James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” follows the rise of Bob Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet, as a young musician who moves to New York in 1961, and it culminates with the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and his move to electric guitar.

Mangold is no stranger to the period (his “Ford v Ferrari” was mostly set in that same era), and he wanted to take a snapshot of Dylan’s career. He chose this window because not only was there change happening in culture, but it also marked the arrival of a new post-war generation. “We have enough distance from this period to see it for what it is,” he says.

To build this world, Mangold called on his go-to artisans: production designer François Audouy, costume designer Arianne Phillips, hair department head Jaime Leigh McIntosh and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael.

Audouy had an enormous challenge ahead of him, as the landscape change and...