Jamie Leonard studied 3D Design, discovered theatre, worked at the Royal Court Theatre and Glyndebourne Opera, before studying at the Motley Theatre Design Course.
He went on to the Royal College of Art, and has since designed extensively for films and commercials. Ascendancy won the Golden Bear in Berlin, and he continued to design, often with first time directors, experimental and mainstream films, collaborating with director Alan Clarke on Made in Britain, designing Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, and Laughterhouse with Richard Eyre.
Creating for film and television has also fed his passion for music and travel. He designed Alan Clarke’s unorthodox musical Billy the Kid… and Harry Hook’s African story, The Kitchen Toto. Designing commercials has taken him round the World. With Harry Hook he also designed Lord of the Flies. Two period films followed, We Think the World of You, and Tom & Viv.
His first film in Ireland was Fools of Fortune, with Pat O’Connor. Then working once more with Mike Newell on Into the West. Also two further Irish projects, Suri Krishnama’s A Man of No Importance and Divine Rapture. And in Scotland, Complicity, with Gavin Millar.
His work on Jens Jonsson’s short A Changed Man led him to design Duane Hopkins’s debut feature, Better Things. His latest projects were Desert Flower and artist Gillian Wearing’s feature debut Self Made.