So the Dune trailer finally happened, and it wow, was it worth the wait. Not that anyone is really surprised that Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve wasn’t the perfect person to adapt Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi novel for the screen. Forfans of Herbert’s creation, the wait has been long—the last director attempt an adaptation was none other than David Lynch way back in 1984. The trailer for Villeneuve’s effort thrilled them, and, we’re guessing, folks who aren’t Dune-heads alike.
The gist of Dune is that a young man travels to a dangerous planet in the midst of societal and environmental reckoning, including the plundering of the natural resource that the entire universe is greedy for. The first glimpse we got of Villeneuve’s Dune came this past April—another lifetime ago. The trailer was released upon a world ravaged by a pandemic, reeling from increasing climate change disasters—Southern California is being ravaged by wildfires and the sky in San Francisco looked like this yesterday—and a country in the throes of an existential crisis over systemic racism and police brutality. If you were in the mood, you could argue that this was a trailer that seemed almost painfully prescient, despite being based on a book originally published in 1965.
Anyway, enough about our troubles for now. Let’s talk about the trailer itself by identifying these new images.
The first thing to note is Villeneuve’s remake is slated to be a two-parter. So, we don’t know exactly how much of the story will be covered in this first part. What we do know is we’ll follow Paul Atreides (Timotheé Chalamet)’s mission to the planet Arrakis, where “spice” can be found in abundance. This natural resource, which expands human capability and lifespan, is the source of much of the universe’s turmoil. Atreides’ arrival on the planet will put him in contact with Chani (Zendaya), a young woman whose life and destiny will be greatly mixed up with his own.
Caption: ZENDAYA as Chani in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary PicturesCaption: (L-r) ZENDAYA as Chani and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary PicturesCaption: (L-r) ZENDAYA as Chani and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
One of the most beguiling moments in the trailer is when Paul is brought before Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit. She has Paul take the Gom Jabbar Test of Humanity, which seems, well, awful. Paul has to place his hand inside a box and see if he can withstand the pain. If he can, he’s human. If not, well…
Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and CHARLOTTE RAMPLING as Reverend Mother Mohiam in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
This next shot shows Paul walking on the planet of Caladan, the lush oceanic planet where the Atreides are from.
Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Paul is trained by his advisor Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin). We know from the books that Paul has been trained exceedingly well—he’s expert at combat, espionage, and more.
Caption: JOSH BROLIN as Gurney Halleck in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
The trailer then moves on to our first good look at Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), Paul’s father and the head of House Atreides. It’s Leto who sets into motion Paul’s mission to Arrakis from their home planet of Caladan.
Caption: OSCAR ISAAC as Duke Leto Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
We next meet Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson), a concubine of Duke Leto (this is a thing in Dune) and a member of the Bene Gesserit, the female-only order who possess incredible levels of intellectual and physical ability.
Caption: REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary PicturesCaption: (L-r) REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica Atreides and OSCAR ISAAC as Duke Leto Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
When the House Atreides folks arrive on Arrakis, they’re battle-ready.
Caption: OSCAR ISAAC as Duke Leto Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Chiabella JamesCaption: (L-r) JOSH BROLIN as Gurney Halleck and OSCAR ISAAC as Duke Leto Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
One of Paul’s key allies is the expert fighter Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa). He’ll play a huge part in Paul’s journey.
Caption: JASON MOMOA as Duncan Idaho in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Chiabella JamesCaption: JASON MOMOA as Duncan Idaho in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
Another important player here is Stilgar (Javier Bardem), the leader of the Fremen tribe. These people are native to Arrakis and understand the planet’s resources, and many dangers, better than anyone else.
Caption: (Front) JAVIER BARDEM as Stilgar in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
The main villains in Dune are the Harkonnen, the folks who are supposed to give up their power to Duke Leto once he arrives on Arrakis. The most formidable of them all is Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista), known as “The Beast.” There’s also Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), the prime mover and shaker trying to destroy House Atreides.
Caption: DAVE BAUTISTA as Rabban Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary PicturesCaption: STELLAN SKARSGÅRD As Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
We meet Dr. Wellington Yueh (Chen Chang), Leto Atreides’ physician. There’s more to him, however, as hinted in the trailer.
Caption: CHANG CHEN as Dr. Yueh in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Another important figure in Dune is Liet Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), an ecologist and planetologist living on Arrakis (she’s also Chani’s mother). She becomes a go-between for the Atreides and Harkonnen.
Caption: SHARON DUNCAN-BREWSTER as Dr. Liet Kynes in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Here is the very resource at the center of all the troubles between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, spice.
Caption: The Spice – Dune’s most precious natural resource and the most valuable commodity in the universe – in a scene from Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release.
One of the most dangerous things on Arrakis aren’t human, they’re the colossal sandworms native to the planet. While they’re important for the health of Arrakis itself, they’re monstrous creatures capable of swallowing who battalions of men at once.
Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Yeah, Dune looks insane. If things go to plan—yes, we know how 2020 hates a plan—Dune is due to hit theaters on December 18.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and CHARLOTTE RAMPLING as Reverend Mother Mohiam in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
This is our first good look at Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, and it’s a doozy. Your moderator for this virtual event is none other than Stephen Colbert, a fan of Frank Herbert’s original novel, who speaks with writer/director Dennis Villeneuve, star Timotheé Chalamet, who plays Paul Asteides, and many members of this incredible cast. Colbert chats with Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson (Leto Atreides and Lady Jessica Atreides respectively), Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho), Javier Bardem (Stilgar), Zendaya (Chani), and Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Liet-Kynes.) These folks seem as fired up about this movie as the rest of us do.
Come for the first look at Dune, and stay for Oscar Isaac’s epic burn on Josh Brolin’s head size:
Dune was originally slated for a December 2020 release.
Here’s the official synopsis for Dune:
A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Featured image: Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
On the west façade of Los Angeles City Hall, Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) step out of a car and begin to push their way up the long staircase, through a crowd of 200 protestors, angry about the child murder case Mason is working. But while the crowd appears to be jeering and shaking their fists, they are eerily silent.“It’s like we’re making a silent film,” says one of the extras, George Zaver, who performs as a press photographer. “It’s a little surreal, but in a really fun way.”
Zaver is one of 200 extras—referred to in the film industry as “background actors”—working that day on HBO’s hit series Perry Mason. And like his colleagues, he’s not only dressed like a 1932 Angeleno, he looks like he’s from that era. His face, his stance, even the way he holds his camera. In fact, they all do. “Whenever you’re doing a period piece,” says key second assistant director (2nd A.D.) Salvatore Sutera, “everything—the costumes, hair and makeup, production design, and our background—they sell the period. And the background is key.”
Having 200 people walk onto set early in the morning and look like they belong in a scene in 1932 isn’t simply a matter of ringing up a few folks and asking, “Are you free tomorrow?”Planning for background for a period show happens far in advance of a day’s shoot and involves many departments, all the way up to the director.“You have to paint the whole picture,” notes director Emmy–winning director Tim Van Patten (Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire), who is deeply involved in extras casting and performance.“If you’re just painting the middle of the picture, and you’re leaving the rest up to somebody else, you’re going to get in trouble.”
The process begins during prep for the series, including inviting veteran Extras Casting Director Rich King meeting with Van Patten, the show’s producers, and the heads of all departments. This is when the director spells out his or her vision for the look of the show. Each department then begins to assemble research into how every facet of life in 1932 Los Angeles appeared—including the attire and looks of everyday people, as the background actors mostly appear.
Sutera, Van Patten, and 1st A.D. Julie Bloom (who has worked for many years alongside Van Patten, and knows his preferences) then have a background concept meeting, at which the director goes through the details of each scene which will contain extras.“We go over everything, scene by scene, set by set, and learn what Tim is thinking,” Sutera states.“We break down not only what kind of people he envisions, but also the numbers of people, the feel of it.”
Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason) and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) are surrounded by a variety of background cast, portraying press, police, and other onlookers, after the verdict is read in the show’s season finale. Courtesy MERRICK MORTON/HBO.
Sutera and Bloom then further break down the makeup of background groups. “For instance, we might have a scene in downtown L.A., and, based on our research and our conversations with Tim, we might have 40 extras doing a day scene on a sidewalk. They might include businessmen in suits, maybe a batch of Eastern European immigrants, maybe a shoe shiner, a newsie on the corner, a street vendor, and a couple of female shoppers and secretaries. So we develop a detailed palette of what will be on that street. The more detailed I get, the more [extras casting director] Rich King will know what type of person Tim’s looking for, and the more the costume department will know how to dress that person, and hair and makeup department [to style them], and props will know to give an upscale female shopper a few bags or wrapped boxes.”
One additional key person who gets involved around this time is someone known as the second 2nd A.D. – Mollie Stallman. The second 2nd is the person who will be working directly with and directing the background actors on set.
But Stallman doesn’t wait until the day of the shoot to start to work on a scene. She’ll join the director and department heads on tech scout, during which the team will visit each location and the director will spell out how he or she sees the scene. “I’m always very close with the director, if I can be, during the prep process,” Stallman explains. “I’m involved with background very early on, hearing what the director is thinking about for a scene, what they’re trying to achieve, and what kind of world he’s trying to build, even helping him choose faces. Tim is very specific and vocal about what and who those faces are.”
There were two directors for Season 1 of Perry Mason—Van Patten helmed the first three and last two episodes, while Deníz Gamze Ergúven shot Episodes 4, 5, and 6, bringing her own 1st A.D., Kenny Roth, and 2nd A.D., Erik Carpenter. But Stallman’s presence throughout all eight episodes created a consistent thread, cultivating relationships with the recurring background family and carrying Van Patten’s background vision across all eight episodes, regardless of director.
Actors Juliet Rylance (Della Street) and Gayle Rankin (Emily Dodson) make their way down the L.A. City Hall’s west façade steps, passing through a mob of 200 protestors. Background cast must mime their shouts and jeers when the camera rolls, to allow the sound recorder to clearly record the principal cast’s lines. Courtesy MERRICK MORTON/HBO.
Finding Faces
Finding faces is not a simple process of going through photos of actors and finding the best looking folks. In fact, for Perry Mason, it was quite the opposite. In order to provide a sense of the reality of the time, these faces needed to look like they’d lived through some rough patches. Van Patten notes, “I told them, ‘I don’t need beautiful faces.I need interesting faces.’” King adds, “Tim wanted to see the broken nose, the weathered face—people who were living through The Great Depression. Anything that was unique, that was different, anything that wasn’t Hollywood. Tim definitely did like some character to the face.”
There were a variety of types of background actors, too. “Based on our research and Tim’s direction,” says Sutera, “we wanted to correctly represent 1932 L.A. during the Depression. We had so many categories of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as ethnic backgrounds.” Upscale women’s faces differed from the weathered look of mothers of three living in a shantytown, struggling to pull together daily meals for their families. Lawyers and other professionals were cast differently from men lined up outside a soup kitchen, requiring thinner, more gaunt-looking, war-torn men. “Someone with a more haggard face, say, we might make a street vendor,” Rich King explains.
Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) outside L.A. City Hall’s west entrance in Episode 4, surrounded by a good variety of the 200 extras: press, press photographers, church elders & acolytes and everyday pedestrians. Courtesy MERRICK MORTON/HBO
Selections of photos from King’s research of faces from the era were assembled and sent to Van Patten for his review, as well as to Costume Designer Emma Potter. “Tim and the A.D. team and producers and I sat down with Rich and looked at lots and lots of these images, and created wish lists of the people that he would want to see and that I would want to dress, in different spaces,” Potter explains. And they had to be able to fit the authentic period costumes on hand, as well, based on a costumes size chart assembled by Potter’s team. Says King, “Back then, people were smaller, so we had to find people that were smaller to fit into what costumes we had.”
Submissions were requested, if possible, from background actors featuring little or no makeup. “The pictures, of course, are all pretty, So we told them, ‘We need hair down, and if you have roots showing, don’t dye them,’” says King, with, as Hair Dept. Head Miia Kovero notes, as much natural color as possible. And no tattoos or piercings adds King.“If they’re covered by costumes, okay, but otherwise, they were sent home.”
Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) works a miracle inside the Radiant Assembly of God interior, at the historic Trinity Auditorium location in downtown L.A. The four-day shoot in September 2019 utilized more than 400 background actors each day, including a mass of congregants. Courtesy MERRICK MORTON/HBO
Favorite or repeat background actors were booked ahead for many scenes and episodes. “We would pick some people with really good faces to make a lawyer or a reporter or police so that each time they’re seen at the courthouse, that lawyer could be back. Or a reporter, who’s following the case would be back,” King explains. “It’s not only for consistency for the audience’s sake but for the background. This is these people’s livelihoods. This show was their primary place of employment for all those months.”
Some actors with special skills were certainly welcome. For some of the 400+ acolytes cast to appear at Sister Alice’s Radiant Assembly of God, it was helpful to have some who were SAG/AFTRA members with some improvisation background.“We wanted some people who could react to her and ‘speak in tongues,’” King explains.While some with the right look were sent to some improv training, those who already had that kind of experience were placed right upfront.
Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) works a miracle inside the Radiant Assembly of God interior, at the historic Trinity Auditorium location in downtown L.A. Background cast with special improvisational skills were placed close to Maslany, near the stage, to be visible to the camera as they portrayed being “saved,” speaking in tongues and other activity. Courtesy HBO. Courtesy MERRICK MORTON/HBO.
“I had four years of work over at The Groundlings,” says background actor Adyr Villavicencio.“They asked me if I was okay if, when Sister Alice touched me, could I just roll on the floor or speak in tongues, and I just said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,’” then I researched Baptist church footage on YouTube to see how such people appeared in real life.”
For more on our deep-dive into Perry Mason‘s background actors, check out parts II, III, and IVof this series.
You likely heard that a new teaser for Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune remake hit the interweb yesterday. This little glimpse was released by Warner Bros. ahead of today’s big trailer reveal. Two new photos also accompanied the teaser (and more can be found in Empire Magazine‘s big spread and story)—the featured image of Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck and Timotheé Chalamet as Paul Atreides boarding—we think—a spacecraft, and another of Chalamet’s questing young Atreides below.
Let’s have a look at the teaser, which helpfully explains that “Fear is a mind-killer.”:
And here’s that new image of Timotheé Chalamet as Paul Atreides:
Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
Luckily for us, the first part of Villeneuve’s planned two-part epic was already shot and in the can before COVID-19 hit. Dune is an intergalactic epic, featuring Chalamet as the aforementioned Paul Atreides, a brilliant young man who arrives on the deadly planet of Arrakis to protect his family and his peoples’ interests. It’s on Arrakis where the most important resource in the universe is located—spice. Spice has the ability to unlock human potential, yet Atreides will find that he’s going to have to fight for his life, and the life of his family, against a matrix of powers, both human and alien, arrayed against him. There’s also the planet’s native, murderous sandworms, the rulers of the Arrakis’s vast, burrow-infested hinterlands.
Oscar Issac, who plays Paul’s father Leto Atreides, recently told Empire Magazine that the film is about exploited cultures saying “enough is enough.”
Joining Chalamet, Brolin, and Isaac are Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides, Stephen Mckinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Zendaya as Chani, Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet Kynes, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, Charlotte Rampling as Bene Gesserit, and Javier Bardem as Stilgar.
Dune was originally slated for a December 2020 release. We’ll likely know more about that release date when today’s trailer is released.
Here’s the official synopsis for Dune:
A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Set in the Eighties and Nineties, POSE is a dance musical that juxtaposes several versions of life and society in New York: the downtown social and literary scene, the ball culture world, and the rise of the luxury Trump-era universe. So when it comes to what everyone in the show is wearing, Costume Designer Analucia McGorty—recently Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Period Costumes—has some challenging, and extremely fun, work to do.
“I’ve always been a painter and an artist. I went to art school, I’ve been in bands, and I’ve always been really big into the music scene,” says McGorty. “A lot of the women in my family are artists, so I’ve had a great example of women and strength and pursuing your dreams. Both my parents were pretty rebellious, society-wise. My siblings and I learned from that. It shaped a lot of who we are.”
Before moving to Los Angeles 11 years ago, McGorty had all intentions of being a painter. But then she started working on photo shoots, and she was exhilarated working with other artists. She decided to shift her career to television in film, where people with all different experiences and different backgrounds could come together. “I didn’t know anybody, but thankfully I met my Sarah Bram, who’s now my very close friend, and the co-designer of Hollywood (another Ryan Murphy production). One day Sarah called and said, ‘Hey, do you wanna be a P.A. with me on this movie?’ I was like, ‘Sure, let’s do it.’ And that was it. We both hit the ground running.”
McGorty says she found being on set “intoxicating. It’s not even the celebrity part, which is kind of amazing—they are very charming and charismatic—but it’s also the energy and the fact that you get to be a working artist with these great parameters. It’s like a treasure map. A very exciting place to be. It’s great for people who are compartmentalized artists, who want to make sense, even in chaos.”
After working as a P.A. for a few years, she got into the Union as a costumer, and then became a shopper, and then she got into the Designers Guild as an assistant. She continued working on movies, and people would hire McGorty and Bram as a duo. They worked with Trish Summerville, “an amazing costume designer, friend, and humanitarian,” and then they met Lou Eyrich, best known for her work on Glee and American Horror Story: Asylum. (An icon in the field, Eyrich was awarded a Career Achievement Award in Television from the Costume Designers Guild in 2012.)
“Not only is Lou one of the greatest costume designers of all time, but she’s also a wonderful person. She really showed us the foundation of kindness within the department and really validating your crew for what they bring to the table. And that changed both of our lives completely,” McGorty says. Soon after that, Ryan Murphy brought Lou in as a producer, and McGorty started working with both of them.
On POSE, McGorty has not only found a workplace of total inspiration and collaboration, but she’s also found a place where inclusion is king. “Ryan is so much about inclusion, which is why I love working on his shows. It’s a no-brainer: Of course, we’re going to open up all the doors. Of course, everybody deserves to have their voice heard. When it comes from the top, it works. It’s a really lovely environment,” she says.
To create POSE’s groundbreaking costumes, which include such extraordinary looks as a Marie-Antoinette dress boasting a working merry-go-round and a dress that featured live birds, McGorty starts with the scripts. “I get the scripts, and I’m in a cocoon reading them. I’m in my apartment crying, laughing out loud. A couple of scripts broke me down in a way that I’ve never experienced.”
After reading the scripts, she starts researching, relying on her extensive book collection, and visiting New York’s libraries. “We ask, ‘If this is what they’re doing in the script, where were they coming from? What was influencing them? What was the trend in the city?’ Then we look at pop culture, what music they listen to, what movies they watch, what makes them angry, what fabric would make sense for the scene?” McGorty is lucky enough to have a friend who’s an archivist at Conde Nast, who’ll send her photos from specific times and eras. Boards are created, which are then shown to Ryan Murphy and his team. Once a vibe is established, McGorty collaborates with the hair, makeup, prop, lighting, and camera departments. “They are phenomenal artists,” she says. “We all really work closely together to make sure it makes sense.”
Sometimes, things can get so poignant in scenes that sentiments behind-the-scenes run just as high. “The red fringe dress that Candy wore is such an emotional look for me,” she says. “That script was so beautiful, and the night we shot that scene, it had been a really emotional week for everyone. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Grips were crying. Teamsters were crying. Everyone was bawling and trying to be quiet. We all work so hard, and it’s all coming from a place of love.”
Featured image: POSE — “Love’s In Need Of Love Today” — Season 2, Episode 10 –Pictured (L-R): Yvette Helin, Munee Hayes, Billy Porter as Pray Tell, Analucia McGorty. CR: Sarah Shatz/FX
The Mandalorian‘s return to Disney+ really can’t come soon enough. The streaming channel’s Emmy-nominated juggernaut, the first-ever live-action Star Wars show, was a visual feast for the eyes. When we spoke to the series’ Emmy-nominated cinematographer Greig Fraser, he explained that The Mandalorian utilized cutting-edge technology that allowed the crew to literally bring the many worlds of the galaxy down to Earth and project them onto the giant LED screens the cast performed in front of. This new technology, called The Volume, helped give the series the look and feel of a major Star Wars feature film. Now, with the series returning this October, Entertainment Weeklyhas an exclusive look at season two, and they’ve released a few new photos for you to enjoy. Sadly, series newcomer Timothy Olyphant is not pictured among them, but some of your returning favorites are here.
When season one ended, our beloved Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and his beyond beloved charge, Baby Yoda, had successfully survived the many attempts on both of their lives. The great Giancarlo Esposito had arrived as Moff Gideon, setting the stage for season two the moment he unleashed his Darksaber. Here, then, was a man who would present a proper challenge to Mando. The new images don’t show off Gideon or his Darksaber, but rather focus on Mando and Baby Yoda’s new best friends—Gina Carano’s mercenary Cara Dune, and Mando’s old buddy Greef Karga, played by Carl Weathers, the head of the bounty hunter guild.
In the EW exclusive, series creator Jon Favreau and executive producer/director Dave Filoni said the show is expanding in the second season. “The new season is about introducing a larger story in the world,” Favreau told EW. “The stories become less isolated, yet each episode has its own flavor, and hopefully we’re bringing a lot more scope to the show.”
“Everything gets bigger, the stakes get higher, but also the personal story between the Child and the Mandalorian develops in a way I think people will enjoy,” Filoni added.
Season one was decidedly a straight forward affair, with the narrative firmly affixed to Mando’s mission to first capture “the child” and, upon realizing baby Yoda would be killed once he handed him over, protecting the little guy at all costs. There were no Game of Thrones-like forays into various storylines led by other characters. It sounds like that might change a bit going forward. With The Volume technology now firmly established, The Mandalorian‘s writers and directors Filioni hinted that the storytelling might become more ambitious.
We’ll find out soon enough—The Mandalorian returns to Disney+ on October 30th. Check out the new images here.
Featured image: Emily Swallow is the Armorer and Pedro Pascal is the Mandalorian in ‘The Mandalorian.’ Courtesy Disney+
While The Batman has had to suspend filming in England due to star Robert Pattinson contracting the coronavirus, filming has gotten back underway on another massive franchise. Mission: Impossible – 7 has returned to production after shutting down in late March due to the spread of COVID-19. We know the 7th film in the second-most pedigreed spy franchise (behind the ongoing James Bond saga, of course) is back to filming thanks to writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, who took to Instagram to share this epic photo.
The shot of this very long ramp is a reminder that Mission: Impossible does have a credible claim for being the franchise with the absolute craziest stunts in the entire industry. As breathtaking as what you see in a given Bond film are, as bananas as the Fast & Furious films get, the Tom Cruise-led Impossible films are always outdoing themselves and everyone else in the stunt department. The Light the Fuse Podcast on Twitter shared the details about this stunt, in which Cruise, a motorcycle, and this insane ramp make for one of the film’s new jaw-droppers:
Back in June, first assistant director Tommy Gormely told BBC Radio 4’s Today that the British Film Commission guidelines are “excellent” and that despite the major challenges of pulling off a huge film with a giant crew, this was a mission they could succeed in if they break down each procedure required very carefully.
“If we have the protocols in place and we break down all the procedures very carefully…we will get it going again,” Gormely told Today. “Some things are very challenging such as stunt scenes, crowd scenes, etcetera, but we can’t do a Mission: Impossible movie and not have a fight scene or car scenes in it.”
Clearly, they’ve found a way to get back into action. It will be a while until we get a proper teaser or trailer for the film. What we do know for certain is that Mission: Impossible – 7 is due in theaters on November 19, 2021.
The original “Ballad of Mulan” became popular in China around the 6th century, was transformed into a beloved animated Disney feature in 1998, and now, after several months’ delay due to the coronavirus, is the studio’s most hotly anticipated live-action remake yet. So, for an approximately 1400-year-old story about a rural teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy to lead China’s Imperial army and save the Emperor, how do you even start designing everyone’s hair and makeup? For Denise Kum, a longtime collaborator of director Niki Caro, the solution melded modernity, practical considerations, and extensive research into drawings, sculptures, and writing from the period during and around the Tang dynasty, which ruled in China for 300 years.
Take, for example, adolescent Mulan’s (Yifei Liu) gymnastically disastrous tea ceremony with the village matchmaker (Pei-Pei Chang). Prior to this scene, styling in the rural setting is limited to understated updos, but the matchmaker’s home is a warren of exaggerated, sculptural hair and makeup in primary colors. For the matchmaker, Kum drew from historical reference, but Mulan’s look needed to play a structural role in the action beats of the scene. “I just wanted little girls to watch it and think it was hysterical,” said Kum of the moment Mulan’s effort to save her arachnophobic sister from a spider, without disturbing the tea ceremony, ends in a catastrophic balancing act, first aided and then failed by her hairpins and iconic long locks.
It’s one of the last moments for a while where we see Mulan in a feminine setting, and after she sneaks into the army disguised as a boy, Hua Jun, Kum’s work shifts to master of illusion. Kum brought out a boyishness in Liu by “not doing a lot of contouring but to flatten the face, brushing the eyebrows a certain way, taking out the bloom in the cheeks, and obviously, when she’s traveling, her lips get drier. You kind of suck the color out a little bit and then you pop that light back in when you want a more feminine look.”
Kum also masked Liu’s femininity by playing up certain features of her fellow soldiers. “I always design what I call the pendulum of it, think about who’s next to whom and which way the viewer is seeing them all together,” Kum said. “Some of the boys have a little bit of eyeliner or a little bit more of a defined eyebrow or a bit more contouring,” while the fine, almost androgynous bone structure of Honghui (Yoson An), Mulan’s closet ally, is deliberate, as is the squad’s youthfully patchy facial hair. A refusal to shower and a face full of dirt round out Mulan’s successful effort to hide as Hua Jun.
Across the battlefield, the Northern invaders couldn’t be styled more differently. Led by Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee), the Rourans are a sea of flowing locks set atop prosthetic scars and ample beards. “Nearly everyone had a wig or hair augmentation or hairpieces,” said Kum, with creative undercuts that are both a nod to the men’s nomadic lifestyle and their transgressions. “In a lot of ancient China, to cut your hair would be against filial piety—it was respectful to have long hair. So we started to bring in shaved sides because this was seen as being against the conventions of the time,” Kum explained. “It also had to be things that they’d do while living in the tents — cut their hair with a blade, hack off their hair. They didn’t go to the barber’s, and they’re washing when they can.”
Despite the Rourans’ intimidating aesthetic, Mulan’s most complicated adversary is the most striking. Xianniang the witch (Li Gong) is a shapeshifter who leads Böri Khan’s invasion as she’s stuck under his thumb. In human form, her eyes are masked in white. “Everybody has an animal element to them, and hers very much is the hawk,” said Kum, who took inspiration from older Chinese films and costume designer Bina Daigeler’s intricate, layered costumes when she designed Xiannang’s ethereally supernatural aesthetic, “a mix between an edgy runway look and fantasy.” While the witch’s mask is designed to make you unsure how it got there, viewers can be assured its white cast isn’t from traditional makeup. Extensive period research in service of Mulan’s hair and makeup didn’t translate over to the products themselves. “They used rice flour, but they also used lead in the early days,” Kum noted.
Though shooting was long wrapped before the pandemic took hold, also due to safety, of course, Mulan’s release date was pushed back. For this interview, Kum was reached in Prague, where she’s back at work on an unrelated project. She let us in on some of the ins and outs of all-new safe hair and makeup practices. Pointing out that “the good thing is that we are from a department that’s very hygiene aware, anyway,” the hair and makeup designer listed the addition of a COVID-19 office, department, and supervisor to major film sets, along with a cleaning team that comes in three times a day. Kum herself focuses on researching a country’s local laws and the latest on the illness itself (“I know a lot more about COVID than I would care to,” she joked), then employs three different types of sterilizers, UV wands, and machines, plus “three different kinds of goggles or shields, different masks depending on how close you are, and constant hand-washing and sterilizing.” Despite these efforts, prosthetics and long makeup looks are still tricky prospects, but in general, hygiene practices “kicked it into that next gear” have allowed the show to go on.
As one of film’s most innovative directors, Ridley Scott is a master at transporting us to worlds unlike any we’ve seen before. So it comes as no surprise that Raised by Wolves, his first foray into directing episodic television, promises to be a unique, multilayered vision as ambitious in theme and scope as Alien, Blade Runner, and The Martian.
Unspooling in 10 installments on HBO Max, Raised by Wolves is set in a future where Earth is being destroyed by a religious war between the uber faithful and nonbelievers and which is streaming now. As the story unfolds, we meet Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim), two androids sent to a new planet by the atheist faction with a mandate to asexually repopulate the universe. Complicating the mission is a harsh terrain that seems to be inhabited by not-so-friendly alien life. But the bigger challenge comes from the children themselves as Mother and Father struggle to understand the complex humanity of their charges who begin to ponder the notion of a higher being.
When it came time to create Kepler-22b, the unearthly planet where Raised by Wolves is set, Scott turned to South Africa. Though the country is no stranger to big-budget blockbusters (Mad Max: Fury Road, Avengers: Age of Ultron), Raised by Wolves line producer Cheryl Eatock, whose resume includes The Dark Tower and Bloodshot, was thrilled to have a hand in creating this series.
“For South Africa, it was like a dream come true,” says Eatock during an interview via Zoom. “You know when Sir Ridley calls, you certainly answer. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to do the show? And then, just like that, it’s, “Oh no! How are we gonna do this?”
It took four months of preproduction to get ready for the 22-week shoot. After a lengthy scouting excursion with Scott in and around Cape Town, the production honed in on Lourensford Wine Estate in Somerset West, about an hour’s drive east of Cape Town.
Commandeering an unused section of the vineyard, the production began transforming it into Kepler-22b by excavating all the nonindigenous plants. Kookerboom trees, aka quiver trees, were trucked in from all over South Africa. Eatock estimates this alone took two months. The greens department created a special nursery to nurture the kookerboom trees as well as the aloe species used to create the Carbo Crop Circles called for in the script. Lourenford’s owners were so taken by the aloe circles, they asked if they could remain after filming wrapped.
Abubakar Salim, Amanda Collin. Photograph by Coco Van Oppens
“Looking otherworldly is not an easy thing to do, but Ridley saw something really majestic and magical in the locations when he was here,” adds Eatock. “We filmed through the winter and that added to the aesthetic. We got some very strange winds and very strange cloud cover so it was incredible to be able to incorporate that into our world.”
The ultimate goal was to fashion a look that was familiar yet futuristic. From the sets and costumes to the props and makeup effects, the challenge was to envision technology that wouldn’t be invented for several hundred years. The production strived to incorporate forward-thinking materials. The costumes featured sleek latex designs. The production took 3-D printing to new levels.
Amanda Collin, Winta McGrath, Abubakar Salim. Photograph by Coco Van Oppens
“A little bit of everything…props, costumes, prosthetics for sure and even in some set design,” remembers Eatock regarding the printer output. “Not to downplay the traditional craft of filmmaking, but we jumped way ahead here in terms of 3-D modeling and definitely in the prosthetics field. It cuts down on time. It cuts down on fabrication. It’s just a new skill set now.”
As an example, Eatock cites the incubator scene in the opening episode. Used to house the soon-to-be children, it makes the journey to the new planet as a small, orange ball before transforming into a life-size device. Ridley Scott presented ideas from his research into futuristic and instant housing. With these as inspiration, sustainable polymers were generated via 3-D printing and fashioned into a large pop-up nursery that looks as if it belongs in an alien world.
Amanda Collin. Photograph by Coco Van Oppens
“That was just incredible to try and figure out,” Eatock says. “How are we going to do that and what material are we going to use? We were on the cutting edge of innovation.”
With Scott leading the charge, it wasn’t hard to find inspiration. Eatock reveals he brought such vision and energy to the production that it elevated everyone’s game. An expert artist, Scott drew the storyboards that laid the groundwork for what would eventually end up in the camera.
“He was engaged with every single department, at a level of detail that was masterful,” explains Eatock. “The storyboards just came alive as he spoke.”
Equally impressive was the level of energy that Scott brought to the two episodes he directed. Eatock admits that she’s never seen anything like this from a director.
“He is hard to keep up with. Let me tell you, you’ve got to be in it every second of the day,” she continues. “When Sir Ridley stood on the set and we were talking about that opening sequence, Amanda Collin, who plays Mother, and Abubakar Salim, who plays Father, were just so moved at how he brought it to life. He saw it. He drew it frame by frame and we stood in that frame every single day. For me, the opening sequence was just a special, special moment.”
But Ridley wasn’t the only Scott involved in the production. His son Luke, also a director, helmed three episodes, including the series’ finale. An artist as well, Luke mapped out many of his shots with frame by frame drawings. But in other ways, his approach differed from that of his dad’s.
“He’s much quieter. Ponders a lot more. So it feels like a more internal process,” reveals Eatock.
Eatock remembers specifically the thought and care that Luke put into the final scene. She found it fascinating to watch Ridley start the story and Luke wrap it up in episode ten. “He took a long time to get there, in terms of thinking about how he was going to take the audience from the beginning to the end,” she says.
Though nothing is set in stone, Eatock hints that there has been talk about doing a second season of Raised by Wolves. And if it happens, she won’t hesitate to return to the world of Kepler-22b.
“I’ve not done a lot of science fiction before on this level. For me, that was the greatest leap,” Eatock says. “Is this crazy what we are doing? Have we hit the mark? Are we going to touch people? Can people respond to these characters? There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that.”
But tackling that responsibility is the main reason Eatock believes that Raised by Wolves is a worthy addition to the genre. “It’s beautifully shot and looks cinematic and nothing like I’ve ever seen before, but there’s a humanity about it,” she says. “I think that is what we’ll connect to, especially now. Science fiction is always great when it can meld futuristic elements with humanity.”
Featured image: Photograph by Coco Van Oppens/HBO Max
As promised yesterday via that slick new poster, No Time To Die has just delivered its sizzling second trailer. The trailer opens with an adrenalin shot—Bond (Daniel Craig, of course) is on a bridge with a car bearing down on him. Surviving the vehicular onslaught takes some last-second decision making and a literal leap of faith. The first words we hear in the new trailer come from Bond—”The past isn’t dead”—as he stands, panting and beat up but very much alive, in front of his old friend Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux).
The trailer quickly establishes the cast of characters that will be surrounding Craig’s last turn as Bond. There’s his old nemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), telling Bond that fate has drawn them back together. There’s Q (Ben Whishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and newcomer Nomi (Lashana Lynch), representing Bond’s allies.
We’ve heard from director Cary Joji Fukunaga that Safin would represent Bond’s biggest challenge yet. Now we learn from the new trailer that Safin is connected to both Blofeld (“now your enemy is my enemy,” Blofeld tells Bond), and Madeline Swann, whose is both an object of obsession for Safin and someone with a secret that Blofeld promises will be the death of 007.
Not only does the new trailer gives us a bit of plot, but it also establishes how the Bond franchise is leaning into the power of its female characters. The era of the Bond Girl seems to finally be over. Look no further than both Lynch’s new 00-agent and Ana de Armas’s Paloma, who is given a proper, butt-kicking introduction here. Both Nomi and Paloma are more than capable of handling themselves in dangerous situations, with or without James.
Craig’s last mission as Bond will be the longest film in the franchise’s history, giving Fukunaga and his cast plenty of time to stick the landing. No Time To Die picks up five years since the events in Spectre, with MI6’s legendary super-spy nursing his wounds in Jamaica. “After five years of retirement, who has he become?” Fukanaga asked in a No Time To Die teaser this past February. “He’s sort of a wounded animal struggling with his role as a double O. The world’s changed, the rules of engagement aren’t what they used to be. The rules of espionage are darker in this era of asymmetric warfare.“
The world has changed indeed.
No Time To Die hits theaters on November 20. Check out the trailer here:
We finally got our first look at Matt Reeves’ The Batman during the DC FanDome event on August 22. The trailer—ingeniously paired with Nirvana’s “Something in the Way”—revealed Reeves’ fresh take on Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) and the Gotham he inhabits. We’ve known for a while that The Batman wasn’t going to be an origin story, but we’ve subsequently learned it would take place during year two of Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman. This is important for several reasons. Intriguingly, while eschewing the origin story machinations that take up a considerable chunk of time in any introductory superhero film, The Batman will still give us a raw version of its central character. And while every iteration of Bruce Wayne (perhaps save Adam West’s candy-colored TV series version) is haunted by the death of his parents, it seems evident Pattison’s Bruce Wayne will be a version we haven’t seen before.
Reeves’ comments during his DC FanDome panel hammered home this point. “The idea is that we’re in Year Two, it’s the Gotham Experiment,” Reeves said. “It’s a criminological experiment. He’s trying to figure out sort of what he can do that can finally change this place. And in our story, as he’s in that mode, that’s where you meet him…and he’s seeing that he’s not having any of the effect that he wants to have yet, and that is when the murders start to happen.”
Now pair Reeves’ comments with the images Warner Bros. has released. First off, you’ll note that Bruce Wayne’s Bat Cave seems a whole lot more DIY than what Christian Bale was working with in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy:
We know that The Batman will pit Bruce against Paul Dano’s Riddler. Reeves said during the panel that in the midst of Batman tinkering with how to finally clean up Gotham, Riddler makes his entrance:
“And then the murders begin to describe sort of the history of Gotham in a way that only reinforces what he knows about Gotham, but it opens up a whole new world of corruption that went much farther,” Reeves said. “But as that story starts to come out, without being an origin tale for him, it ends up being something that touches on his origins. So you start to see that, as it starts to describe this epic history of corruption in Gotham, that you start to understand, ‘Well, where did my family sit in that?’”
This hints at a version of Bruce Wayne’s origin story that implicates, rather than sanctifies, his billionaire parents and their contributions to Gotham. (Which, it should be noted, was a central theme of Todd Phillips’ Joker.) A Batman contending with his own family’s complicity in a collapsing Gotham suggests an even more tortured soul than we’ve seen in the past.
In Pattison, The Batman has the kind of edgy performer that Reeves’ vision calls for. As he’s done ever since he left his Twilight teenage heartthrob days behind him, from Good Time to The Lighthouse, Pattison has sought out characters on the edge. In The Batman, he may have found the perfect marriage between blockbuster spectacle and character study.
Her Majesty’s most lethal weapon will be taking on a new mission before the year is up—or so we hope. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s long-awaited No Time To Die is slated to hit theaters on November 20, and now a dapper new poster has been released, as well as the date for the next trailer—September 3. There has been a tremendous amount of excitement about this film because of the massive amount of talent and the fact it represents Daniel Craig’s last turn as 007. Getting a fresh look at Fukunaga’s film tomorrow will remind folks why everyone was so excited about this movie.
As it’s been for every major film set to be released this year, No Time To Die has had its mission date changed a few times. Originally slated for April 10, No Time To Die was put on hold due to the spread of COVID-19, making it one of the first big-name films to move release dates. It first moved to November 25, 2020, back in early March, and then settled on November 20 a few months later.
The new poster is classic Bond—dressed to the nines and brandishing his preferred Walther PPK. We’ve known for a while that Craig’s last mission as Bond will be the longest film in the franchise’s history. No Time To Die picks up five years since the events in Spectre, with MI6’s legendary super-spy nursing his wounds in Jamaica. “After five years of retirement, who has he become?” Fukanaga asked in a No Time To Die teaser this past February. “He’s sort of a wounded animal struggling with his role as a double O. The world’s changed, the rules of engagement aren’t what they used to be. The rules of espionage are darker in this era of asymmetric warfare.“
Dragging Bond out of retirement is CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). Old friends like Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) return, as do old enemies like Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). A new ally appears in the form of Nomi (Lashana Lynch), who seems just as capable as Bond himself. No Time To Die‘s villain is Safin (Rami Malek), who, according to Fukanaga, will present Bond with his gravest challenge yet.
Here’s the new poster. We’ll share the new trailer when it drops tomorrow:
For visual effects supervisor Thomas Horton, Peacock’s new series Brave New World, which premiered on July 15, presented a serious challenge. Horton was tasked with overseeing the streaming channel’s ambitious adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s legendary sci-fi novel, which despite being published in 1932 still contains so many unkillable themes and foundational science fiction tropes it remains fresh today. Huxley’s vision of a futuristic dystopia ordered by an intelligence-based hierarchy is equaled only by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in terms of cultural impact. To adapt Huxley’s vision for the screen (the last attempt was a 1998 TV movie adaptation from NBC), creators Grant Morrison, Brian Taylor, and David Wiener needed someone to not only handle the world-building, but to imagine a world designed by artificial intelligence. Horton’s done historical drama (The King’s Speech), fantasy (Emerald City), and comedy (A Series of Unfortunate Events), but Brave New World posed challenge unlike any he’d attempted before.
“The sets had a massive amount of blue screen,” Horton says, “the biggest I’ve ever had to CGI.” Huxley’s iconic novel gets a few updates here, including the aforementioned artificial intelligence—named Indra—that literally builds the world of New London. With limited time on location and a need to create a believable futuristic world created by an inhuman superintelligence, on schedule, within the budget, and, as it would turn out, during a global pandemic, Horton and his team had to envision their own future and work in ways they’d never attempted before.
“Because New London is built by an A.I., instead of taking the drama out into the streets, we brought the streets into the drama,” Horton says. The A.I. designed cityscape is visible through the windows of the Bureau of Stability, for example, where the “utopian” society of New London is kept under a watchful eye. Pesky and archaic freedoms like privacy, money, family, and monogamy are prohibited. The skyline is gleamingly perfect and seemingly inhuman, yet it was constructed by not just Horton and his team, but talented real-life architects.
Bureau Of Stability Directors Office. L-r: Jessica Brown Findlay and Nina Sosanya. Courtesy Peacock.
“There was a lot of collaboration with the art department to find the balance between set builds and CG and integrate the design,” Horton says. “There’s a point at which concept artists can only go so far. For a city to be real it has to be functional.” While Horton has helped conceive of cities via visual effects in the past, he’s usually had historical photos, images, or references to work with. “Even King’s Landing in Game of Thrones was modeled on Dubrovnik, so you’ve got a visual logic that works,” he says. “For this, there were a lot of fundamental aspects that were new. So we engaged an architect, Tim Evans, and handed over all of our design templates and key buildings, and then he asked all those planning questions. How many people will live here, and how do these people live? So we had a lot of blue sky thinking about how this society would exist.”
New London in ‘Brave New World.’ Courtesy Peacock.John (Alden Ehrenreich)’s apartment in ‘Brave New World.’ Courtesy Peacock.
Brave New World‘s real-life architect went off to create a city based on the answers Horton, production designer David Lee, showrunner David Wiener, and director Owen Harris provided, using materials that would be available in the future. “[Tim Evans] designed the layout of the city, and the ancillary buildings, which are then run through our production design department,” Horton says. “And with his team, he modeled all these buildings, the cladding, the footfall, and how people would get around. We were able to give this 125-page document to Industrial Light & Magic, and they were able to build the city really quickly.”
In the series first episode, we get a glimpse of New London via a train. It turns out actors onset that today were greeted to a similar cityscape that viewers would see on their screen months later. “We projected the CG renders of the city onto an eighteen-by-five meter digital screen so the actors were on a virtual ride and could look out the window and actually see the city,” Horton says. “We basically had a couple of months to build and render that. You’d usually have the entire series to do that, but we had to condense that into a small space of time. The template the architect gave us was absolutely essential. ILM said they’ve never been given a more detailed build plan. That’s one of the unique things about our show, the city is a fully built 360-degree environment, so we can put the camera anywhere.”
For the A.I., Horton and his team utilized a company called Territory, based in the U.K, that worked on Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One. Because so much of Brave New World revolves around believing that the world has been created by the A.I., the technology in the show can’t just look like a more glitzy version of what we have today. “It couldn’t just be an extension of iPhones today,” Horton says. For sequences in the series that showcased, among other things, a time-lapse of old London being covered in vegetation, as well as the esoteric dream sequences in the first season, the Spanish company D. Bond was brought on board. For the Savage Lands, Horton and his Brave New World collaborators turned to a company called FuseFX, as well as Digital Domain in India, and Incessant Rain in Nepal. It was truly a global effort.
The Savage Lands. Courtesy Peacock.
Then the pandemic hit.
“We’d only delivered three episodes when we went into lockdown due to COVID-19, so we had to move all our artists, maybe 250 of them, to their homes and get them working within about two weeks,” Horton says. “We still had to deliver something like 1800 shots, which we managed to do on our original pre-COVID schedule, two weeks before the premiere. Artists have wanted to work remotely for a long time, we knew it was achievable, but studios understandably worried about cost and security. Now, though, that there was so much money at stake there was no choice, and it ended up driving so many technological advances. There’s a huge percentage of the industry that won’t go back because it worked. Seven episodes were done from everyone’s bedrooms, and it looks incredible. You couldn’t get a more complex show in terms of CG to stress test this new and innovative way of working.”
Tom Horton is scheduled to give a masterclass at the MPA Film Workshop, in partnership with the Tokyo International Film Market (TIFFCOM) and Digital Hollywood University (DHU), in November.
Featured image: The Yellowball court in ‘Brave New World.’ Courtesy Peacock
Stranger Things Season 3 continues to track the bizarre mysteries unfolding in Hawkins, Indiana circa 1985. Blending sci-fi, action, romance, and comedy the Netflix thriller, nominated for eight Emmys this year, embroils plucky kids, led by Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown) in their ongoing quest to bring down the mysterious “Mind Flayer” monster. Meanwhile, Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour), in between flirtations with local mom Joyce (Wynona Ryder), dukes it out repeatedly with square-jawed Grigori (Soviet-born actor Andrey Ivchenko), known by fans as the “Russian Terminator.”
Emmy-nominated stunt coordinator Hiro Koda staged Stranger Things‘ surreal smackdowns. Raised in Alabama, where his father settled after emigrating from Japan to establish Yukoshai Karate schools throughout the south, Koda earned a black belt as a child. At age 12, a family friend took him to the set of Lethal Weapon. Koda recalls, “I saw guys doing stunts and it was so cool, I thought, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life!'”
Five-time nominee Koda, who won his first Emmy in 2013 for Supah Ninjas, had planned to spend his summer in Atlanta choreographing fights for the fourth season of Stranger Things. Six weeks into production, the show shut down due to the pandemic. Speaking from his home in Colorado, where he lives on a 10-acre spread with his wife (stunt coordinator Jahnel Curfman) and four kids, Koda talked about staging fights for ferocious Sheriff Hopper, levitating drooling Billy into the air and coaxing monstrous scares from a man dressed in a red bodysuit and silver hat.
Hiro Koda
David Harbour’s character Sheriff Jim Hopper often suffers from depression but this season, he’s pretty ferocious. How did you define his fighting style?
I think of Hopper as a barroom brawler, an old-school, street-fighting cop. I met with David and spent time in prep working through the moves, talking about his character, and figuring what he likes to do. Then I could design stuff that’s going to make him look the most badass.
Andrey Ivchenko in ‘Stranger Things.’ Courtesy Netflix.
With Hopper, there’s a lot of punching and head butts—nothing too fancy.
That’s what I love about choreographing fights. Hopper’s completely different from Andrey Ivchenko’s Grigori character, the heavy. Grigori’s a well-trained military man, so we used more martial arts for him and developed a different style. Hopper has three big fights with Grigori, starting small and built up to the big finale next to the laser weapon machine.
David Harbour in ‘Stranger Things.’ Courtesy Netflix
In general, how do plan your fight choreography?
I like to shoot live-action previs during prep so I’ll bring in my stunt doubles, rehearse the action, and film it. If we don’ have access to the actual set I build something similar. Then I cut the action together—sometimes I’ll even add music—and present that to the directors for their approval. It’s a huge tool for getting everybody on the same page and it also helps when I’m directing second unit because I already know exactly how the sequence should look. A lot of times, my previsuals looks a lot like what we shoot on film.
How did you put together that surreal Fun House sequence, where Hopper headbutts Russian thugs in a hall of mirrors filled with punching bags hanging from the ceiling?
The Fun House set was actually already built so we pre-lit that for ourselves and shot the previs there. David’s very agile and he loves it when he gets to fight with stunt doubles because he knows he can go all out. For this sequence, David was like, “This room is crazy so let’s have fun with it.” The guy who played the henchman was a stunt guy, playing himself, so there was no double needed. They just tore that room up.
In Season 3, Dacre Montgomery’s Billy character has turned into a demonically possessed zombie. During a tense sauna scene, Eleven uses her telekinetic powers to levitate Billy and hurl him into the wall. How did you pull that off?
The sauna sequence was one of the most challenging things we did. Dacre was shirtless, so we had to figure out wire rigs to fly him around and a harness that would lift him in the air. We slammed Billy’s stunt double into what looked like a brick wall, but that was made out of foam material, like hard rubber. When you add the sound effect and sell the hit with some overlap from Dacre, it looks like he crashes into that wall really hard.
Dacre Montgomery in ‘Stranger Things.’ Courtesy Netflix.
The actors do a good job of selling the stunts.
Eleven’s intensity amplified that scene. And Billy had visual effects veins put on him, but his veins were popping out for real. He was so gung ho, sweating and slobbering out of his mouth. I have to give these young actors props because they’re very intense, but they also have to remember their dialogue, perform the action, and throw all of that together.
When Billy smashes through the wall and lands on the ground outside, that’s a stunt double?
Yes. The sauna interior was built on set, and then our stunt guy jumped through this breakaway wall and we picked him up hitting the ground on the other side, no pads. He’s just a very tough stunt guy named Caine Sinclair.
The Mind Flayer monster terrifies the kids, but in fact, it’s a CGI construction created in post-production. How did you choreograph fights with this creature that’s not actually there in real-time?
The visual effects team led by Paul Graff developed the Mind Flayer monster and brought in one of my stunt guys who wore this spandex red suit and a silver helmet. They give him long extension arms and put up him on a platform where he was able to interact with the cast and give them eye lines. Also, that silver ball gives out lighting cues so when they put the CGI creature in there during post, we could mesh it all together seamlessly.
The music, sound effects, and VFX boost the impact for the final cut, but when you’re shooting the raw footage, everybody relies on their imagination?
The Duffer brothers and the director Shawn Levy play loud music and get all the actors excited about the scene to the point where you believe that a stunt guy in a silver suit really is that monster. We also created these rigs to fly people around, so having all those elements working together creates a vibe that everyone feels on set. It may look funny if you’re not there the whole time, but when you see the final product with the crazy monster, it’s fun to realize that it all started out with a performance by my stunt guy.
You moved at age sixteen from Alabama to L.A. where you landed stunt work on some of Roger Corman’s famously low budget action movies. What was that experience like?
They’d shoot an entire feature film in two weeks! Sometimes there was no stunt coordinator but just a bunch of guys figuring out what we needed to do. Me being brand new, I trusted what everybody decided on: “Okay, let’s do it!”
Did you ever get hurt?
I do have injuries I’ve carried with me. I had a pretty bad motorcycle accident where I ripped my leg open. I have pain in my back, two knee surgeries. It’s a pretty dangerous job so I always quadruple check to make everything’s as safe as possible. The beauty of what I do now as a stunt coordinator is that the action I throw at people is stuff that I’ve done myself. I have 30 years of experience so I know the best way to do the stunt and how it’s going to feel.
We’re just a few days away until Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan becomes the first major blockbuster to head directly to streaming. The sweeping epic hits Disney+ this Friday, September 4. Now, a new behind-the-scenes video focused on director Niki Caro reminds us why Mulan got rave reviews from the folks lucky enough to see press screenings earlier this year.
“In order to bring this legendary story to life I had a huge vision for the live-action Mulan,” Caro says. “The film needed to be massive because this is an epic action-adventure movie.”
The story is centered on a young woman (Yifei Liu) who disguises herself in order to take her father’s place in the upcoming war with China. Yet what we’ve learned from tracking this film through its production (and reading reviews) is just how technically ambitious these fight sequences are. Watching Liu brandishing her sword, leaping from roofs, and scampering up walls reveals action with elegance. “The way Niki wanted to shoot the stunts was not in a rough and rugged way, but to be elegant and beautiful,” says cinematographer Mandy Walker. Stunt coordinator Ben Cooke adds that Caro “sees the action through different eyes, she’s really in tune with character development and how we use the action to drive the story.”
Joining Liu are martial arts legends Jet Li and Donnie Yen as Commander Tung and Jet Li as the Emperor. Their co-stars include Jason Scott Lee as Böri Khan; Yoson An as Cheng Honghui; and Gong Li as Xianniang.
Caro’s film comes from a screenplay by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Elizabeth Martin, and Lauren Hynek, based on the narrative poem “The Ballad of Mulan.”
“Niki’s an actor’s director,” says star Yifei Liu. “She’s really about the performance, and that’s what’s most precious on screen.”
What’s on screen looks sensational. Check out the video here:
For more on Mulan (and as an added incentive to see the film at home if you’re living in the U.S. or Canada), see below:
Last year, director Dime Davis visited California desert retreat Joshua Tree to take a break from her burgeoning career as director of Showtime drama The Chi and BET rom-com Boomerang. “I’d been trying to get my head together so I wasn’t getting back to people,” Davis recalls. But Robin Thede kept calling. The comedian had created a new sketch series for HBO and wanted Davis to direct the whole thing. “When I finally called Robin back, I didn’t even know if comedy was a place for me,” says Davis. “But then Robin said four words. She said the show would be magical, it would be cinematic, it would be narrative and it would be grounded. That blew my mind because I didn’t know those things could exist in a sketch show.”
Davis signed on to helm A Black Lady Sketch Show and last month became the first Black woman to earn an Emmy nomination in the Variety Sketch Series directing category. The show itself, featuring Thede, Gabrielle Dennis, Quinta Brunson, and Ashley Nicole Black, also got nominated and snagged an Emmy nod for guest star Angela Bassett on the strength of her outrageously over-the-top star turn in the “Bad Bitch Support Group” sketch.
Davis, raised in Texas and now living in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood, spoke with The Credits about how she steered A Black Lady Sketch Show and made the jokes pop.
You’d previously directed everything from relationship dramas to documentaries about the Flint, Michigan water crisis. A Black Lady Sketch Show, on the other hand,is straight-up comedy. Did you change your approach for this series?
There’d be times when my instinct might be to pull back and be more grounded, but I realized, that’s not the world we’re in with this show. As a filmmaker, my job is telling the story and if I commit to that, I feel like I can find my place in anything.
It had to help that you have such an experienced cast.
I was actually a little intimidated because I knew I’d be working with women who came up in this game. That’s all they do. I wanted to make sure I did my job in telling the story but I also needed to support the funny. Like, if nobody laughs, then what am doing, right? So I pushed each sketch as far as I could go, even if it got weird, and that worked.
You shot more than 40 sketches plus interstitials in just four weeks. How is that even possible?
It’s all kind of a blur, to be honest. We were doing two or three sketches a day and shot everything on location. Our design team was amazing in individualizing the location. But it was chaotic and exhausting. I did all my prep in advance and then over the weekends, I’d go back to my shot list and refresh myself. So yeah, the production was intense.
Did you want to create a different cinematic vibe for each bit?
Yeah. We used ARRI Alex cameras, which gave us a lot of latitude to create these different looks. And I realized the more I immersed myself into the genre of any given sketch, the better. If I pushed something to the point of becoming absurd, that’s when it became really funny.
The show draws on specific experiences familiar to Black women. Even though mainstream audiences might not get all the references, the comedy still comes across. How did you make these stories so accessible?
I’m of the mind that the more specific you are, the more universal it can be. If I do my job right, the fact that our character is a Black lady won’t make you feel isolated; it actually makes you feel more connected. With Black Lady Sketch Show, we’re trying to change the narrative a little bit. People talk sometimes about the Angry Black Woman trope, but there’s so much more variety when you step into these worlds we’re creating.
You play around with a lot of different genres, from romantic comedies and horror films to 80’s-era sitcoms with your homage to “227.”
We shot three cameras and changed the aspect ratio for that sketch because we really committed to the sitcom format. I want to pull you into the journey right from the first frame. With “The Fog,” which we shot in Griffith Park in L.A., it’s horror. You hear the scary music and go “Oh I know what this is.” It’s our job to transport you into the world of each sketch so you feel like you’re a part of it.
L-r: Holly Walker, Robin Thede, Quinta Brunson, Daniele Gaither in ‘Black Lady Sketch Show.’ Courtesy HBO
“The Invisible Spy,” starring Ashley Nicole Black, looks like an action thriller while making an interesting point about people who get ignored because they don’t seem glamorous.
Our Invisible Spy character is so regular looking that she’s essentially invisible everywhere she goes, which makes her great at her job. Reading the script, it felt very much like James Bond, slick and cool, so it was super important to lean in all the way with the sweeping shots and the silhouettes and the fight scenes and all that. But the juxtaposition is, she’s not only regular looking but also a plus-sized woman. We never see that in this [spy] genre. It’s funny and absurd but then you walk away realizing it’s a very strong commentary, about not only movies but women walking around in life who don’t get as much attention because they’re regular looking.
“Bad Bitch Support Group” is basically five women in a room talking in a hilariously vain way about the burden of having to wear high heels and fake eyelashes at all times. How did you steer the talent through those performances?
That’s one of my favorite sketches because we all know these Kardashian-like women, the bad bitches of the world, but we never really see their point of view, their insecurities and anxieties and stuff. Performance-wise, we had five women sitting in a circle so the issue of eye-line became a huge thing, and also, how do you cover that? The reason we chose to [put the camera] in the center and have the characters talking to us directly was, A, to have that personal connection but also, it allowed us to say ‘Okay let’s do that again but try it this way.’ This served the story but again, it also served the funny.
You’re the first Black woman to be Emmy-nominated for directing a sketch or a variety show, but not that long ago, you worked in advertising and hated it. How did you forge a career path in an industry that has historically kept women and people of color on the sidelines?
It was a long grind. After I finished I spent five dreadful years in advertising working as a social media strategist, doing Facebook stuff. At one point I wrote in my work binder “Quit your day job.” I saw that multiple times a day. And that’s when I applied to AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women and shot my short, Sugar. AFI opened so many doors, like doing shorts for Lifetime and then the LACMA [Los Angeles County Museum of Art] stuff.
You managed to stay focused on the work?
Yes. I’ve been incredibly lucky that people have recognized what’s there within my work and I let that speak for itself. Also, one of my friends call me a skeptic, which I hate, but I guess it’s true because I’m very careful to not put myself in situations where I’m not valued. If people aren’t supporting me, I can’t do my best work. And the one thing I’ve learned is, craft is craft. I’m obsessed with craft, and if you put that first, you can do a lot of different things.
Lena Waithe hired you to direct her Showtime series The Chi, your first commercial project. Insecurestar-creator Issa Rae executive produces A Black Lady Sketch Show and of course, Robin Thede created the series. Do you think we’re witnessing a sea change in Hollywood for women and people of color on TV?
For sure. Being nominated is incredible, especially in a category that has always been a white male-dominated space. But if we back it up a little bit and look at the fact that HBO decided to put this show on and allowed Robin to give all these opportunities to people, the work we’ve been able to do with that opportunity is evidence, I think, that slowly but surely, Hollywood is opening up.
What kind of role does A Black Lady Sketch Show play within the context of a nation that continues to struggle with racism?
I think the beauty of The Black Lady Sketch Show is in the joy and the fun of it. When audiences are allowed to see Black people as full human beings, that encourages the world to open up a little bit and say “What is happening in our country is not okay.” Black Lady Sketch Show also empowers people on the front lines to see themselves in the show and say, “Yes I am valued, I am cool, I am funny I am all these things, and we’re going to go demand justice and fight to be seen.” So I think all of it works together.
Featured image: Dime Davis on the set of ‘Black Lady Sketch Show.’ Photo Credit: Anne Marie Fox/HBO
Last night ABC aired Black Panther ad-free, followed by a touching tribute to its late, great star Chadwick Boseman. It’s still hard—and will continue to be hard—accepting that the gifted, deeply humane actor is gone. ABC released this nearly 5-minute-long tribute to Boseman, specifically about his work in Black Panther, one of the rare films that transcends the medium and makes an impact on the culture at large. Black Panther made a difference in the lives of millions of people, and in the industry that had long resisted the idea that a majority Black cast and crew could capture the attention of the masses. Black Panther did that and a lot more.
Boseman’s Black Panther colleagues, including co-writer and director Ryan Coogler and co-stars Lupita Nyong’o, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, and Michael B. Jordan weigh in on the man and the performer. His fellow MCU brothers and sisters, including Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Robert Downey Jr. describe what it was like working with him. Throughout every remembrance, both in this video and what you’re seeing online, the sense of Boseman the human being shines through. Gifted, yes, but decent, passionate, honorable, kind. The kind of person who made everyone else around him want to raise their game.
When Boseman took on the role of Black Panther, T’Challa was a Wakandan prince at the start of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Boseman would begin treatment for colon cancer that same year, and continue it throughout his incredible work on Civil War, Marshall,Black Panther,Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, 21 Bridges, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. How this immensely talented performer managed to handle this workload while simultaneously—and quietly—undergoing treatment is a testament to his incredible forbearance, strength, and professionalism. Whether he was playing real-life icons like Jackie Robinson, James Brown, or Thurgood Marshall, or, fictional superheroes like King T’Challa in Coogler’s Black Panther, Boseman was as magnetic onscreen as he was thoughtful and private off. He is one of the few actors who deserve the title of their most popular incarnation.
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 06: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been shot in black and white. Color version is not available.) Chadwick Boseman attends the 47th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Denzel Washington at Dolby Theatre on June 06, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
By now you’ve heard the heartbreaking news that Chadwick Boseman has passed away at 43. The colossally talented star of Black Panther—to name but one of his many roles—died this past Friday night from colon cancer.
Boseman was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2016 and, incredibly, performed in a string of films throughout his treatment, including his game-changing turn as T’Challa in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther in 2018. Boseman made his first appearance in the role in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, and went on to star in Marshall,Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, 21 Bridges, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods all while undergoing treatment. It’s hard to fathom Boseman’s strength, to imagine the pressures he faced while simultaneously starring in films and dealing with his treatment. The amount of effort he poured into every role now seems, fittingly, superheroic in light of this information.
In honor of this extraordinarily gifted performer, ABC is airing Black Panther at 8 pm, commercial-free, followed by a tribute. Black Panther was a transformative, game-changing film. It’s hard to imagine what it will feel like to watch it tonight, but watch it we will.
TONIGHT: Celebrate the legacy of Chadwick Boseman with a special presentation of @MarvelStudios’ Black Panther followed by the @ABC News Special: Chadwick Boseman – A Tribute for a King.
As we grapple with the shock of Boseman’s passing, it helps to read the outpouring of love for the man on social media, and to watch (and weep) at not only a gifted performer but what a phenomenally decent human being Chadwick Boseman was. This incredibly moving video of him surprising Black Panther fans on The Tonight Show goes some way in showing both his decency and his impact. As overjoyed as these fans are, look how happy Boseman is to embrace them:
If you’re reading this, then you’ve likely inhaled all of these Boseman tributes and reflections on social media. We’d also suggest you read about his specific gifts from writers who have been following his career. You will hardly do better than Wesley Morris’s must-read essay about Boseman’s ability to transcend the limits of biographical films in the New York Times. Morris reflects on how he was tasked with playing some of American history’s most beloved, iconic African American figures. Jackie Robinson in 42, James Brown in Get on Up, and Thurgood Marshall in Marshall. “I’ll confess to finding it odd that Boseman played these three roles so quickly,” Morris writes in his essay. “It seemed at first like a joke on the movies’ ongoing obsession with stories about exceptional Black Americans or like Hollywood was too lazy to imagine anyone else inhabiting the exceptions. The truth is that Boseman actually cornered a market with his inner elasticity and, at least for me, exploded the parameters of what biographical moviemaking ought to be. With him, ‘seems like’ mattered more than ‘looks like.’ It was daring, and he didn’t even seem aware of the risks.”
In between Get on Up in 2014 and Marshall in 2017, Boseman made his first appearance in the role that would make him a global superstar, as the Wakandan prince T’Challa, in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, which led to Ryan Coogler’s 2018 game-changer in Black Panther. It’s hard to overstate the impact Boseman and Black Panther has had on the lives of millions of people—the above Tonight Show video is a decent snapshot—and it’s equally hard to comprehend losing him so young. He was beloved by everyone who worked with him or knew him. I spoke with fellow entertainment journalists via text this weekend who had met him and spent some time with him. Each and every one of them said almost the same exact thing—”what a lovely, lovely man.”
To get a sense of just how transformational Boseman was as T’Challa, you cannot do better than hearing from Coogler. The co-writer and director wrote a moving tribute to Boseman, in which he describes signing on to direct Black Panther after watching dailies of Boseman in Captain America: Civil War. Here is a snippet:
“I finally met Chad in person in early 2016, once I signed onto the film. He snuck past journalists that were congregated for a press junket I was doing for Creed, and met with me in the green room. We talked about our lives, my time playing football in college, and his time at Howard studying to be a director, about our collective vision for T’Challa and Wakanda. We spoke about the irony of how his former Howard classmate Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing T’Challa’s current arc with Marvel Comics. And how Chad knew Howard student Prince Jones, whose murder by a police officer inspired Coates’ memoir Between The World and Me.’
I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly. He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying. But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that see much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time.
That was the first of many conversations. He was a special person. We would often speak about heritage and what it means to be African. When preparing for the film, he would ponder every decision, every choice, not just for how it would reflect on himself, but how those choices could reverberate. “They not ready for this, what we are doing…” “This is Star Wars, this is Lord of the Rings, but for us… and bigger!” He would say this to me while we were struggling to finish a dramatic scene, stretching into double overtime. Or while he was covered in body paint, doing his own stunts. Or crashing into frigid water, and foam landing pads. I would nod and smile, but I didn’t believe him. I had no idea if the film would work. I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing. But I look back and realize that Chad knew something we all didn’t. He was playing the long game. All while putting in the work. And work he did.”
We recommend you read Coogler’s moving remembrance in full here. And tonight at 8 pm, we can all watch the magic that Boseman and Coogler made in Black Panther. Who knows where the franchise goes from here, how Coogler and his team will figure out a fitting way to write about T’Challa’s fate in Black Panther 2, to say nothing of how they’ll find a new Black Panther to carry on Boseman’s legacy. One can only feel comforted by the fact that they will find a way, and that nobody would have demanded it more emphatically than Boseman himself.
The third season of The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix hit Stranger Things culminated in an epic finale with two huge battle scenes and a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. For the uninitiated, Stranger Things is a sci-fi/horror series set in set in the 80s (with the soundtrack to match), which follows a group of young kids as they explore what’s behind a series of supernatural happenings in their town. Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers) leads the young cast—including Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Noah Schnapp (Will), and Joe Keery (Steve)—who have become stars themselves since the show burst onto the cultural landscape in 2016.
We chat with editor Katheryn Naranjo, who has been nominated for an Emmy for her work, alongside Dean Zimmerman on the season finale, The Battle Of Starcourt.
Congratulations on your Emmy nomination. That’s very exciting! How do you feel about the recognition?
Thank you. It’s so cool. I’m honored and humbled to be nominated along with Dean Zimmerman, my editor.
So you must get a kick out of getting all the raw ingredients of the show and then stitching them together to build the narrative?
Yeah, I do. And with Stranger Things, the Duffers are such good writers and they’re so good at their storytelling. But it’s fun to get all the dailies in and it’s just like a big puzzle. You’ve got to put it together and try and make it look cool.
What do you think is the main role that editing plays? When you’re watching something, what do you think are the hallmarks of good editing?
I think it’s definitely trying to get these moments that you see in dailies and putting them together to make the best story possible. Even if you cut something once, you could still keep cutting it different ways to see if something looks better, that you didn’t notice the first time. So I like to keep toying with it and keep trying to make it the best cut possible.
What is your working partnership with Dean Zimmerman like?
Dean is really cool. He’s been my editor for about three years now. And he gives me a lot of freedom. With the episode we’re nominated for, we approached it in two parts. It’s called the Battle of Starcourt and there’s a big battle with the kids fighting the Mind Flayer, throwing fireworks. And then there’s also a big battle, with Hopper and Grigori, this Russian guy, and Winona Ryder’s character. So I was kind of taking over that Hopper fight and he took over the mall part. We put them together and made all these thinner cuts to make it really flow.
L-r: Priah Ferguson, Maya Hawke, Gaten Matarazzo, and Joe Keery in Stranger Things. Courtesy Netflix.
The Battle of Starcourt is a pretty epic finale and there’s lots of action, but also humor and sadness. It really covers the gamut of emotions. How do you tackle that, going from one to the next?
Music is really important in the show. And we have a great music team and sometimes music can help get us into a more emotional part or get us back into the action. We have a great sound team, too. Sound effects are really good at helping make these slam cuts flow together. And then the kids are all such great actors, and the adults are great actors as well, so just capturing their emotion, maybe just with silence sometimes, is a good way of putting it all together.
One of the things that are done so brilliantly in Stranger Things is that even during action sequences, the characters are really strong. Is that something in the editing suite that you’re grateful for?
Definitely. They’re so good. They’re good at like giving you a lot of different performances too, so you can tell a different story each time. But for the most part, like they’re just really good at giving us what we need to tell the story that the creators want to tell.
Is there a special approach when you’re editing a finale? Is it something that you’re conscious of or do you just treat it like any other episode?
When it’s a really big episode we have to get things cut together so that they can get cracking on VFX and get stuff in there and make it before the air date. That’s something that’s always in consideration when we’re doing a finale, getting those big parts done as fast as we can.
Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour in Stranger Things. Courtesy Netflix.
What was the most challenging sequence for you to edit in that episode?
I would say that fight sequence. They shot so much. They had a whole stunt team and a set director shooting all this fighting with Hopper and Grigori. And it was a lot to figure out like, Oh, where does this go? Where does this kid go? Or, Where am I supposed to put Winona now? It was fun but I think that was one of the hardest parts.
How much back and forth is there with the Duffer brothers? How involved are they in the editing process?
They’re very involved. They love being in the edit room and they hang out and they have a vision and they want to make sure it’s being told right. It’s great to have them there. They’re so cool and really easy to work with. And actually, it’s fun. It becomes like a really fun environment. So I kind of know them now, and they kind of know me, so we can all talk to each other frankly. Which is great.
And what about the highlights for you of working on Stranger Things?
I think the highlight is just how cool the show it is. I don’t think anybody knew it was going to be such a big show when we first started and just seeing it grow and seeing people love it and get it. Sharing it with my family, with friends. And honestly, everybody who works on the show is great and we all work together like a big family, a big team where we can ask each other’s opinions and make the best show that we can.
You started out as an assistant, which would probably be quite inspiring to other people who wanted to get into the business. And I imagine it’s also quite a male-dominated field. Would that be correct?
I think so, I guess. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve been working on shows that do have a good amount of females around, especially this show. But just starting off as an assistant, working your way up is just all about trying to just keep working and keep trying to make it better. And you want to make your editor look good by putting in the best temp sound effects, or whatever you can do to make it look better, everybody is going to notice if you’re going above and beyond.
Do you get a lot of people pressing you for spoilers, working on a show with such enthusiastic fans?
Yeah, all the time. I don’t like giving spoilers anyway, so it’s not that hard. I want people to wait and see it, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
Especially with something like the whole ‘Did Hopper really die?’ situation?
Yeah, definitely. It’s a game we’ve been dodging.
Do you have a dream project that you’d like to work on or are you living it on Stranger Things?
I think it’s happening right now. This is really a show that tackles all the things I grew up. And it’s so fun to work on. I’m a big sci-fi/horror movie buff and I think this is just one of the coolest shows ever. And it’s only one of the best platforms ever, Netflix.
Thanks for chatting with us and best of luck at the Emmys – you’ve got some pretty stiff competition.
Documentary filmmakerBarbara Kopple’s films have tackled subjects ranging from labor strikes in her landmark Oscar-winners Harlan County, USA (1976) and American Dream (1990) to a feminist portrait of the Dixie Chicks in Shut Up and Sing (2006). After a groundbreaking, fifty-plus year career, she’s now made the action/adventure/war documentary Desert One, about the top-secret, dangerous mission by US special forces in 1980 to rescue 52 American hostages held in Iran.
“I wanted to get to know the men—I call them heroes—those willing to give up their lives to free the hostages. I also wanted to get inside the presidential White House group. There was no way I wasn’t going to do [the film],” says Kopple about why she was drawn to the project which was produced by the History Channel. (Click here to find out how to watch it.)
“The mission was classified so there was no photography whatsoever; there was radio silence. So we had to be creative and figure out how to tell the story,” she says. “We pieced it together through archival footage and animation. We did everything we could to make it authentic and make it into a thriller and allow you to get to know the men and what they care about and how they have each other’s backs. It was so rich for me; I was happy and honored to do it.”
Desert One, which started streaming August 21, uses fascinating archival footage to trace the events that led to the crisis. In 1953, the United States orchestrated a coup to replace the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah, who proved to be a brutal dictator. An uprising forced the shah to flee Iran in 1979 and take refuge in the US, making way for the return of exiled cleric Ayatollah Khomeini. On November 4, 1979, student demonstrators seized the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 diplomats and citizens hostage. They wound up being held captive for 444 days. President Jimmy Carter for months attempted to use diplomacy to negotiate their release; when this failed, he secretly green-lighted a risky rescue mission by America’s Special Forces. But several unexpected factors turned the covert mission into a disaster that cost the lives of eight servicemen and contributed to Carter losing the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan.
President Carter assumed full responsibility for the catastrophe but has rarely spoken about the failed mission in the 40 years since. Kopple’s on-camera interview is a revelation.
President Jimmy Carter sits down to talk with the ‘Desert One’ team. Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment
“It was not an easy task to get President Carter. It took three months of calling the Carter Center every day,” she says. When she finally got the interview, there were strict parameters. “I had 20 minutes. They gave me the particulars. It was on February 14, Valentine’s Day, so I went and found the best chocolates I could to bring to the president. I had been in South Sudan filming women who’d been freed [from slavery] in the North and a friend of mine, Kate Taylor, taught them how to bead [with] red crystal beads. So I gave the First Lady a red heart made by women of South Sudan for her gift.”
“I had so many questions for President Carter but I knew they’d be strict on time,” she continued. “My most important question to ask was how he felt when he learned people had died in this mission. He said, ‘My Dad died when I was young and it broke my heart and I never thought I’d have those feelings again. When I found out about these men, it was the same feeling again.’ It gave me chills. What an honor to be with him. This is the one thing he hardly talks about at all and what gives him the most pain.”
Kopple insisted her film include what was happening in Iran and how the Iranians perceived the hostage-taking. Besides President Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, journalist Ted Koppel, former hostages, and many of the surviving military men who participated in the mission, Kopple’s team interviewed Iranian student revolutionaries who orchestrated the take-over of the American Embassy in Tehran.
Iranian youth in ‘Desert One.’ Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment.
“I didn’t want to get [only] one point of view. You always learn so much more, and it’s richer and more complex, to have an understanding of everyone, a full picture,” says Kopple. “I did not film in Iran. We had an Iranian crew, all women, and they were sensational, smart. We talked on the phone every couple of weeks and they told me who they were getting and what was happening.” The government of Iran, she says, “did their vetting and somehow we got through. A lot of the people we interviewed were selected for us; we were not free to do whatever we wanted to do.”
One of the most illuminating interviews in the film is an Iranian man who as an 11-year-old became an eyewitness to the catastrophe in the remote desert where the mission was secretly underway. The bus on which he was traveling with his family unexpectedly encountered the disabled American helicopter and was detained by American soldiers. It was just one of a series of unexpected developments that doomed the rescue plan.
“The crew was in a village asking if anyone knew about this mission, if anyone was still around, and they sent them to [the man’s] house,” says Kopple. “He was so brilliant as an eyewitness because it was almost like he was reliving it through the eyes of an 11-year-old, still. The most wonderful part is that the reason he wanted to live through [the frightening episode] was to tell his friends at school what he went through. For me, it’s one of the highlights of the film.”
One may think a fact-based action thriller that bears similarities to Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012) is a departure for Kopple. But Desert One fits with her vast body of work.
In 1972, she was part of a collective that made Winter Soldier about anti-war Vietnam vets. Shelter (2015) “is about veterans from Iraq and Vietnam who are homeless,” says Kopple. “A great friend of mine, Dave Morris, who did the music for Harlan County was a homeless vet who was going around and singing songs for people, trying to help them feel better. For me, it’s all about the people and their stories. I feel so blessed and honored to be able to do it.”
Featured image: Desert One. Archival Still. Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment.
