Cristiano Donzelli, the pen of Oscar-winning directors. “So I reveal the scenes before I shoot them” – Corriere.it

He has designed 75 films and worked with 13 Academy Awards. Among them, Gabriel Salvatores, Martin Scorsese, Paolo Sorrentino, Spike Lee. And now he has started collaborating with Francis Ford Coppola for the latest project Megalopolis City. He is used by the world’s most famous filmmakers for his mastery of unveiling scenes before shooting them. Cristiano Donzelli, 52, Italian, is actually the “storyboard artist”, the artist who sketches the script before the show and gives the director and his collaborators the opportunity to preview the sequences. A very unpopular job in Italy, very practiced (and used) in Hollywood. He receives and reads the draft and after a series of preparatory meetings he converts the story into snapshots, freehand or using an artboard.

Shock and difficult beginnings

“I have used the pencil to draw from an early age and many of the concepts—says Donzelli—I acquired before attending the technical high school in Teramo, my city, to which I owe my more solid rules and tools. On Sundays, in the provincial environment, there was not much to do but go to the cinema And this is where I fell in love with Spielberg movies and all that came from America. It was kind of a shock, a passion that never left me.” After graduation, Donzelli enrolled in college Pescara building At the same time, she began collaborating with a publishing house for picture books. But his penchant for cinema prevails, and after fifteen exams he left to pursue the dream of working on the big screen. Beginning is not easy. At the time, there was no internet or social networks – he says – and the only way to contact anyone was to look for them first in the phone book. Therefore, I regularly went to the headquarters of Sip, where there are phone directories all over Italy, and I went through those folders looking for useful numbers. So I started suggesting myself to the directors and producers at Cinecittà. and craft Storyboard I learned that she taught myself.”

Golden movie winner

The first job opportunities came at the end of the 1990s with television director Alberto Negrin and with website designer (three-time Oscar winner) Dante Ferretti, and then, after that, Travel between the United States and Londonthanks to important tasks such as those of New York gangs
by Martin Scorsese e Kingdom of Heaven – The Crusades by Ridley Scott. In 2004 he produced, wrote and directed his first short film, wolves story, with Franco Nero as the protagonist. With the Oscars, he’s back to collaborate for the movieMiracle in Saint Anna

by Spike Lee Ed Siberian education by Gabriel Salvatores. Later, he works with Ben Stiller (with whom he becomes friends) Making scenes from his movie Zoolander 2. Other projects follow, among them amazing womanDirected by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot, Siberia
By Abel Ferrara and with the TV series Willem Dafoe Helloproduced by Steven Spielberg among others, e RipleyWritten and directed by Academy Award-winning director Steven Zaillian with Schindler’s List. Last year, Donzelli also won the prestigious “Golden Film” award, which is equivalent to the Academy Awards for professionals and professionals of Italian cinema..

Coppola’s call

In Tortoreto Lido, where he lives with his partner Cinzia, After a long day at work, put on your shoes and go for a walk or ride your bike on long sunset rides. “I like looking at the sea, it relaxes me.” A daily peace interrupted only by work emails. Just like it happened, a few weeks ago, he opened his email and found a message from the Great Coppola (Director de The GodfatherAnd the End of the world nowAnd the Dracula by Bram Stoker), to whom he was asked to help in the project that he wanted to implement for thirty years. “I thought about the time I’d seen his movies when I was a boy, and for a moment it seemed incredible that he was looking out for me.” Instead, that’s exactly how it went.