When security fears thwarted Alfred Hitchcock's plans to shoot part of the thriller North by North West inside the United Nations headquarters in New York, the celebrated filmmaker came-up with a unique solution. He sent secret camera crews into the vast lobby of the building, then used the clandestine footage to construct a giant replica of the interior on a sound stage. Although Hitchcock was never short on ambitious technical ideas, he had to call on others to bring his visions to life: Robert F Boyle was one such man. Hitchcock's artistic collaborator on five films - as well as the art director or the production designer on more than 70 others - Boyle died last week, aged 100.
Defining his job as being "responsible for the space within which the film takes place", his credits include The Wolf Man, The Birds, Private Benjamin, Cape Fear and The Thomas Crown Affair.
Boyle was nominated for an Academy Award four times throughout his career, but never won - he was finally recognised for his contribution to cinema in 2008, however, with an honorary Oscar - making him the oldest Academy Award winner yet. He also became the subject of a documentary, The Man on Lincoln's Nose, in 2000 - named after the breathtaking finale of North by North West in which the characters come to blows on top of Mount Rushmore.
"I learnt a lot about the Hitchcock way of thinking. It's in the minor details that we found suspense," he told the makers of the documentary.
His first collaboration with the British director was the 1942 man-on-the-run thriller, Saboteur, featuring a similar finale to North by North West - this time atop the Statue of Liberty. Next came the mystery thriller Shadow of a Doubt - which Hitchcock would later call his most cherished movie. Boyle continued working with the director into the 1960s, creating the bird's-eye view seagull attack in The Birds and the plush surroundings seen in the Sean Connery romance, Marnie.
Born in Los Angeles and trained as an architect, Boyle found himself out of work in the mid-1930s during the Great Depression. After a stint as a movie extra, he was eventually able to put his technical know-how to good use at Paramount Pictures under the tutelage of the great art director Hans Dreier, before moving to Universal Studios in the early 1940s. After his second Hitchcock collaboration, Shadow of a Doubt, Boyle served in the US Army Signal Corps in France and Germany as a combat photographer during the Second World War. Decades later in the early 1980s, he created a production design programme at the American Film Institute in Hollywood, where he continued to teach up to his death, on August 1, of natural causes.
"He was the last of the great art directors. His films have a look, an ambience, a setting that's very real because of his scrupulous attention to detail," the filmmaker Norman Jewison told TheNew York Times.
"Every nuance he could bring to bear to make a film real, he'd do it. He was a real cinematic artist," added the director, who worked with Boyle on The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, The Thomas Crown Affair, Gaily, Gaily and Fiddler on the Roof.
Hitchcock had wanted to film the iconic Mount Rushmore climax of North by North West at the monument itself, but was again refused permission. Boyle overcame the problem by using a combination of back-projected still photographs and large scale mock-ups of the monument, as the director Daniel Raim documented in The Man on Lincoln's Nose.
"Basically, the documentary shows the construction of Mount Rushmore on a studio soundstage," Raim told the Los Angeles Times. The film includes "a detailed section where we see original black-and-white photos of Bob Boyle rappelling down the monument on cables and taking photographs ... from varying angles."
For the famous sequence in which a crop-duster (pursuing Cary Grant) collides with a tanker lorry, the designer created immensely detailed miniatures - not just the plane and the lorry, but the cornfield as well.
"This is pre-digital filmmaking," Raim said, "and I think part of Bob's genius was his ability to create believable sets and special effects that still hold up today."
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
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Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
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Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
- Danny WIlliams (midfielder): signed from Reading on a free transfer
Final scores
18 under: Tyrrell Hatton (ENG)
- 14: Jason Scrivener (AUS)
-13: Rory McIlroy (NIR)
-12: Rafa Cabrera Bello (ESP)
-11: David Lipsky (USA), Marc Warren (SCO)
-10: Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Chris Paisley (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG), Fabrizio Zanotti (PAR)
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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About Tenderd
Started: May 2018
Founder: Arjun Mohan
Based: Dubai
Size: 23 employees
Funding: Raised $5.8m in a seed fund round in December 2018. Backers include Y Combinator, Beco Capital, Venturesouq, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, SOMA, Dynamo and Global Founders Capital
'Skin'
Dir: Guy Nattiv
Starring: Jamie Bell, Danielle McDonald, Bill Camp, Vera Farmiga
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Boulder shooting victims
• Denny Strong, 20
• Neven Stanisic, 23
• Rikki Olds, 25
• Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
• Suzanne Fountain, 59
• Teri Leiker, 51
• Eric Talley, 51
• Kevin Mahoney, 61
• Lynn Murray, 62
• Jody Waters, 65
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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if you go
The flights
Etihad, Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly direct from the UAE to Singapore from Dh2,265 return including taxes. The flight takes about 7 hours.
The hotel
Rooms at the M Social Singapore cost from SG $179 (Dh488) per night including taxes.
The tour
Makan Makan Walking group tours costs from SG $90 (Dh245) per person for about three hours. Tailor-made tours can be arranged. For details go to www.woknstroll.com.sg
Company%20profile
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Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week