Toronto production designer up for an Oscar for transforming the city in The Shape of Water

Toronto is taking a front-row seat at the Oscars ceremony on Sunday. Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water transformed locations in and around Toronto and Hamilton thanks to the help of this year's best production design nominee, and Torontonian, Paul Austerberry.

Del Toro's movie leads the pack with 13 Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director.

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Austerberry shares his nomination with two set decorators, also fellow Canadians. In fact, the majority of the crew were Canadians.

"The fact that we did a movie that's being recognized all over the world, and it's just homegrown talent — that's quite wonderful," Austerberry told host Gill Deacon of CBC Radio's Here and Now on Thursday.

Del Toro, who lives in Toronto part time, has shot a number of films in the Greater Toronto Area, including Pacific Rim, Mama and Crimson Peak.  

During last year's Toronto International Film Festival, the filmmaker described his crews in Toronto as "top-notch technically and artistically to deliver any movie you need, of any scale you need in the world.

How this Torontonian brought the set and colours of The Shape of Water to life

7 years ago

Duration 1:46

Paul Austerberry tells CBC Here and Now's Gill Deacon how he designed Eliza's apartment and the laboratory.

"And so there's a sense of family, there's a sense of gratitude and there's a sense of belonging and a sense of loyalty," he said.

"That's why I want to keep coming back."

Crafting the 'visual tale'

A production designer's job is to "help craft the visual tale," according to Austerberry.

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"I have to set the tone for the story to develop in," he said. "So basically you read the script, you break down what you think might be a set versus a location, and then we craft it."

For The Shape of Water, Austerberry's task was to transform some of Toronto's most well-known landmarks into a hyper-stylized version of Baltimore in the 1960s. He mentioned on Friday to  host Tom Power of CBC Radio's q that if the viewer "figured out it was Toronto, we'd be in trouble."

Massey Hall

Del Toro used the exterior of Massey Hall to stand in for heroine Eliza's apartment (played by Sally Hawkins) because he liked the look of the fire escape stairs cascading down either side of the front, said Austerberry.

Because the building has a heritage designation, nothing could be fixed to the outside. So, in order to transform it into a movie theatre, a marquee and ticket booth were built separately, which sat on four legs "like a table." Afterwards, the legs were digitally painted out.

"We pre-built it, pre-aged it, pre-wired it with all the lights," he explained. "We brought it in with a day and a half, shot all night long and then we had a half a day to get rid of it," he said. 

"It was a real tight schedule."

The Lakeview Restaurant

This 24-hour diner is a staple in the heart of Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood. It's been a movie set for a number of films including Hairspray, Take This Waltz and Cocktail.

"That diner has been in a lot of movies, but it's a lovely space and we changed it quite heavily for our purposes," Austerberry said.

Toronto-based visual effects studio Mr. X Inc worked with del Toro's crew to paint a 1960s street scene outside the restaurant, and added a sign to rename the diner Dixie Doug's.

Andrews Building, University of Toronto Scarborough

This 1960s-era building was the first to be completed as part of what was then called Scarborough College.

The concrete exterior became the entrance to "our underworld lab," said Austerberry, describing the government facility in which the other lead character, whom he calls the "fish man," is housed, and where Eliza works as a janitor.

"The brutalist architecture there was chosen because it was oppressive," Austerberry explained. "With these harsh lines, harsh concrete material space ... the scenic artists had to match that concrete look for our studio sets."