...
for the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical comedy-drama film based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor, and a Louisiana parish prosecutor...
; Oppewall also received nominations for the same award for the films L.A. Confidential, Pleasantville, Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys is a 1995 novel by the American writer Michael Chabon. It was adapted into a film in 2000.-Plot summary:Pittsburgh professor and author Grady Tripp is working on an unwieldy 2,611 page manuscript that is meant to be the follow-up to his successful, award-winning novel The Land...
, Seabiscuit and The Good Shephard.