"Phillip Harrison was the production designer, though, I think he's uncredited. He's done most of my films like Blue Thunder. Lots and lots over the years"
About this Quote
Credit is power, and Badham is quietly calling out how arbitrarily that power gets distributed on a film set. He’s naming Phillip Harrison not as trivia, but as a correction to the public record: the production designer “did most of my films,” shaped the look of a whole run of work, and still may have slipped through the official ledger. That “though, I think he’s uncredited” lands like an aside, but it carries an industry-wide sting: the people who build the world often disappear behind the people who shoot it.
The quote’s intent is partly loyalty, partly guilt, and partly a director’s attempt to rebalance the story of authorship. Badham’s phrasing is casual, almost shrugging - “I think” - which is telling. He’s not delivering an indictment with a gavel; he’s revealing how normalized this erasure can be, even for someone in charge. The uncertainty doesn’t weaken the point, it sharpens it: if a director who repeatedly collaborated with Harrison can’t even be sure the credit landed correctly, what chance does the audience have of recognizing the craft?
Context matters here: Badham’s era is studio-driven, credit politics are union-governed, and titles are negotiated like territory. By invoking Blue Thunder, he gestures toward a visually specific, hardware-heavy film where production design isn’t decorative; it’s the infrastructure of plausibility. The subtext is a plea to see cinema as a collective art form, and a reminder that “a director’s style” is often a network of under-acknowledged hands.
The quote’s intent is partly loyalty, partly guilt, and partly a director’s attempt to rebalance the story of authorship. Badham’s phrasing is casual, almost shrugging - “I think” - which is telling. He’s not delivering an indictment with a gavel; he’s revealing how normalized this erasure can be, even for someone in charge. The uncertainty doesn’t weaken the point, it sharpens it: if a director who repeatedly collaborated with Harrison can’t even be sure the credit landed correctly, what chance does the audience have of recognizing the craft?
Context matters here: Badham’s era is studio-driven, credit politics are union-governed, and titles are negotiated like territory. By invoking Blue Thunder, he gestures toward a visually specific, hardware-heavy film where production design isn’t decorative; it’s the infrastructure of plausibility. The subtext is a plea to see cinema as a collective art form, and a reminder that “a director’s style” is often a network of under-acknowledged hands.
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