ABSTRACT BY JANE BARNWELL

This paper explores the concept of the cinematic home as a designed, narratively active and emotionally expressive space in film and television. Drawing on research from Production Design & The Cinematic Home (2022), it argues that domestic interiors are not neutral backdrops but key storytelling agents through which character, memory, class, gender and psychology are communicated. Foregrounding production design as a narrative discipline, the paper employs Visual Concept Analysis, a methodology that traces the development of visual ideas across script, research, set construction, colour, texture and props, treating design as intentional and concept-driven. Through close textual analysis informed by interviews with production designers, the paper demonstrates how homes on screen externalise interior states and encode social meaning. Particular attention is given to memory, lived-in space and the gendered dynamics of domestic interiors, as well as distinctions between filmic and televisual homes. Ultimately, the paper reframes production design as a core storytelling practice that constructs emotional truth through space.