Keith Raywood, also credited as Keith Ian Raywood, is an Emmy award-winning American Production Designer for television, film, theatre, music videos, and commercials.
Raywood was born in New York City, New York, and lived between there and Miami Beach, Florida, throughout his childhood. As a teenager, he attended The Dwight School and studied painting at The Art Students League of New York under Issac Soyer. In 1975, while enrolled at Cornell University for painting, he switched to architecture at the end of his freshman year, and then left for London to study at The Architectural Association School of Architecture. While there, he joined the unit that was tutored by acclaimed architects Bernard Tschumi and Nigel Coates. In the spring of 1978, he traveled to the Soviet Union with Rem Koolhaas, along with Koolhass' other students and colleagues. Raywood credits his time at The AA as most inspiring and influential, and it would later greatly inform his work and "architectural" style as a production designer. On returning to New York in 1982, he would meet and become the assistant to Eugene Lee on the film Easy Money, and in 1985, co-design with Lee the original production of The Normal Heart at The Public Theater in New York City. Raywood has remained close with his mentor Lee, and to this day they share a Production Design credit at Saturday Night Live.
Raywood became the Art Director of Saturday Night Live (NBC) in 1985, and has been one of its Production Designers since 1989. He has also designed various music specials and series for Viacom's MTV, VH1, BET, and Spike TV networks including The MTV Video Music Awards, The Hip Hop Honors, The Vogue/VH1 Fashion Awards, Hard Rock Live, 106 and Park, MTV Unplugged (2007), Divas Live, and The Eagles' Hell Freezes Over, Spike TV Video Game Awards, VH1 Rock Honors: The Who, as well as all of the combined upfronts for MTV Networks. His other television credits include 30 Rock (NBC), Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry (HBO), Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam (HBO), Late Night With Conan O'Brien (NBC), and The Concert For New York City (VH1/CBS) broadcast live from Madison Square Garden one month following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. He has designed music videos and performances for recording artists such as Justin Timberlake, Usher, Beck, Iggy Pop, Madonna, Fiona Apple, Mary J. Blige, Maxwell, Whitney Houston, Salt-N-Pepa, Death in Vegas, Bon Jovi, and Macy Gray, as well as commercials for Nikon, AT&T, Apple, Revlon, Elizabeth Arden, Gap, GE, Visa, Dove, and Nike, while working with the directors Michael Haussman, Mark Romanek, Mark Seliger, and Terry Richardson, among others.
In 2007, Raywood turned his attentions to creating architectural designs for Video Art installations by artist/director/photographer Michael Somoroff. Their first collaboration Illumination opened at the BravinLee gallery on June 21, 2007, in New York City. In January of 2009, Raywood was nominated for three Art Director Guild Awards for his 2008 designs of Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and the MTV Video Music Awards. He was also nominated for two 2009 Primetime Emmy awards for Saturday Night Live and The MTV Video Music Awards. He won the Emmy for Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety, Music, or Non-fiction Programming for The 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, as well as a Broadcast Design Award for his work on 2008's Spike Guys' Choice Awards.
References
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