Keith Raywood
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Keith Raywood, also credited as Keith Ian Raywood, is an Emmy-nominated and 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 abruptly switched to architecture at the end of his freshman year, and then just as suddenly left for London to study at The Architectural Association School of Architecture. While there, he joined the unit that was tutored by Bernard Tschumi and Nigel Coates. In the Spring of 1978 he traveled to the Soviet Union with Rem Koolhaus, along with other Koolhaus students and colleagues, including Zaha Hadid. 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 became the art director of Saturday Night Live (NBC) in 1985, and has been its production designer since 1988. He has also designed music specials and series for Viacom's MTV, VH1, and BET 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, 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 June 21, 2007, in New York City.
