“Transformers One” Director Josh Cooley on Humanizing the Origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron’s Ancient Feud

Posted on by babrams

Transformers One isn’t the first animated Transformers film, but it has achieved multiple firsts for the iconic franchise. 

The science fiction action film is an origin story that focuses on the early relationship of Orion Pax and D-16, how they changed the fate of their home planet of Cybertron, and how they became Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively. Directed by Josh Cooley, best known for helming Oscar-nominated Toy Story 4, the starry voice cast includes Chris Hemsworth voicing Orion Pax/Optimus Prime, Brian Tyree Henry voicing D-16/Megatron, Scarlett Johansson voicing Elita, Keegan-Michael Key voicing B-127, Steve Buscemi voicing Starscream, Laurence Fishburne voicing Alpha Trion, and Jon Hamm voicing Sentinel Prime. 

Transformers One is Cooley’s first film since leaving Pixar, where he had spent his entire career until this project came his way. Here, the filmmaker discusses the parallels between the film’s lead characters and his own life growing up, the films that inspired him when making this, and the creation of the film’s sonic profile, from character voices to the iconic transformation sound. 

L-r, Brian Tyree Henry (D-16/Megatron), Scarlett Johansson (Elita-1), Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime) and Keegan-Michael Key (B-127), star in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES. Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

Transformers One is the most human Transformers movie, but it doesn’t have any humans in it. When did you realize that connection was translating from script to screen?

That was always the goal from the beginning and what got me on board. It was this relationship between these two characters that was very human and brotherly. I thought about my relationship with my brother and how I could bring that in. It’s not like we’re enemies, but we grew up together and then went down our different paths, but we’re still brotherly. I became a writer-director and live in a fantasy land, and he became a homicide detective who deals with reality, so we’re two very different mindsets. I have always been fascinated by the idea of two people who come from the same place but end up in different ones. From the very beginning, I was like, ‘That’s something I can relate to.’ Part of it was just to let them emote, which has been complicated with Transformers because Optimus Prime usually has a mask up. You can’t see his face. I made an effort to allow people to see these eyes and faces and allow them to see the thinking going on, making them even more human than ever.

 

Transformers One is both a prequel and a coming-of-age story, two things no filmmaker has previously explored. How did you approach that evolution?

It was built into this idea that they don’t have the ability to transform. Here are characters you know when they’re younger and can’t do the thing you like to see them do. Seeing that they would get this power along the way made it a story of them learning that things are not how they thought, and they had a chance to do something about it. That’s why there is a tone shift from the beginning of the film, where it’s a little lighter, things are fine, and then they start to learn the truth. It’s like, ‘Now it’s serious. Things are getting real.’

L-r, Brian Tyree Henry (D-16), Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax), Scarlett Johansson (Elita-1) and Keegan-Michael Key (B-127) star in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

Have you watched specific films that inspired you to tell that story?

I looked at anything I could find that had that brotherly relationship. Professor X and Magneto had that relationship in X-Men, but I also looked like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. I like those older epics that explore that theme. Cybertron can be just as epic as Spartacus.

The Guards in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES
A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production
A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

You mentioned the lighter tone at the beginning, but the movie’s opening differs greatly from the one you originally tried. What can you share about that?

We had a version where it was a black screen. All you see is a cog falling past the camera, and you realize we’re shooting down a hole. Then Optimus falls past the camera, falling to his death. The reverse shot was Megatron standing up; his eyes were red, and it was clear he had just killed Prime. At that point, a narration kicked in. It was a dark way to start the movie. It was too dark because anything after that wasn’t fun or funny. You had that feeling that it would not end well. This is a good thing about animation. You get to try different things, so we were like, ‘Let’s try it without that,’ and it worked much better.

Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime) stars in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES
A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production
A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

The choice of animation style adds so much to the movie. Transformers One finds that space between traditional animation and a hyperreal, almost anime style. How did you find that sweet spot?

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was the first film to really do that. I remember seeing the trailer and I was like, ‘Okay, this is incredible. The game has changed.’ It was phenomenal. Many studios are embracing that because the audiences are embracing it. I didn’t want it to feel like a 2D drawing, but with the subject matter being robots on their planet, it still needed to be believable. I kept telling the team I didn’t want it to feel realistic necessarily, but I wanted it to feel believable so you could actually touch it; it has weight to it. There’s real physics and real lighting affecting it. One of the things we did with Jason Scheier, the production designer, was to develop a look that still had a little bit of a handmade quality. It could be something as simple as the highlights on their metal. We looked at the work of J. C. Leyendecker, the painter from the 30s and 40s. His work looked featured strong, almost statuesque, humans. They had a very similar feel to a robot, and his highlights would be a glob of white paint, so we developed a look that was sort of handmade but still felt like you could actually touch it.

Brian Tyree Henry (D-16/Megatron) stars in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

Transformers One is very different from what you did at Pixar. Was it refreshing to create something that was outside that traditional animation box?

Transformers One is the first time I’ve worked on a film with real intensity in terms of danger and violence. Ironically, it did feel like playing with toys because we would be working on these fight scenes, and it was important to me that it wasn’t just two guys hitting each other, but these are robots that transform. Even in the fights, they need to be transforming and either duck out of the way or transform in order to punch. Megatron even punches with his gun at one point. I wanted to use their transformation, almost like a superpower within the fight scenes, to make it like a dance.

Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime) stars in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

These are iconic characters. You’ve dealt with iconic characters previously in Toy Story 4. You inherited several voices there, but here, you got to assemble a whole new cast. You also had the legacy of the Transformers vocals that have come before. What were you looking for?

The big one was Optimus Prime because Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime. He was my Optimus Prime and still is. The thing that made me relax and realize we could do it is because the character is Orion Pax in this movie. He doesn’t have the knowledge, wisdom, strength, or power yet, so looking at casting, it was about asking, ‘Who could eventually become that?’ Hearing Chris Hemsworth’s voice, he’s got the depth and the weight, but he also has this real charm that is natural to him and a real sense of fun. Once I heard that, I was like, ‘I totally buy that this will happen. This is who will eventually become this wise character.’ It was the same thing with Megatron but also almost the opposite. I wanted him to sound like a normal guy. I wanted people to come into this movie not knowing he’s going to become a villain, and Brian Tyree Henry has this quality where he is friendly, and you want to hang out with them. I thought that if we could make them sound like friends and brothers in the beginning, it’d be really tragic knowing that they’re going to break up.

 

How did you create the film’s sonic identity? Two things instantly come to mind with Transformers One. One is the soundtrack, but there’s also the classic sound that accompanies them transforming. 

Scott Gershin was our sound designer, and one thing we discussed with him early on was that these are metal characters on a metal planet. I didn’t want it to sound like pots and pans banging around for 90 minutes, and he totally got that. He had just finished working on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and had the same issue with wood. It’s a subtle thing with the transformation sound. When they first transform in the film, we actually don’t use that sound. He created very similar sounds, but it’s not until the very last shot when Prime transforms and runs to the camera, that you hear the way we’re used to hearing it. There’s not just an evolution of the voices in the film but also the sound of that transformation. Brian Tyler composed our soundtrack, and he’s amazing. He hit exactly what I wanted: an epic score that didn’t sound like it was from Earth. He nailed it in a way I don’t even know how to explain. When I first heard it, I said, ‘You found the soul of the movie.’

 

Transformers One is in theaters now.

For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:

“Sonic the Hedgehog 3” Trailer Shines a Light on Keanu Reeves’ Shadow

“The Daily Show’s” Emmy-Nominated Director David Paul Meyer on Jon Stewart’s Return

Michelle Pfeiffer Set to Lead “Yellowstone” Sequel Series

Featured image: Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime), left, and Brian Tyree Henry (D-16/Megatron) star in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present In Association with NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS ONE”

“Black Mirror” Reveals Cryptic Teaser & Season 7 Cast, Including Issa Rae, Cristin Milioti, Paul Giamatti, and Awkwafina

Posted on by babrams

The season 7 cast for Netflix’s sensational, eerily predictive Black Mirror has been revealed, and it’s a stellar group. It also includes, new for the series, some returning stars for a sequel to a beloved episode.

The full cast is comprised of Issa Rae (Barbie, Insecure), Emma Corrin (Deadpool & Wolverine), Cristin Milioti (The Penguin), Awkwafina (Jackpot), Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers), Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish), Rashida Jones (Sunny), Milanka Brooks (Mum and I Don’t Talk Anymore), Peter Capaldi (Criminal Record), Patsy Ferran (Firebrand), Lewis Gribben (Blade Runner 2099), Osy Ikhile (Citadel), Siena Kelly (Domino Day), Billy Magnussen (Road House), Rosy McEwen (Blue Jean), Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids), Issa Rae (Barbie, Awkward), Paul G. Raymond (Horrible Histories), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld) and Harriet Walter (Succession).

A cryptic teaser on Twitter hinted at what’s to come, mentioning the company Tuckersoft, explored in 2018’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

The returning cast members are survivors of a previous installment, the season four premiere episode USS Callister, the Star Trek parody beloved by Black Mirror fans. The USS Callister crew won’t be returning full force, however. “Robert Daly is dead, but for the crew of the USS Callister, their problems are just beginning,” a teaser revealed this past March. Jesse Plemons played Robert Daly in the original episode, who used the DNA of his colleagues to create the hugely popular multiplayer online game set on the titular spaceship. It’s the first time Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has done a sequel. 

As Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter, the decision to return to the USS Callister was a long time coming: “The first one ends like you could just carry that story on and follow where they go now. … There were various iterations it went through, various versions we wanted to do and were discussing on and off for several years. But there are a lot of schedules to sort out, and then the pandemic got in the way. It was something that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, and so I was delighted when it did.”

USS Callister was written by Black Mirror Brooker and William Bridges and directed by Toby Haynes. The returnees are Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Milanka Brooks, Osy Ikhile, and Billy Magnussen. 

Black Mirror season 7 returns to Netflix in 2025. No other storyline or episode details are available yet, and they likely won’t be until the season begins.

Featured image: Cristin Milloti in “USS Callister.” Black Mirror. Photo: Jonathan Prime/ Netflix

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on Capturing a Debauched Poltergeist’s Manic Energy

Posted on by babrams

36 years after he first burst onto the screen in his title film—for a grand total of 17 minutes, by the way—Michael Keaton’s debauched poltergeist is back in trademark sinister style, black and white suit and hair akimbo, in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Tim Burton’s sequel turns up the heart, laughs, and gags, a cinematic feast overflowing with gleeful madness only Burton and his regular team of collaborators—longtime costume designer Colleen Atwood and composer Danny Elfman included—could dream up.

In the long-awaited follow-up, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) returns to her childhood home. She’s no longer the cool kid but a lost medium who needs to reconnect to her roots and estranged daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Throughout a series of wild events, she calls upon her old enemy, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), to help her succeed. Their two worlds collide in ways seismic, cosmic, spiritual, and musical, and hijinks ensue.

The land of the living and the dead is cut together by editor Jay Prychidny, who previously edited Scream VI and episodes of Burton’s Netflix series Wednesday. Early on in the process of editing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Prychidny knew the laughs were there but had questions about how to reintroduce the character and world of Beetlejuice. Here’s how he did it.

 

How was it cutting the real world of the Deetz family versus Beetlejuice’s netherworld? Especially with Michael Keaton’s energy, how does that influence the flow?

There are two styles of the movie, at least in my mind. There’s the netherworld and the land of the living. They are very different. When it comes to the afterlife, the movie is called Beetlejuice, it takes a lot of cues from that character. He is this wild, anarchic character that can just snap his fingers, and he’s something else. With the editing, it was reflecting that tone, just this wildness and trying to infuse it with that Beetlejuice energy as much as possible. It was infused in all of it, but then the land of the living was in more tactile, more gentle moments. I found myself fascinated by the earthiness in many of the costumes and the hair and makeup.

With Beetlejuice, how much material did you have to play with there? How many options did Michael Keaton give you?

In terms of line delivery, it’s not like Michael was giving different line options, but frequently, what you get back is not what was in the script. So you read the scene, you know what they’re going to shoot, and then you get the scene back, and sometimes it could be almost nothing that was written on the page. Catherine [O’Hara] was the same way too. They worked through the script. They figured out amongst themselves what works for them and how they can make it better. How can you change it? How can you do something surprising?

CATHERINE O’HARA as Delia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

For example?

One perfect example is when Michael does the lip sync of Richard Marx’s song. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’ll be here, right here, waiting for you.” That was written as a dialogue scene between Lydia in the attic and Beetlejuice down in the model. But they didn’t shoot it. They just got to set, like, “Oh, we don’t need to do this dialogue.” Instead, they just sang the song. They didn’t know if they had the rights to it. There were no options. On the page, he said something like, “I’ll always be here waiting for you.” I think that just gave them the idea of like, “Oh, that sounds like that song. Let’s just do the song.” They lip-sync and grab a guitar. All of this is happening on the fly.

Caption: MICHAEL KEATON and Director TIM BURTON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

How much did you and Tim feel like you needed to explain Beetlejuice and the world again to audiences?

It was a big question. There was definitely a lot more in the script. Tim’s feeling about that stuff is just that he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to shoot expositional dialogue. Same thing with Michael Keaton. A lot of the stuff that he changed on set was that stuff, not wanting to be an expositional character. We ended up in a place where, because of Tim’s instincts, Michael’s instincts, Catherine’s as well, a lot of that stuff got really pared back in the shooting of it.

 

How do you pare it back just enough but not too much?

We were kind of in this place with the question of whether we had pared too much back. Is this too difficult to follow? Are people not going to know what’s happening? Very surgically, we try to put in little bits to try to make it clear to an audience, trying to do it as quickly and seamlessly as possible. There was certainly a lot of anxiety around that. I mean, ultimately, this movie’s never going to make sense. That’s just part of the whole world; it doesn’t actually make logical sense. There’s that aspect of it, too.

Were there any lessons there as an editor?

That was definitely a huge lesson for me on this film because Tim’s instinct was so clear that you just don’t want to explain things. The more you explain things, the worse it gets, the less sense it makes. And so, I really interrogated that a lot. This movie really did teach me that you put a lot of faith in your audience, because I talked to people when we were still editing, what do you think this character’s about? What’s this storyline? Were you able to follow? For the most part, people could follow it without having things explained. I knew that, but I just really learned that even more. Audiences often don’t want things explained to them.

Caption: (L-r) Director TIM BURTON and MICHAEL KEATON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

With a world this big and so many characters, when did you find it all finally clicking together in the editing room?

I think the main time you figure out what you’ve really got is after they’ve shot everything. For me, you don’t really get a sense of the film as a whole until they’ve really shot all of it, most of it, and you’re assembling it in order. That’s when you see if something has a flow or not. With this film, it had a really good 10 minutes, and then it all started to fall apart. So, it’s work to get to that point. It’s just a process of working, refining, and finding that flow and energy. I always knew the individual scenes were great because I loved the individual scenes. It was so fun to watch and so fun to cut, but then it’s a matter of how you work it into a whole. Hopefully, we’ve done it.

 

You have. The movie is just overflowing with gags, too. Any other major Beetlejuice moment that really changed on the fly?

It is wild. There was just so much inventiveness. Obviously, I’m not involved with the props department, but clearly they were on it, because it’s like they pull a guitar out of somewhere. The whole thing of Beetlejuice telling the story, his backstory to the shrinkers, he just pulls a microphone out and suddenly he’s on stage. That wasn’t planned; they just pulled out a microphone. They’re like, “Hey, Michael, try this. You have a microphone now.” The whole movie is filled with stuff like that.

Caption: MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

Did Tim have any specific requests for you when you got to work?

Tim’s process for the editor is to be at the studio nearby, if not on set, so he can pop in whenever he wants. And so, he’d often come by my room while he was shooting. Two times a day would be pretty average for Tim to look at dailies or scenes. He does things really fast, so he can come into the edit room and get a lot accomplished in 15 minutes while they’re doing a setup on the stage. Right from the beginning, I’m cutting scenes together. He’s looking at them just the next day and giving feedback. It helps inform what he’s shooting. I think one example of that is Michael’s first big scene; his first main scene was that first call center scene.

Caption: MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

What was the feedback there?

It’s the scene with him and the shrinkers. Obviously, everyone’s very anxious. Michael’s coming back, Tim’s coming back. They’re revisiting this huge movie. When Tim saw the cut, I think he realized that he needed to shoot Michael in a different way. We’ve chopped it up a lot. So, you cut over here to the shrinkers, you cut over here to the telephone operator, and just try to get this wild energy. But Michael’s just walking around the room, and Tim saw that’s not the best way to treat that character. When he shot future scenes of Michael, he wasn’t walking around like a normal person so much. He’s more magical. He is more of a demon. He snaps from here to there.

Caption: MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters now. 

For more on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, check out these stories:

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on the Gospel of Ghoulish Pacing

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Scares Up Standing Ovation & Rapturous Reception at Venice Film Festival

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) WINONA RYDER as Lydia and MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Designed to Shred: How “Alien: Romulus” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario Stylized Horror

Posted on by babrams

Previously, we talked to Alien: Romulus costume designer Carlos Rosario about how American farmers’ attire from the 1940s-1960s inspired some of the wardrobe for our Jackson’s Star inhabitants and several sartorial callbacks from the first two films in the franchise. 

In part two, Rosario discusses how director Fede Alvarez’s approach to his ferocious interquel helped the designer account for the wear and tear on the costumes, caused, of course, by the endless carnival of extraterrestrial nightmares the characters encounter on a decommissioned space station.

This film was shot chronologically—how did that impact your workflow?

It’s much easier for us to shoot in chronological order, especially in movies with so much action that physically impacts the costumes. We don’t need to reinvent where the tears, or blood and acid blood go; the costumes are worn down naturally as filming happens.

How long was your team on this project?

We started prep in November 2022 and shooting in early March 2023 until the strikes in July. Then, we had two weeks of reshoots this January in Budapest.

How many costumes were made, and were they mostly done in-house?

Everything was prepped and shot in Budapest. We made about 75% of the costumes. Since Fede had a very specific vision, it was easier to make them in-house because we knew exactly what he wanted for the color palette, etc. Every costume had multiples of 20-25. Even though the costumes were limited and very minimalist, it was a lot of work. We needed all the multiples because of the blood, action, and acid from everything that happens. One of the biggest challenges was that the cast came for the first fitting less than two weeks before shooting, and their costumes needed 20-plus multiples. Except for Rain, I didn’t know who the other actors were until very close to filming. So, I bought multiples in various sizes in Budapest or online to create a stock. I needed at least 10 multiples ready by the first day of shooting, so I needed a big stock for options.

(L-R): Archie Renaux as Tyler and Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What are some of the statement pieces for this film?

For Navarro’s Hawaiian shirt, we made our own pattern and printed 50-60 yards of that fabric to make 12 shirts for her [spoilers] because of the way she dies. I love that shirt. Her leather jacket is beautiful and based on the ones from the ’80s.

Aileen Wu as Navarro in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Is there a meaning behind Rain’s [Cailee Spaeny] big red jacket?

We made that for Rain. Red is tricky on camera, especially with the lighting they used. Many scenes are very dark, others are very colorful, and there is a lot of yellow light, so it was tricky. We made three to four prototypes with different red fabrics to see which one would work best and settled on this red waxed cotton fabric that broke down very beautifully. Fede wanted her to wear an oversized, puffy jacket where she could hide herself. Since they’re wearing the same costume for two hours, I gave them a lot of layers. So, as the action evolves, they remove their layers. Deconstructing the costumes makes it more interesting for the audience and lets the actors play more with the characters. Rain wears a green T-shirt with Weyland printed on it, which Fede wanted to incorporate.

 

What was it like to design the sneakers with Reebok?

Rain’s sneakers were probably the big statement piece. It was a dream come true to collaborate with Reebok—they designed the sneakers for Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, so that was a really big deal for me. They started selling those online, and I think they sold out in three minutes! Reebok showed me everything they had in their archives with that 80s feel, and there was one that I really loved. Originally, they came with white laces, but I changed them to red, mostly because Fede loves red—it’s always a major color in his movies. Since he wanted Rain to wear the red puffy jacket, I thought it would tie it all together by adding the red laces. He needed a pop of color, so we painted the outer sole red. Since I knew there were a lot of Zero G sequences, we would see the bottom of those sneakers a lot, and the lighting would catch the red. The interesting thing about horror movies is that everything is very dark, and when the characters wear white sneakers, it just grounds them because you actually see their legs.

Since some of the story takes place in Zero G, how did that impact the costumes?

To accommodate the thick harnesses under the costumes, we had to make many costumes in bigger sizes, plus more for their stunt doubles, all in different sizes. Usually, the harnesses are in two wires, but ours had four wires. Depending on the weight of the stunt person and the actor, those wires needed to be placed differently on the harness, impacting where we put the holes in the costume. So, we needed many fittings to make sure they worked with the wires.

Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

[Spoiler alert!] As Fede has mentioned, the violent chest-burster sequence was done with practical effects and not CGI at all, so everything we see happening to the characters happens to these costumes. How did the costumes survive the onslaught?  

The characters go through so much, and the way they die is so brutal and complicated, so we needed all those multiples to reflect the impact of the blood on the costume, the acid, and everything that happens throughout the action. Some of the costumes were divided into three parts to make it work because some actors have prosthetics attached to their bodies, like fake bellies, which made it more complicated. For each character, I think they had five to eight stages of breakdown of blood and acid to their costumes. So, for each different step, we needed to keep a couple of multiples. That’s why we got to 20-25 multiples per character. The technical aspect was quite challenging, but the creative aspect was really interesting and a lot of fun.

Xenomorph in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

 

Alien: Romulus is playing in theaters now.

 

Featured image: Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Robert Pattinson is Ready to be Reborn in Official “Mickey 17” From Bong Joon Ho

Posted on by babrams

The official trailer for Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 has landed, revealing the Parasite auteur’s sci-fi mind-bender with Robert Pattinson playing a young man so desperate for a change he’s willing to die—again and again—for a chance at a new kind of life. Ain’t that a kick in the head? The trailer is set to Sinatra’s version of the iconic tune, and the match makes perfect sense as we watch Mickey get, metaphorically speaking, kicked in the head over and over again.

Mickey 17, adapted by Bong from Edward Ashton’s novel “Mickey 7,” finds Pattinson’s Mickey signing a very unusual contract with a very demanding employer to get himself off Earth. He applies to be expendable, someone who works a horrifically dangerous space colonization job in which he will most certainly die, at which point a new version of his body will be printed—retaining most of the memories from the previous Mickey—and science will gain invaluable insight into the limits of what a human body, and its clone, can withstand and recall, while the dangerous work that killed him in the first place can continue apace.

The trailer reveals several iterations of Pattinson’s Mickey meeting his ultimate fate. In one charmingly dark sequence, they’re disposing of a Mickey, trundled in a body bag, in the furnace only to discover he’s not completely dead. “It’s fine,” Mickey says from inside the body bag, and they shrug and shove him into the fire. Dark. Funny. Decidedly perfect material for the man who gave the world Parasite.

Problems arise when two Mickeys find themselves alive simultaneously, something that’s a big no-no to the corporation that runs this entire employee replacement scheme. “In the case of multiples, we exterminate every individual,” says Mark Ruffalo’s Hieronymous Marshall, and we see our two Mickeys at war with one another and with the powers that be that want to snuff them both out.

The cast is wonderful; Toni Collette, Naomi Ackie, and Steven Yeun join Pattinson and Ruffalo in an irreverent romp that takes a gimlet-eyed look at human cloning, space colonization, and the nature of identity.

Warner Bros. will release Mickey 17 in South Korea on January 28, 2025, during the Lunar New Year Holiday. This is three days earlier than its global release on January 31. Bong is one of South Korea’s most beloved filmmakers, making South Korea a fitting choice for its world premiere location.

Check out the official trailer here.

For more on Warner Bros., Max, and more, check out these stories:

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on the Gospel of Ghoulish Pacing

“A Minecraft Movie” Teaser Finds Jason Momoa and Jack Black in the Overworld

The Villain Returns to Venice as “Joker: Folie à Deux” Makes its World Premiere

Featured image: Robert Pattinson stars in Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17.” Courtesy Warner Bros.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on the Gospel of Ghoulish Pacing

Posted on by babrams

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t a rehash of the past. Director Tim Burton revisits familiar characters and locations to tell a new story about aging, family, and regaining a sense of self that can get lost along the way through life’s trials and tribulations. It’s not just a nostalgic sequel but another personal adventure from the mind of one of contemporary cinema’s most singular filmmakers.

As usual with a Burton film, there are a lot of forces at play, emotional and supernatural. The story of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice seems straightforward and simple, but it’s a complicated beast. Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) returns home with her family, including her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega); Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) still creepily pines over Lydia as he’s hunted by his ex-lover Delores (Monica Bellucci); dead cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) is thrown into the mix to keep the living and the dead separate; and the story goes on with Lydia’s sleazy partner (played by Justin Theroux), a love interest for Astrid, and Lydia’s mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), on an artistic and spiritual journey.

In other words, the sequel is a lot on paper, but in the hands of Wednesday editor Jay Prychidny, all the threads come together and make for a blast at the movies. It was far from an easy task, though, bringing together all the narrative threads, gags, and stakes on display in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Prychidny tells The Credits how he accomplished such a creative feat. Fair warning, spoilers below!

 

Tim Burton purposefully didn’t rewatch the original film. Did you? How’d you want to push that free-wheeling style?

I’d like to think I pushed the style further than the original, just infusing the editing with more energy and a manic feeling. Definitely Tim’s viewpoint was to not rewatch the original. I think that inspired me, but I’m so familiar with it. It was my favorite movie as a kid, so I’ve seen it hundreds of times. I do just have a core memory of what’s going on in that movie, so I didn’t need to watch it. But his energy was like, “We are not trying to copy the original.” He wanted to craft the world of the sequel from a more emotional and instinctual place of what he thought that whole world was and what it meant to him, his emotional memory of the first one, as opposed to literally copying things from the first one.

 

The sequel is also much more musical, especially the big finish. How did it bring all those elements together? 

Yeah, that was really wild. That was definitely the most difficult segment because it was so strange. Another example is where there were [dialogue] scenes all written in that church. At one point, Tim just decided that they’re all going to be singing “MacArthur Park,” and so that change did get into the script. Getting those script changes was utterly bizarre because you’re just going page after page, and all it is a transcription of the song. Page after page, it’s just all of the lyrics of the song written out. It’s just like, what is this?

Caption: (L-r) Director TIM BURTON and MICHAEL KEATON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

How’d the dailies look?

On the day they just ran the song, different parts of the song, they’d have the actors just lip sync it all. And it’s like, well, how will this go together? It’s the actor’s lip-syncing to different parts of the songs. But Tim’s idea was that it didn’t matter. They just rolled the camera and just sang the song, right? Different sections, but they go through the whole section of the song and it’s like, “Well, but you can’t just use this whole thing. What is this?” But Tim’s idea was like, “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. You just use that section for as much as you want, and then you can go to another section and then another section. You don’t have to be tied to the song.” [Laughs]

Is that even more difficult than it sounds?

At the time, I was like, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” [Laughs] You can’t just go from one part of the song to another because, musically, it has to make sense. So, that was a bizarre struggle. You just want to be on the characters for the parts that are good. You don’t want just to be singing endlessly. It was just an insane challenge.

Not to mention, all the story resolution is needed there, right?

Yeah, amazingly, it worked. There were definitely a lot of questions about that sequence from producers and the studio. Is this crazy? Because it just keeps going. We did labor over that as well, should this be shorter? Because there would’ve been ways to cut it down. Ultimately, Tim just thought that we just have to go for broke. We just have to do it all.

Caption: WILLEM DAFOE as Jackson in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

It’s a bigger ensemble and story this time around. There are B and C storylines, with the netherworld cop, Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), and Beetlejuice’s ex, Delores (Monica Belluci). How much experimentation did it take to bring all those threads together?

The biggest red flag of the movie was how disjointed it was, how disjointed it felt, for sure. There are so many characters. It just had that feeling of jumping around to different storylines, which is very, I don’t know, you don’t really get a proper pace or flow or rhythm to it. So, definitely a lot of the work early on was to just find ways that you just don’t cut to a different scene. You try to find the connection, so one scene drives to the next, to drive to the next.

 

Ultimately, how’d you get that pace right? It’s not disorienting at all.

One of the benefits of editing during shooting is Tim looking at things and talking about them. We can start to see how we could shoot something new, transition pieces that connect this scene to the next one. It made it all feel more interconnected and gave it some forward momentum. It’s just the nature of the beast when you have that many characters, you have to drop off a certain storyline to focus somewhere else eventually. I mean, that’s always going to be what it is, but I’m definitely trying to make it seem as much a single driving point as possible. You’ll never do that, but you try to do that as much as you can.

Caption: MONICA BELLUCCI as Delores in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. hoto Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

Was there more of Delores in an earlier cut?

No. It was actually the opposite as we filmed more of her to put into the film. There were a couple of them. Bob’s death scene was a new scene that was added to give her more villainy and give her something really evil to do. And then there were just a couple more moments that we went and filmed to up her character more.

Caption: (L-r) JENNA ORTEGA as Astrid and WINONA RYDER as Lydia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh

The mother-daughter storyline is the heart of the movie. It feels personal to Tim Burton. Were certain deeply personal qualities that really spoke to you when editing the film?

It is fascinating. The more you know Tim, the more you see how many things he puts in the movie are very personal to him. It’s hard to see that because everything’s just so wild and crazy. A lot of these things he puts in do have a resonance for him. Just a very benign example, at the end of the movie, they go to Dracula’s Castle in Romania, which on Wednesday, he shot in Romania. Tim’s been to Dracula’s Castle several times. Those little individual touches are peppered in the entire film. I think that creates a sense of a personal piece of work, even though it is a big mainstream film.

 

Well said. You feel it when Lydia and Astrid are in the attic, talking about the horror movies they watched as a family together. How was cutting that more personal scene?

I love that scene with Lydia and Astrid in the attic. Definitely one of my favorite dialogue scenes. I find that really emotionally affecting as well because you really see the relationship between these characters in most other scenes. It’s a bit of a shallow relationship, just kind of the mother and daughter strife. In that scene, though, you really feel the shared trauma between them, the family bond between them, and the importance of movies in their lives.

For more on Warner Bros., Max, and more, check out these stories:

“A Minecraft Movie” Teaser Finds Jason Momoa and Jack Black in the Overworld

The Villain Returns to Venice as “Joker: Folie à Deux” Makes its World Premiere

New Joker: Folie à Deux” Teasers Unveil Gotham’s Killer New Crooners

Featured image: Caption: MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City

Posted on by babrams

Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part of the HBO spin-off series The Penguin from creator Lauren LeFranc, which stars Colin Farrell as the title character, Oz Cobb, reprising his role from Matt Reeves’ The Batman and remaining, once again, utterly unrecognizable.

“The very first movie I saw in the theater after Covid stopped being Covid was The Batman, and I loved it,” Ivanov says. “I saw it in March, and then I got a call in May asking if I’d be interested in interviewing for The Penguin. And I said, oh my god, that is just phenomenal because out of all the characters that are comic book characters, Batman is my favorite and everything that has to do with Batman.”

The Penguin picks up after the events of Reeves’s gothic, gorgeously constructed The Batman, which pitted Robert Pattinson’s Batman against Paul Dano’s the Riddler, with Farrell’s gangster stealing every scene he was in. [For a peek at one of the best scenes in The Batman, check out this chase between Batman and the Penguin.)

The Penguin‘s narrative follows the rise of the devious mobster in an eight-part bingeable series that is more a character study of how The Penguin came to be and what he plans to do in a Gotham now short the former reigning gangster king, Carmine Falcon (played in the film by John Turturro), than an action-filled comic book movie. The introduction of new characters like Sopfia Falcone, Carmine’s daughter, brilliantly played by the scene-stealing Cristin Milioti, and Victor (Rhenzy Feliz), an impressionable teen who ends up being Cobblepot’s driver, add a rich dimension to The Penguin’s storyline that explores his backstory.

In creating the dynamic settings of the series, Ivanov first spoke with LeFranc and executive producers Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, and Bill Carraro about designing an entirely new world for the Batman ethos. Below, she details how she conjured a dilapidated Gotham in the backdrop of a vibrant and very real New York City.

 

An ambitious project like The Penguin doesn’t happen often. Did anything initially stand out about it to you?

Lauren’s writing is so beautiful. Right away, I could tell that they were taking a new approach and a new direction with the character and the visuals and what part of the city they were going to show. My biggest concern was how do you continue a movie that was shot in England and Liverpool, and you are now doing it in New York.

So what was that like, going from re-conjuring Gotham from The Batman, shot in England, to the city that’s always been Gotham’s real-life inspiration, New York? 

England and New York are very different architectural vernaculars, right? So we had great conversations with Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, Bill Carraro, and Lauren [LeFranc] about how to build our own universe. What exactly is the universe? What is the neighborhood? What is the world that the Penguin embodies? And where does he go? And it was very clear that they wanted to show Crown Point, and they wanted to kind of dwell on the lower depths of Gotham, not so much the fancy part of Gotham and or the Batman world of Gotham. So that was very liberating because that allowed us to create a whole new look.

 

This series is grittier than the more polished Batman films—even Matt Reeves’ decidedly street-level, darker film. Did you reference any material outside the comic books or previous films to develop the look?

Matt Reeves told us, which was very important to him and Lauren, that we should look at French Connection and be very inspired by the visual language of The French Connection and how that can translate into Gotham and how to use New York as our Gotham. That was extremely influential on the look because it immediately put us underneath tresses, subways, and arches. And we looked for so many underpasses of any kind we can imagine. And it became kind of the show’s vernacular and a great starting point to start building our Gotham.

 

How much did you work with local vendors in and around New York?

We worked with NYC Film Office and Film Yonkers, and we worked with so many local vendors. First of all, you want to help the city and want to help the vendors, prop houses, and everyone. We always work with Roscoe, which is around New York, and we have our own art department vendors. We’re very much involved with trying to help the economy of New York. And all the locations help because so much of the specific look for us was spending more time in Yonkers and the Bronx and less time in Manhattan.

The series picks up after The Riddler bombs Gotham in The Batman. Part of the opening sequence, Oz enters the Iceberg Lounge. Did you recreate its exterior from The Batman?

The exterior had to be a recreation, so what we did is we found a really great location in New York, which is not under a subway, but it’s actually the West Side Highway. I think 138th Street, exactly. We built the front entrance there. We had the drafting from the movie, and we recreated the entrance, but we broke the letters and we broke the awning because that all would have been broken by the flood. But then that location had the big giant tunnel, too, where we created this mass of debris and piles of broken cars. You’re really trying to set the tone of the series, and the tone that you’re going to see is this city in complete decay.

Iceberg Lounge sketch. Courtesy of Kalina Ivanov/HBO Max
Colin Farrell. Photograph by Courtesy of Max
The Iceberg Lounge, courtesy Kalina Ivanov/HBO Max.

When The Penguin enters the Iceberg Lounge, he ends up in a room we haven’t seen before. How did that come about?

Recreating the inside of the lounge was almost beyond our budget in a sense. So, we agreed to create a new environment that we had not seen, and that captured the spirit of the movie’s design. And so, it was a great opportunity for me because what I said to them is, okay, if Carmine [Falcone, played in flashbacks in The Penguin by Mark Strong] never goes to his mansion, and he’s always at the club working, he must have a flawed relationship with his family. So, if he’s a workaholic, he must have a bedroom adjacent to his club when he stays in town, right? Basically, like his quarters, his bachelor quarters. And that’s what we pitched to Matt, and the interior ended up being his bedroom, literally offsite from the lounge.

Carmine’s bedroom, courtesy Kalina Ivanov/HBO Max.

Well, you really made it feel like it was part of the movie.

Thank you. What helped was that I tried to capture the spirit of one of the windows. And I remember showing the set; it was one of the first sets we shot when the studio executives came, and they loved it because it had this gold ceiling and everything. With Carmine, it will be tasteful but a little bit in your face. But the important part about it is that it had to be tasteful because when you see The Penguin, you see how he wants to be Carmine, but he doesn’t have taste. So, it became a very interesting way to start contrasting these two gangsters.

Colin Farrell. Photograph by Macall Polay/Max

When we see the Penguin’s place in the Diamond District, we can see the contrast between Carmine’s and Oz’s tastes. How did you approach his living space?

That’s a classic example of taking something very real and elevating it in a sense. So, when I read that he lived in the Diamond District, it was very important for us that he was on the lower floor because there’s a story point where, as he rises, his living quarters will rise too. So, it was very important story-wise that he starts not exactly at the bottom, but he isn’t at the top yet. He’s not Carmine. So, because he was set in the Diamond District, I pitched the idea that he actually transformed a jeweler’s repair shop into his loft. If people start freeze framing, they will see that we actually printed an article about the jeweler who used to have his business there. We created that jewelry business basically and there’s a reference to the history of it. That’s how deep we went into it.

Colin Farrell. Photograph by Courtesy of Max

The touches of metal add a lot to the feel of the space, too.

The metal is so cold, and that character has a very calculated coldness. Yet, the Penguin can be so warm on the outside and be Victor’s father figure. And so, you have this wonderful combination of brick on one side and then the metal on the other. Thematically, it was really, really important to us.

Colin Farrell in “The Penguin.” Photograph by Courtesy of HBO

Since you mentioned themes, the color palette has a unique style. Do you have a reference point for it?

I really loved this kind of palette because if you think about it, it captures what a comic book is like, which is a very high contrast. So, even though I didn’t approach this like doing a comic book, I wanted to have some of the essence of the beauty of the comic books because they’re beautifully drawn. There’s a specific comic book from the 80s that Matt based The Batman on. So, that was a pretty good reference in terms of what kind of style of New York he wanted because New York was still very decrepit. It’s not that really shiny New York that it is now; it’s all stores, clothing stores, and very, very, very wealthy people everywhere. It was really a lot of graffiti and decay. It was building itself up. So, it was an interesting visual point. And I think that the palette followed the movie in many ways, but it definitely had more color than the movie because we were in so much more vibrant neighborhoods

Speaking of neighborhoods, Crown Point becomes an intricate part of the series. How did you want to treat the neighborhood after The Riddler’s bombing?

The Penguin comes from that neighborhood, and where he grew up is the neighborhood adjacent to it. So, we created a map of Gotham and a map of Crown Point. The important part of Crown Point was that it was extremely damaged by the flood due to the bombs [that the Riddler set there]. So, we used all of these references, including Hurricane Katrina. We actually used real FEMA charts to show how they labeled defunct buildings. Our map showed the flooding from level five to level one and when we would have more and when we would have less. It was very thought out throughout the vision of the series, not just part of the visual art but the show’s storyline.

 

The Penguin premieres September 19 on HBO. 

Featured image: Colin Farrell. Photograph by Courtesy of Max

 

“Deadpool & Wolverine” Editors on Shaping Wolverine’s Masterpiece Emotional Explosion—in a Minivan

Posted on by babrams

Who wouldn’t want to watch Hugh Jackman deliver a satisfying performance? Better yet, let’s dress him up in one of the most iconic comic book hero costumes of all time and throw him in a minivan in some random forest with an intemperately smart-mouthed passenger. What could go wrong? Apparently, everything when it comes to Deadpool & Wolverine, this summer’s massive box office hit about two dudes on a world-saving multiverse road trip from director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things).

The scene in mention happens after our heroes convince a psychotic supervillain to let them go. They’re riding high and very possibly on their way to saving their worlds. But Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) slips up and asks Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) what will he do “if they can fix his world?” The “if” is what Wolverine hangs on, considering the entire reason he was on this insane mission with the lunatic Deadpool was that he was promised he could fix his world. It turns out, as Deadpool desperately explains, it was more of “an educated wish” that the powers that be, in this case, the Time Variance Authority, an organization that controls timelines in the multiverse, would be able to fix Wolverine’s broken past. The flub spirals into one of Wolverine’s most emotionally charged scenes in the film before spilling over into one of the most iconic fight sequences in Marvel history. Shaping the sequence were editors Dean Zimmerman and Shane Reid.

 

“The special sauce of the movie is Hugh being able to deliver those performances, same with Ryan, because Ryan can do it as well in a heartbeat,” Zimmerman says. “Then, Shawn will be able to pull out these performances from these actors and also write stuff like that. I think that’s where the uniqueness of this movie really took off.”

In navigating the project, Reid says, “Something that I was excited about reading the script, and I’m sure Dean was too, was how we were going to juggle pop culture, music, comedy, action, drama, stakes, visual effects, and then ground the performances. That’s a lot of navigation and a lot of trial and error. And I can’t really imagine a better challenge – it’s what I love.”

(L-R): Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.

The on-screen chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman is undeniable. Off-screen, it’s more of the same. Their friendship dates back to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, all a part of Wolverine’s pretty twisted backstory. Below, the editors share how they navigated that chemistry into that masterful minimalist minivan set piece where Wolverine drops the rhetorical hammer on Deadpool after finding out he was lied to, calling him out for being the most ridiculous, most childish, most pathetic curse on humanity (for the fact that Deadpool just won’t die), oh, and the fact that when Wolverine begs Deadpool to say just one more word so he can go berserk on him, Deadpool’s choice is, of course, “gubernatorial.” 

Zimmerman: Shane had cut that scene, and when I first saw it, the confidence of staying in that shot of Hugh delivering that performance took, and pardon the expression, a lot of balls. Most people would think it’s sitting there too long and be like, I gotta cut to the star. But is the star Deadpool, or is the star Wolverine? We don’t know. And I can let Shane speak to how he cut that, but those are those balances of where you can get Hugh or Ryan in these vulnerable moments and be able to get down to what essentially is one of the most raucous comedies and action films to be done to date and have these very poignant moments of grounded realism and emotionality.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson in Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.

Reid: I love the silence after Hugh’s speech. It’s uncomfortable, and we let the audience sit in that discomfort for a minute. There’s a real power to that in the filmmaking. Dean cut to the fire pit scene with Wolverine as well as the diner scene with him and Deadpool. And those are anchor drama scenes, and they were so well-assembled and adored by everybody. Those were the first scenes that I remember being shared around like, whoa, look at what we have here because this film’s obviously funny, and we obviously have the action, but look at the power of these scenes.

It’s like subverting the audience’s expectations. Let’s sit with this moment, and let’s just watch Hugh, who is a fucking incredible actor, act and not wink and be real and be sincere. And then on the other side of it, you have—I don’t know if it’s underappreciated or not—but can you name me one actor who’s delivering a comedic performance like Ryan is in this film? So you have like these powerhouses that have their own abilities and their own talents. And since they’re friends, and since Shawn [Levy] is their friend, they’re all pushing each other to be the best of themselves.

(L-R): Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and Director Shawn Levy on the set of Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.

And I think that’s why audiences love it. I always felt like a film that looks like it is fun to make is one that audiences connect with. And that’s what this film felt like. It was pure. If you could see the other takes of Ryan and Hugh opposite each other in the car, every time it ended, it would be like a beat of silence, and then Ryan would just be like, ‘F**k dude, Jesus Christ. Your spit is in my face. I love it.’ There was such a joy going on there for each other as sparring partners, and that kind of chemistry leaks out into the world.

Zimmerman: And for that scene to have that grounded, powerful moment, then cut to this vicious, bloody fight in the car, set to “You’re The One That I Want” by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, is so crazy. That transition has to be perfect in order to do that right. And that perfect transition is Hugh giving us this amazing performance, and then you cut to Ryan, and there’s just a pause, and he goes, ‘I’m going to fight you now.’ That’s what breaks the audience out of this emotional moment.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now. 

For more on Deadpool & Wolverine, check out these stories:

“Deadpool & Wolverine” Second Unit Director & Stunt Coordinator George Cottle on Capturing Those Cameos

“Deadpool & Wolverine” Stunt Coordinator & Second Unit Director George Cottle on the Comically Ultra-Violent Style

Featured image: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.

 

“Alien: Romulus” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario’s Retro Vision & Vintage Style Blends – Part One

Posted on by babrams

The only film so far to take this summer’s box office juggernaut Deadpool & Wolverine off the #1 spot for a spell was Fede Álvarez’s sci-fi horror Alien: Romulus, which brought back one of the most frightful monsters in cinematic history—the lobster-like face-strangling Xenomorphs! Taking place between Ridley Scott’s 1979 revered original and James Cameron’s 1986 fan-favorite sequel, Aliens, the cortisol-triggering interquel from 20th Century Studios centers on a new generation of colonists in their 20s, led by Rain (Cailee Spaeny). To escape the oppressive conditions on the mining colony Jackson’s Star, Rain and her crew – including her android brother Andy (David Jonsson) – hitch a ride to the sprawling space station Renaissance, where the parasitic creature unleashes two hours of nerve-shredding mayhem.

Recently scoring his first Emmy win for designing this year’s epic period saga Shōgun, costume designer Carlos Rosario (Jolt, The Girl in the Spider’s Web) is thrilled to be on his fourth collaboration with Álvarez. The mutual trust that began when the duo worked on the psychological horror Don’t Breathe almost ten years ago has evolved into a supportive and efficient partnership that he partly credits for his recent successes. “I’ve told Fede this, that one of the reasons I think I was able to design Shōgun with such confidence is because of the trust he put in me through the earlier projects. It empowered me to find my voice as a costume designer,” Rosario says.

 

First of all, congratulations on the Emmy win for Shōgun!

Thank you so much; it’s all very exciting. And thank you for doing this again – I loved your articles on Shōgun from our interview last time. They were amazing.

Thank you – I’m glad you liked how they turned out! This is your fourth film with Fede. Can you talk about the shorthand that you’ve established after working together for many years?

The trust we’ve built over the years allows us to be more confident when sharing ideas. I know what works for him and what doesn’t. Since we’ve figured out the foundation, it’s easier to take it to the next level. The fact that we both speak Spanish helps a lot because we can connect more organically. My approval process improves when I talk to him in Spanish. [Laughs] Don’t Breathe was one of the first movies I designed, I think it was a $7 million movie. Then, Don’t Breathe 2 was bigger, and now, Romulus is the biggest one we’ve done. We’ve both grown creatively together throughout these projects.

(L-R): Archie Renaux as Tyler and Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What was Fede’s vision for Romulus when you first discussed the project?

Since Romulus takes place between the first and second Alien movies, Fede wanted it to have an 80s feel. It wasn’t about just doing research on 80s style; he wanted me to design as if we were shooting this in the ’80s, which is really interesting. When you think about sci-fi from the perspective of the ’80s, it’s very different from our current notion of sci-fi.

What was your starting point in the design concept?

The starting point is understanding who all the people living in this colony are. Jackson’s Star is now abandoned, but it used to be successful. Everything is falling apart, so our lead characters want to escape to find a better life elsewhere. The colony has two different groups—farmers and miners. Before designing what they wore, I had to understand who these people were and their function and apply elements from these groups to our leads. For the farmers, it was researching farmers in America from the 1940s to 1960s. I found a lot of really interesting vintage Carhartt pieces that reflect farmers from that period, like coveralls and very thick Canvas pieces. For the miners, it layered different elements from rain gear, Eastern European uniforms, deconstructed jackets and pieces, and ski suits from the ’80s. I also added many vintage pieces that I found in Budapest.

David Jonsson as Andy in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Which character’s wardrobe was inspired by the farmers vs miners?

Andy’s is mostly based on the farmers since he’s wearing coveralls with industrial zippers on the side. His function is always to be by Rain’s side to protect her. But for Rain, it’s different because Fede told me that when the movie begins, she is done with her work day and changes before she joins the rest of the team. That’s why she’s the only one with a more casual look.

Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Romulus occurs between the first two Alien films. How much did those movies influence your design?

It’s kind of the same thing as Shogun—I usually don’t rely that much on the source material as a reference because I mostly focus on the director’s vision and the script. I’m a big fan of Alien and Aliens, so they had some influence, but they weren’t my main reference. I focused on creating costumes that aligned with these new characters’ personalities and supporting Fede’s vision.

 

Was there anything incorporated into Romulus as a callback to the earlier films?

There are a couple …. Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) wore that Hawaiian shirt in Alien, so we created our own Hawaiian shirt for Navarro (Aileen Wu) as an homage to him. That was one of my favorites. Kay’s (Isabella Merced) costume was somewhat inspired by Newt (Carrie Henn) in Aliens. The third thing that came up during my first meeting with Fede was working with Reebok to design the sneakers for Rain. Reebok has a long history of partnership with Ridley Scott and Alien because they designed all the sneakers for Sigourney Weaver (who portrayed the lead protagonist, Ellen Ripley, in Alien) in the first few movies. So Fede really wanted to collaborate with them.

Isabela Merced as Kay in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of our conversation, where Rosario discusses what it took to create 20-25 multiples for each costume for the main cast and designing Rain’s sneaker with Reebok to continue a 40-plus year legacy.

For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to

Disney+, check these out:

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part Two

Eye on the Emmys: “The Bear” Emmy-Winning Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part One

Featured image: (L-R): Xenomorph and Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

“Merchant Ivory” Director Stephen Soucy on His Must-See Doc for Film Lovers

Posted on by babrams

The name Merchant Ivory is so synonymous with lustrous period films, particularly literary adaptations of the works of E. M. Forster and Henry James, that even some astute filmgoers assumed it was a studio or a brand. It was both those things, but it was foremost the names of two men—US-born director James Ivory and India-born producer Ismail Merchant—who together formed a partnership that changed modern moviemaking.

L-r: Ismail Merchant, James Ivory

That’s the major takeaway from Stephen Soucy’s illuminating and entertaining documentary Merchant Ivory. It details how the filmmaking team that included writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins managed, against the odds, to bring so many luminous classics to the big screen in the 1980s and ‘90s such as The Bostonians (1984); A Room with a View (1986); Maurice (1987); Howards End (1992); and The Remains of the Day (1993). Besides this rich film history, the film offers a delightful behind-the-scenes look at the often tumultuous personal relationship between Merchant and Ivory, a couple from 1961 until Merchant’s death during abdominal surgery in 2005.

 

“The Merchant Ivory story is the iceberg above the water, but there was all this big stuff beneath the water’s surface that I wanted to navigate through,” says director Stephen Soucy. “They were such fiercely independent filmmakers from day one and for many, many years. They didn’t even get into the studio system until the ‘90s.”

A theater producer who’s made several short films, Soucy directed the animated short Rich Atmosphere: The Music of Merchant Ivory Films in 2019. The film focuses on composer Robbins, who scored 21 Merchant Ivory productions. It impressed James Ivory, now 96 and the only living member of the Merchant Ivory quartet.

“I interviewed him twice, then brought the finished film with narration and super cool animation that Jim loved. He was over the moon with it. So I sensed an opportunity,” said Soucy. “I said, as a huge Merchant Ivory fan, [he should] let me make the definite look at what Merchant Ivory was.” Even though Soucy had not yet made a feature film, Ivory said yes.

“That’s very Jim. Many people, such as Maurice producer Paul Bradley, said that when they first started with him, they didn’t have much experience. But Jim gave many people the chance, and they stepped up. I’d only made shorts, but Jim thought I could do it.”

L-r: James Ivory, Ismail Merchant

Ivory’s blessing led Soucy to the dazzling array of interviews he assembled for the film, including actors Hugh Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Rupert Graves and James Wilby; Jenny Beavan and John Bright, who won an Oscar for their costumes in A Room With a View; and many more who share how much the films meant to them and to their careers but also the struggles of grueling, unpredictable shoots for little money.

 

The documentary spans the 40-plus films in the Merchant Ivory oeuvre including their early, India-set dramas The Householder (1963), based on screenwriter Jhabvala’s novel, and Shakespeare Wallah (1965), about a troupe of actors traveling across India that took the Berlin Film Festival by storm and put Merchant and Ivory on the world cinema map. There are deep cuts from their later movies such as Slaves of New York (1989); Jefferson in Paris (1995); and Surviving Picasso (1996).

“I wish I could have taken a deeper dive with some films, but you run out of time,” said Soucy. “We came upon the structure of early, middle, then the bigger [films] and ending it with Call Me By Your Name. That idea came from Jim when he told me Howards End was “Ruth’s film.” When we showed [the documentary] at BFI in London, some were disappointed that we didn’t have more about Heat and Dust. But I chose to take a deeper dive into the core films, especially since these were the ones that more people could talk about …. [The structure] occurred naturally based on who was available to talk to me.”

Ismail Merchant, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, James Ivory

“Emma and Hugh were hard to get. But they were happy to talk about this period. It was a gift to meet with them. Some of the decisions were based on availability; luckily [writer] Tama Janowitz could talk about Slaves of New York, a film I love; it’s such a time capsule.” Soucy said some extended interviews will be posted on the documentary web site.

As Soucy earned Ivory’s trust, the filmmaker opened up about being gay in the 1960s and his relationship with Merchant who hailed from an conservative Indian family. Merchant was also involved romantically with composer Robbins, inspiring the kind of volatile yet genteel drama that propelled their films, particularly with Bonham Carter’s revelation that she, too, was in love with Robbins.

The documentary includes a clip of Ivory, who at 89 became the oldest Oscar winner in history for his adaptation of  Call Me By Your Name (2017), when he accepted an award from the LGBTQ organization GLAAD and acknowledged the broad shoulders of his late partners Merchant, Jhabvala and Robbins. He also cited the trial blazed by his own film Maurice. Now considered a gay classic, Merchant Ivory documents Ivory’s singleminded determination to make that film in the mid-1980s, not the most friendly time for queer projects with AIDS at its peak and with Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government enacting the homophobic Section 28.

It was also personal for Soucy. “It was important for me to showcase Maurice. For many gay men, myself included, it was a hugely important film. I was a teenager [when it came out], and it was the first time I saw myself onscreen grappling with the same things,” he said. “I’m proud I was able to showcase the long arc of Maurice and the impact it’s had.”

 

Featured image: L-r: Stephen Soucy, James Ivory

“Shōgun” Shows Up Big at Emmys, “The Bear” Gobbles Up 11

Posted on by babrams

The last Emmys were a mere eight months ago due to scheduling delays in 2023, but last night’s gathering of TV’s biggest and brightest stars featured many of the same smiling faces and a new cadre of talented folks getting their turn to hoist up the gold.

Some of those new faces belonged to the Shōgun team, which nabbed outstanding drama, lead actor for star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada, lead actress for Anna Sawai, and directing for Frederick E.O. Toye. The meticulously rendered period epic won an astonishing 14 Creative Arts Emmys last weekend, a record for most by a show in one season. On Sunday, it extended that record to 18.

Some familiar faces included The Bear stars Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who once again won lead actor and supporting actor in a comedy. Co-star Liza Colón-Zayas nabbed her first Emmy in the supporting actress race. Colón-Zayas was the first Latina winner for best supporting actress in a comedy series.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: (L-R) Jeremy Allen White, winner of the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, Liza Colón-Zayas, winner of the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, winner of the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for “The Bear”, pose in the press room during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

The Bear mauled its record of 10 comedy wins for a single season from last year by capturing 11 Emmys on Sunday, one of those belonging to creator Christopher Storer, who won for directing. Meanwhile, The Bear‘s comedy competitor Hacks had a big night, too, winning outstanding comedy over The Bear, with star Jean Smart winning lead actress.

Staying in the animal kingdom, Netflix’s hit Baby Reindeer galloped off with the Emmy for outstanding limited series or anthology, and its creator, Richard Gadd, winning both lead actor and writing. His co-star Jessica Gunning, who played his indefatigable stalker Martha, won supporting actress.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: (L-R) Jessica Gunning and Richard Gadd, winners of the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series for “Baby Reindeer”, pose in the press room during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

And Jodie Foster, a longtime great of the silver screen, won her very first Emmy for her star turn in HBO’s True Detective: Night Country.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Jodie Foster, winner of the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for “True Detective: Night Country”, poses in the press room during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

For the full list of nominees and winners, click here.

For more on the Emmys, check out these stories:

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part Two

Eye on the Emmys: “The Bear” Emmy-Winning Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen

“Ahsoka” Emmy-Winning Costume Designers Elissa Alcala & Devon Patterson on Carrying on a Cosmic Legacy

Picking Apart the Pickwick Triplets With “Only Murders in the Building” Emmy-Nom’d Editors Shelly Westerman and Payton Koch

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part One

Eye on the Emmys: “Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Mariko’s Heroic Journey

Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: (L-R) Tommy Bastow, Yoriko Douguchi, Moeka Hoshi, Hiroto Kanai, Takehiro Hira, Anna Sawai, , winner of the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series award, Tokuma Nishioka, Hiroyuki Sanada, winner of the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award, Cosmo Jarvis, Yasunari Takeshima, a guest, Yuka Kouri and Tadanobu Asano pose in the press room after winning Outstanding Drama for “Shōgun” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

A Quarter-Century Later, We’re Quoting “The Matrix” More Than Ever

Posted on by babrams

Wake up, Neo. The Matrix was released 25 years ago this year. From that first entreaty, as it appeared on computer programmer Thomas Anderson’s (Keanu Reeves) black computer screen, to the hacker’s life-changing choice — red pill or blue? —  Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s dystopian action thriller became and remains a technological and cultural bellwether.

Hollywood, movie-going, fashion, and superheroes look nothing like they did in 1999, yet The Matrix memes don’t stop, even if they sometimes have little to do with the original material. After a quarter-century of seeding pop culture with ideas we still use today, the movie is a next-generation Star Wars. Even the movie’s themes cribbed from other sources eclipsed their original material. “Follow the white rabbit,” Neo’s computer screen tells him, setting in motion his departure from the Matrix. The command, which opens up the idea of another possible and previously unimagined reality, comes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland but is now just as indelibly part of the Wachowskis’ deeply thought-out Matrix mythology.

Sought out by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to join his rebel crew outside the Matrix, a simulated reality created by intelligent machines enslaving an unaware humanity, Neo proves an unusually adept student as he learns to fight, leap between buildings, and bend spoons with his mind, with the goal of breaking the Matrix and freeing humankind from the machines.

 

Morpheus is convinced Neo is The One who will achieve this, though the Oracle (Gloria Foster) says otherwise. In their efforts, the rebels cross back and forth into the Matrix via telephone, taking on Agents inside and Sentinels outside. But there’s a mole — crew member Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) regrets choosing the red pill and makes a deal with the Agents to get plugged back into a posh life within the Matrix in exchange for ratting out his comrades. Primary Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) captures Morpheus and ambushes and seemingly kills Neo during the rescue mission. But when co-leader Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) reveals to Neo she’s in love with him, Neo revives, newly able to control the Matrix, defeating Smith and the other Agents. 

1999 Carrie-Anne Moss Stars In “The Matrix.” 1999 Warner Bros. And Village Roadshow Film. (Photo By Getty Images)

Key ideas from the story are now idiomatic. Is there “a glitch in the matrix,” i.e., are you seeing or experiencing a minor but unexplained occurrence? That Matrix is the reference point for the oddity in your matrix. Less likely to come up in daily life but just as seeded into contemporary culture is so-called “red-pilling,” a politically right-wing concept that leaving behind reality by buying into various conspiracy theories actually means entering reality.  A more jovial coinage, Neo’s realization, “I know kung fu,” has been a persistently-beloved bit of spoof material over the past 25 years. And significantly more broadly, Lilly Wachowski also explained in a 2020 Netflix interview that the transformations we see in the film are an allegory for the trans experience.

 

The film’s lingo entered the lexicon, and costume designer Kym Barrett’s aesthetic became part of the fashion canon. Years down the line, any black leather-clad celeb hiding behind angular black sunglasses is still pinned as looking Matrix-esque, because not only did Barrett’s work for the film become synonymous with this particular aesthetic, it also helped propagate it. Christian Dior’s Fall 1999 couture collection was inspired by the movie, and the look continues to pop up as a reference point for other designers.

1999 Laurence Fishburne stars in “The Matrix.” 1999 Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Film.

And of course, there’s bullet time, the frozen moment effect during which the camera pans around the protagonists during action scenes. Visual effects supervisor John Gaeta worked with the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies to be able to pan a full 360 degrees, while the Wachowskis worked with fellow director and martial arts choreographer Woo-Ping Yuen to design the movie’s reality-bending action scenes. Set against a cyberpunk background, combining different martial arts, and relying on new visual effects techniques to create Neo’s now-iconic bullet-evading backbends, The Matrix’s action sequences have been both earnestly adapted and parodied throughout film and television. Even The Simpsons spoofed the film’s bullet time effects during one of the show’s couch gag intros.

 

The Wachowskis’ nearly airtight direction wasn’t just thematically and visually groundbreaking, it also made for satisfying movie-going. The Matrix made $463.5 million in theaters, was the fifth-highest earning movie of the year, and inspired three sequels. The Matrix is headed back to theaters on September 19 and 22 to celebrate its 25th anniversary—the Fathom Events has partnered with Insignis Pictures and Warner Bros. on screenings, which will include a special featurette with Jessica Henwick (Bugs) reflecting on the film’s massive cultural impact. A fifth movie in the franchise is now on the way, about which little has been revealed. But with The Martian writer Drew Goddard directing and Lana Wachowski on board as an executive producer, we’re looking forward to seeing how the next installment breaks new ground a quarter-century later.

Featured image: Carrie-Anne, Moss Laurence Fishburne, and Keanu Reeves standing against brick wall in a scene from the film ‘The Matrix Reloaded’, 2003. (Photo by Warner Brothers/Getty Images)

Eye on the Emmys: “3 Body Problem” Cinematographer Martin Ahlgren on Lensing Series’ Wildest Set Piece

Posted on by babrams

*Ahead of the 2024 Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Martin Ahlgren is nominated for Outstanding Cinematograph for a One Hour Series for episode 5, “Judgement Day.”

The scope of 3 Body Problem is planetary. Adapted by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, alongside Alexander Woo, Netflix’s ambitious sci-fi series presents a grand depiction of a war between humanity and aliens. Prior to the aliens’ arrival, a team of beleaguered scientists and a clandestine agency led by Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham) engage in both intellectual and physical warfare as they try to find ways to cope with the mind-melting reality of their situation, including trying to ignore the problem considering the aliens won’t arrive on Earth for another 400 years. That’s when things start getting really scary.

Episode five, in particular, gets under your skin. Titled “Judgement Day,” it delivers a significant blow; a ship carrying the aliens’ human followers is destroyed in a spectacularly gruesome set piece. The morally conflicted Auggie Salaza (Eliza Gonzalez) is strongarmed into unleashing nanotech fibers that tear through everyone aboard the vessel. The resulting chaos is captured with horrifying clarity by the filmmakers, including director Minkie Spiro and cinematographer Martin Ahlgren.

Prior to joining the series, Ahlgren was already a fan of the original source material, novelist Liu Cixin’s acclaimed “Three-Body Problem” series. Ahlgren credits cinematographer Jonathan Freeman for developing “the cinematographic approach to it” in the earlier episodes. Collaborating as well with fellow DPs P.J. Dillon and Richard Donnelly, Ahlgren appreciated the “coherent overall approach to cinematography, but also with each episode, finding our own language.”

We spoke to Ahlgren about finding the language for an episode that needs very little of it to shock your system and what it was like working with this talented ensemble cast, including Jovan Adepo, Jess Hong, Alex Sharp, Benedict Wong, John Bradley, and more.

The attack on the ship Judgment Day is horrifying, especially because of how brightly lit the body horror looks. From the beginning, did you not want to hide the body count, as well as the visual effects, in darkness and shadows?

What’s funny with Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] is that they’re very averse to anything that kind of borders on camera trickery, and that was a good sounding board for me. Me and my episode director, Minkie Spiro, are both fans of composition and photography in general, and in finding interesting ways of telling the story. Working with Dan, David, and Alex [Woo], of course, it very much taught us quickly to film everything quite grounded. Although it’s obviously awful what’s happening, there is a fine line between showing the horror of what’s happening and veering into gore.

3 Body Problem. Episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Where was that line for you?

One of the things we set up fairly early in the sequence is what is actually happening, and then after that, you’re kind of left to your imagination to a large extent, as well. Initially, we were working with our long-term storyboard artist, Stefan, and the three of us were coming up with fairly intricate, elaborate ways of how the slicing happens on different levels of the ship and on different people. It ended up being too gruesome in a way that we ended up pairing it back a bit.

3 Body Problem. Episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

What was a beat you all scaled back?

We had a sequence where someone comes out into the hallway, and Mike Evans (Jonathan Pryce) sees that person get stopped, fall to their knees, and the slicing happens. It becomes almost like a Damien Hirst art project or something like that, where you see the innards of someone as it’s slowly gliding apart. It was putting the emphasis in the wrong place in a way, so we scaled back from that because of it.

3 Body Problem. Jonathan Pryce as Mike Evans in episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

You said Dan and David are not fans of camera trickery. What’s an example of what you didn’t want to do with the camera?

There was a sequence during what we called the Sophon sequence – when Wade and Jin (Jess Hong) are in the virtual reality game and are being told about how two Sophons were sent to Earth. We wanted the camera to travel backward away from the window where Jack (John Bradley) has just been killed, and then suddenly have the camera flip over and continue forward—but now with the view upside down—into the car where an unsuspecting agent is keeping watch. As I was pitching this idea, I could see Dan and David starting to shift and go, “Well, yes, ok, but maybe not upside down!”

3 Body Problem. (L to R) Liam Cunningham as Wade, Jess Hong as Jin Cheng, Sea Shimooka as Sophon in episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Going back to Judgement Day, what questions did you have for the VFX team and supervisor about what they needed?

We had a lot of discussions with visual effects, but we also had a physicist advisor on board as well, partly because of some of the space and quantum dimensions and more intricate elements. He became involved with the nanotech fibers and how they could potentially work as a real thing. A lot of what we were discussing was, like, should you see the lines as the fibers cut through the ship, or is it so fine that it cuts on a molecular level? Is it so fine that you don’t actually see the separation?

What about portraying the logistics of a ship hitting the bank of a canal?

When the ship hits the bank of the canal, it falls like a stack of plates, almost with the top plates going the furthest. So, there were a lot of the physical logistics that we were working out between me, Minkie, and the showrunners, but then also the visual effects team to figure out what parts we were doing practical.

There is a lot of blood in that sequence, to put it mildly. Cinematographers can have a love-hate relationship with shooting blood. What about yourself?

With blood, you can never go too dark, right? [laughs] It’s always the darker, the better. We did some camera tests to find what that should be in advance. To my memory, I can’t say exactly what we ended up with, but it was something that was discussed to some extent.

To contrast the chaos, there’s a lovely lit bar in Panama that Auggie visits before the attack. What mood did you want to strike there?

We wanted it to feel like Auggie in the jungle. It was shot on a soundstage in London, so we were building it all with palm trees and plants inside. We were looking for a way to convey the humidity and ominous feeling of night before this [attack] is about to go down. So, it was finding somewhat of a beauty in that, but then also some oppressive feeling as well.

What’s a challenge for you there as a cinematographer, just showing two people talking on the 3 Body Problem? Whether it’s the bar in Panama or two characters on a beach, what issues do you face?

Part of the challenge is to give the actors the space to find their moments and find the connection between each other. At the same time, it’s a visual medium and you still want to be telling the story with the camera. You’re always blocking scenes. Because we worked a lot together, it sort of becomes a bit of a dance that we do together with the actors, just figuring out how the camera language can help emphasize whatever is going on emotionally in a scene.

3 Body Problem. (L to R) Alex Sharp as Will Downing, Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand in episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Ed Miller/Netflix © 2024

How do you achieve the best result there?

The best result is when you sort of echo or find some contrast or interplay between what’s going on in the scene and something that you’re doing visually. So, just because there are two people talking, I don’t think it needs to stop being cinematic. You still want to continue this visual trajectory of the whole film or show. Hopefully, it adds to the emotional quality of those scenes.

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“Stranger Things” Star Maya Hawke Teases Mind-Boggling Final Season

“Dead Boy Detectives” Trailer Unveils Netflix’s Supernatural Sleuthing Series

“Irish Wish” Director Janeen Damian Makes a Rom-Com Dream Come True with Lindsay Lohan

Featured image: 3 Body Problem. Episode 105 of 3 Body Problem. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Picking Apart the Pickwick Triplets With “Only Murders in the Building” Emmy-Nom’d Editors Shelly Westerman and Payton Koch

Posted on by babrams

Only Murders in the Building editors Shelly Westerman, ACE and Payton Koch were nominated for Emmys this year for Outstanding Picture Editing For A Single-Camera Comedy Series for the eighth episode of season three, “Sitzprobe,” with pressure mounting on the show-within-the-show on a critical rehearsal day. It’s one of the funniest episodes in a very, very funny series, with Steven Martin in peak neuroses mode while Meryl Streep, guest starring this season as the mysterious Loretta Durkin, delivers yet another classic Meryl Streep performance.

While the Emmy win ultimately went to editor Joanna Naugle for shepherding the year’s most singularly upsetting displays of a domestic disturbance in The Bear’s episode “Fishes,” Westerman and Koch can rest assured they delivered a tour de force performance in stringing together a huge amount of insanely delicious performances.

In an interview with The Credits, they discuss how they got started and how they put together the tongue-twister-filled “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” Steve Martin patter song in the Season Three Finale.

 

How did you get started as an editor?

Shelly Westerman: I started with a career at the Federal Reserve. I worked in computer operations for over 11 years, but I always had this urge to work in film. My parents were film nuts. I grew up with movies. I had a few friends who were working in editing. With my love of movies and photography and my ability to do computers, it was a natural fit. I was working at the Federal Reserve in Atlanta and knew I had to get to New York or Los Angeles to be serious about a career, so I transferred to the Fed in New York and then just joined every organization I could, including Film Independent. I volunteered at film festivals and made those connections. Someone told me where to intern at a post-production house in New York, so I took a leave of absence from work. I was in my mid-30s and interned for like six or seven weeks, learned some film skills, and someone offered me a job for $300 a week. I took it, turned in my notice to the Fed, and started my career on a very cool independent movie called Velvet Goldmine. We were holding 35mm film in our hands, cutting and slicing and cementing. So, I built my community in New York and then ended up transferring to L.A. in 2009.

Payton Koch: I always wanted to be an editor. Like Shelly, I was the computer guy in my family and always the tech kid. My grandpa is a producer. His name is Hawk Koch. So, I was immersed in the film industry as a child. I was on set sometimes and was always fascinated by it. I was always playing on iMovie and making little montages or little short films in my backyard. Then, as I approached college, I knew I wanted to go to Chapman, where I studied editing. Right when I graduated, I got a P.A. job on American Horror Story in the Ryan Murphy world. That’s when I met Shelly on my first day, and we both worked in that world for about five years or so. I climbed the ranks there as a PA, then became an apprentice editor, then an assistant, and then Shelly’s assistant. When Shelly got hired to cut on season two of Murders, she said, ”If you come with me as my assistant, we’ll cut everything together. Let’s get you co-editor credit, and we’ll see what happens.” So, I said, “Sign me up, no question.” We cut every single scene together, and I learned so much. She gave me the opportunity to show what I’m capable of and form a relationship with our producer, John Hoffman. I’ve been cutting my own episodes on season three, and then we just finished season four.

 

What are the qualities that make somebody a good editor?

SW: It’s being present in the world. Someone told me early on, “To be the best editor, go to the opera, dance performances, read books, watch movies, and then be very present in the world.” I’m always listening and looking at everything around me. I was at a cafe last week, and this woman was sitting outside. She walked back and forth a few times, and she had these wide sandals that were making a slapping sound on the sidewalk. I was fascinated with it. And I know I’ll use that in something at some point. It’s just being aware of everything around you, taking it all in, and trying to work from that place of instinct.

PK: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it’s just a deep understanding of being human. At the core of it, we’re storytellers. Regardless of the technique or the software, it’s a human story. You want to come from a place of authenticity. Shelly talked about being out there, experiencing the world, absorbing it all, and taking it all in that transfers into the work because the way we work is feeling-based. It’s not necessarily “We need to go here because of X, Y, Z,” the technique. It’s when you feel you want to see that, or “I want to be with this character on this line.” That’s what’s so beautiful about this art form: we do get to be technical, but at the root, we all experience human life.

Only Murders in the Building — “Sitzprobe” – Episode 308 — On the day of the show’s most critical rehearsal, the pressure mounts. A familiar official returns to upend the case, Loretta’s complex past threatens to upend all else and Charles must finally sing his number without losing his marbles. Loretta (Meryl Streep) and Charles (Steve Martin), shown. (Photo by: Patrick Harbron/Hulu)

And Meryl Streep joined the cast in Season Three. Don’t you want to keep every shot of her?

PK: Yes, it’s true. My first episode of season three was episode three, when she did the song. That was my first solo editing venture away from Shelly, and I was so intimidated going into it just because I knew this was like the first musical number of the season, and it was Meryl Streep, and she was in so much of the episode. As I was getting the dailies, she hadn’t shot yet. So all her stuff was coming at the end. I was doing the whole episode, and I was just waiting for Meryl, waiting for Meryl, and then it was like, “Bam. Here’s all her scenes.” You are so captivated watching the dailies that you don’t need to cut the scene.

SW: When Payton showed me his first draft of “Look for the Light,” I was sobbing. I couldn’t take it. It was so good. Because of what he did, and it was Meryl, because it was his first solo episode, and it was like, oh, my God. It was just stunning. I had a scene in a later episode. She’s on stage and about to sing, and the cops are coming.  And she starts to sing, and she stops and goes, oh, no, that’s not right. I thought it was real, and I was like, “Oh, no, somebody screwed up on stage.” Steve and Marty had the same reaction. It’s so truthful. But that was her performance. And she just loves acting with Marty. Some of the scenes get really long because they just keep going. It’s like, “Okay, well, I need to cut this down to a 30-minute show.”

 

Only Murders in the Building is a particular challenge because it’s not a comedy, mystery, romance, or musical. It’s all of those things together and a little bit heightened, but not too much! How do you keep the tone consistent?

PK: It starts in the writers’ room, truthfully. The writers do such a great job at keeping the story intertwined throughout the ups and downs of the drama, the comedy, and the mystery. It’s so well-balanced in the script, which makes it all the better when we go into it. But it is just like a fine line between where you’re keeping that suspense going if we’re tracking the killer or the mystery. You have to be careful. When you have the whole episode, and you watch it, you take a step back, and then you’re able to see, “Oh no, here, I need to lay into the comedy a bit more. We need to lighten this up a little bit so that it’s not so much emotional drama the whole episode.” because we are a comedy show at the heart.

SW: We do a lot of meetings early on. We’ll get the script and then have a tone meeting. The department heads are all there, and we’ll discuss it. And then we’ll have a production meeting as well. And then a table read. The table reads are the most informative, and Zoom has really helped with that process. A lot of homework happens beforehand, but also a lot of balancing creatively and collaboratively. It’s a lot of checking each other, being open to collaboration and notes from each other, and incorporating what everyone sees as funny or emotional.

 

Paul Rudd was clearly having a blast playing an awful person for a change.

SW: Such a blast. He’s become great friends with the showrunner, and I think he was already friends with Marty. And I remember at the end of Season Two when he did his big scene, he said, “I’m in a room with Steve, Marty, Andrea Martin. I don’t know that it gets any better than this. This is the height of my comedy career.”

 

We have to talk about the triplet song. I don’t know who had a harder job, the person singing it, or the person editing that incredible scene.

SW: Or the people writing the song. Oh, my goodness. The lyrics are crazy. They have a fabulous music team. Ian Eisendrath is their musical producer. You get the script, and you see the split screens with that song, and you’re like, oh no! Those screens are tricky. We had great directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who I actually had been their assistant editor in New York back in the day on a film called The Nanny Diaries. To reconnect with them now in L.A., as their editor gave us a shorthand immediately. Bob had a plan early on, which was brilliant because he had an editing background to map it out with title cards before we shot so that we could figure out how to frame the images and what we wanted to see. So we, all of us, Payton and I, our assistant, Diana Hiatt, and Jamie Clark, dug in as a team and started to create the sequence with title cards, and then Diama had the great idea to color-code them for character, so you could see what character was moving across the screen. So they had a map of where they were going. Four scenes were going on simultaneously while Steve Martin was doing the song. We would get the footage piece by piece, then start plugging it into our little squares and continue refining it. We could plug stuff in and say, “Okay, this works, this is good, we can go to this one or swap that one.”

PK: Because of the shorthand teamwork with Shelly, pulling off that sequence was so much easier than it could have been, and it just came out so great. And people are so impressed with how Steve performed it, which we are too, watching him in the dailies do that was so amazing,

 

Featured image: Only Murders in the Building — “Sitzprobe” – Episode 308 — On the day of the show’s most critical rehearsal, the pressure mounts. A familiar official returns to upend the case, Loretta’s complex past threatens to upend all else and Charles must finally sing his number without losing his marbles. Jonathan (Jason Veasey) and Charles (Steve Martin), shown. (Photo by: Patrick Harbron/Hulu)

“Ahsoka” Emmy-Winning Costume Designers Elissa Alcala & Devon Patterson on Carrying on a Cosmic Legacy

Posted on by babrams

The late Shawna Trpcic, costume designer for Ahsoka, was posthumously awarded an Emmy this past weekend at the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes, alongside her assistant costume designer Elissa Alcala and costume supervisor Devon Patterson, who won for the finale, “Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord.” It was an emotional win for Alcala and Patterson, who, like Trpcic, are Star Wars fans and highly regarded and now freshly minted Emmy winners.

 

Ahsoka is the first live-action Star Wars show adapted from one of the franchise’s animated series (Star Wars: Rebels), both of which come from showrunner and creator Dave Filoni. Ahsoka follows the rebel Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) summoned once again into action by the whispered return of a terrifically powerful adversary, Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen (who also voiced him in Rebels). The series is set in the aftermath of the fall of the Galactic Empire and tracks Ahsoka, a lone wolf by nature, and the few allies she can trust as they face the growing threats in the galaxy. Alongside her former padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), a capable, if wayward, warrior, her trusty droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant), and General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), they find themselves faced with increasingly malevolent forces all spoiling for fight. None more formidable than Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) and his protege Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), who are abetted by an assortment of political apparatchiks, galactic ghouls, ferocious droids, and would-be assassins, all working in concert to aid the return of Thrawn.

We spoke to Alcala and Patterson about Trpcic, so beloved in her field, carrying on her legacy, and what it meant to be an Emmy nominee. This interview was conducted prior their recent Emmy win.

 

How did it feel to be nominated alongside Shawna, who passed away last October in 2023?

Elissa Alcala: It feels great to be nominated and recognized for a project that everyone, including Shawna, was so passionate about. That feels amazing. Devon and I, and our whole crew, would prefer it if Shauna was still here with us, but we’re going to do our best to hype up our team and go for it because Shawna would be absolutely thrilled that we were nominated and she would be promoting it to the best of her abilities to try to get us that Emmy win.

What were the initial costume conversations like with Shawna, creator Dave Filoni, and the rest of the Ahsoka team?

Elissa Alcala: Shawna was working with Lucasfilm since season two of Mando (The Mandalorian). So, we were already a well-oiled machine when we started Ahsoka. We knew what was expected of us visually. Shawna, Dave [Filoni], and the team had set up the rules of our Star Wars universes, so we just played off of that and continued. Obviously, with this one, we brought in characters we hadn’t seen in Mando and The Book of Boba Fett, so it was about respecting where these characters came from, whether from the animated series or if they were new.

(L-R): Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) with howlers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved

Devon Patterson: I’ve always been a big fan of fantasy sci-fi, so it was a dream and a pleasure to have the opportunity to visit Ahsoka and see how the magic is made. There are a lot of moving parts, especially trying to figure out how to translate sketches into physical working costumes. Specifically for fantasy and sci-fi, you must consider so many things. You have to consider stunts. Are they on a speeder bike? Are they hiking up a hill? What is the terrain of the world that you’re working in? And what do we think would the fabrics and fibers be of that universe? Doing that was a challenge and a pleasure.

Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

There was a hipness to Ahsoka and the costumes, which feels new to the Star Wars universe…

Elissa Alcala: Rosario and all of the actors, in general, definitely brought their own personal swag to it. It was always really important for Shawna that when we would meet with the actor and have our first fittings, we got to hear what the actor wanted for the character. So it was like with Baylon, Ray [Stevenson] came in, he had a whole concept of what he wanted to present with this character, one of them being that he wanted to incorporate this space stone into his costume. All he wanted was a ring, but Shawna said, ” No, no, we’re not just going to have a ring. It’s going to be a part of the whole costume, so we incorporated this space stone with a green hue, and his entire costume took on that hue, and we tied the stone to pieces of the trim. All of the actors collaborated so we could take Dave’s and Shawna’s ideas and bring them together to create these beautiful costumes.

(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s get to the specific episode you’re nominated for, the finale. Can you walk me through shaping “The Jedi, The Witch, and the Warlord” and you approached it?

Elissa Alcala: I think the reason the episode was put up for consideration for an Emmy was it had the most amount of our costumes across the board, whether it was our Night Troopers or Ahsoka the White or our witches and also all of the New Republic, so we had Hera and our pilots, there were just so many costumes, and I think it showcased our huge expanse of what we made for the whole show.

(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved

Devon Patterson: I would agree, especially the witches, who were a labor of love. A lot went into them, and Shawna had, outside of the initial sketches, done her own research. Anybody will tell you that Dave is about movement—whatever you do, it has to move, it has to flow, it has to be ethereal and otherwordly.  You can say a lot of costumes reflected that in this episode.

 

I’m curious how much input you have for characters like droids, Dark Troopers, and other iterations of iconic creations that have existed within the Star Wars universe for decades.

Elissa Alcala: So obviously, with Storm Troopers, that’s an established costume that’s been around forever, but we do get sketches from Doug [Chiang, production designer] and Dave, and based on those sketches, they had put in different colors and wrappings, and we had to figure out how we were going to accomplish that look on the Troopers. What we ended up doing was taking our Storm Troopers, and we took each set of armor, anywhere from 10-15 pieces that go into putting on a full Storm Trooper costume, and we Kintsugi’d them by drilling holes and lines into them, and gold leafed them. Then, on top of that, we took the fabric that Shawna picked for the witches, and we aged them, cut them up into strips, and not only Kintsugi’d them, but we wrapped each piece with this red fabric. It was a huge process, I think we had 50-something odd Troopers we did this for. In the last episode, you see all of those pieces come together.

(L-R, front): Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and Captain Enoch (Wes Chatham) with Night Troopers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Devon Patterson: None of those Storm Troopers were alike; where they were Kintsugi’d, they were all varied. Shawna wanted each Storm Trooper to have its own personality. That’s what made that so much fun. It was a lot of hard work, but there was joy in seeing the individuality once everybody was dressed. The Captain of the Troopers is the first time we’ve ever seen a character like Enoch, so Shawna put her spin on him to take it over that edge and give the fans a wow moment. These are things we do to elevate everything. Shawna was always about taking it to the next level.

Captain Enoch (Wes Chatham) with Night Troopers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Was there a character either of you particularly loved designing for?

Elissa Alcala: It’s a hard question. I think we all enjoyed bringing these new baddies to life, like Baylon, Shin, and the witches. The character Shawna and Dave had me work on, I helped do all of the patches you see, like on Sabine’s jackets or the pilot’s helmets, and I helped create that artwork. Usually, that’s something the art department would do, but everyone was so busy, so Shawna said, “Well, E can do it—plus, it’s going on a costume.” It was really cool, and now, to see cos players making my patches on helmets is very rewarding.

Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved

Devon Patterson: I tend to like going to the Dark Side. I’m one of the few people who will admit that I root for the baddies. I loved all three of the witches, the way they came out, the process of getting them all down was amazing. The sourcing of all the fabrics, the dying, seeing it come to life, and watching the witches walk out onto the set for the first time was thrilling. One of Shawna’s favorite moments was when we did Ezra’s look from Rebels, and seeing Dave’s face when he saw Ezra live and in 3D, I remember Shawna being so proud that Dave was so happy and was able to bring Ezra to life. It helps that the crew, without them, none of this is possible. They put a thousand percent into the show, and many of them are diehard Star Wars fans. They have a vested interest in making sure that the fans will appreciate and love everything we do. And God bless Shawna, too, she and the crew really put a thousand percent into the show. When people love what they do and are vested in what they do, it shows. We do it for the fans as well because we know they appreciate what we do when we do it well.

(L-R): Huyang (David Tennant) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved

Elissa: Shawna was herself a huge Star Wars fan. Her family loves Star Wars, and her son was the one who actually helped her get the job when she came aboard Mando in season two. She knew she had to bring on a team that was just as passionate about Star Wars as she was.

For more on recent Emmy winners, check out these stories:

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part Two

Eye on the Emmys: “The Bear” Emmy-Winning Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen

(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) with Night Troopers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved

Eye on the Emmys: “The Bear” Emmy-Winning Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen

Posted on by babrams

*After the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners, announced on September 8, and ahead of the 2024 Prime Time Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Costume

The Bear’s Re-recording mixer Steve “Major” Giammaria, ADR mixer Patrick Christensen, foley mixer Ryan Collinson, and production mixer Scott D. Smith recently won for Oustanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) for the episode “Forks.” The larger sound team also included sound effects editor Jonathan Fuhrer, music editor Jeff Lingle, foley mixer Ryan Collinson, and foley artists Annie Taylor, Shaun Brennan, and Leslie Bloome.

The first thing you might notice in Season 2 of Christopher Storer’s hit drama The Bear is how well you can hear chef-owner Carmen (Jeremy Allen White) and his team of kitchen underdogs as they set to work reopening their Chicago restaurant. Restaurant kitchens, especially those still under construction, as the Bear’s is for most of the season, are not quiet places. But no matter how prevalent the sledgehammers and steel cookware may be on screen, yelled at, or barely muttered, the interpersonal dynamics between the show’s lovable characters always come through.

“THE BEAR” — “Honeydew” — Season 2, Episode 4 (Airs Thursday, June 22nd) Pictured: Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, Abby Elliott as Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto. CR: Chuck Hodes/FX. . CR: Chuck Hodes/FX.

“Fifty-six percent of people watch [streaming] with subtitles on by default, and I take that personally,” Steve Giammaria, the show’s supervising sound editor, joked. He and his Emmy-nominated team, dialogue editor Evan Benjamin and production mixer Scott Smith, prioritized the series’ emotional side with clear dialogue viewers don’t have to strain to understand. “We try, when I’m mixing, to be dialogue-forward because there are a lot of words in The Bear, and they’re happening very quickly and very energetically,” Giammaria said, but he and his team do so without leaning much on ADR, which neither showrunner Storer nor the sound team are fans of.

 

Instead, to get across every word of a kitchen battle between Carmen and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) or a subdued heart-to-heart chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) has with her father, dialogue editor Benjamin relies on old-fashioned alts from other takes. “If you hear a giant bang on the end of a line, and you can just fix that one word, the whole scene seems to make more sense. You do that 10, 15, 20 times a show, and all of a sudden, the thing feels much more legible,” Benjamin said.

 

But the soundscape of The Bear also eschews wall-to-wall dialogue. The series’ acute attention to food detail, the sounds of which Giammaria credits to the lead Foley artist, Leslie Bloome at Alchemy Post Sound, sets the stage for the sonic tenor of the season’s different restaurants. Whether in Copenhagen or Chicago, the show’s sound team focused on creating distinct intensities for the various kitchens where Carmen’s staff go off for additional training. Marcus travels to Denmark to work under Luca (Will Poulter), a quiet, nearly Zen-like experience, compared to Carmen’s chaos. Richie spends a week against his will at an established high-end Chicago restaurant, Ever, which is run with a military-level precision Richie is totally unused to but comes to embrace. “It’s a very measured intensity,” at Ever, Giammaria said, “so having those two worlds collide sonically is fun.”

 

“Forks,” the episode during which Richie does his Ever stage, is one of the most emotional of the season. It’s also one of the quietest. Feeling adrift in the Bear’s back-of-house lineup and taking it out on Natalie (Abby Elliott), Richie has an epiphany about his life and his place in the kitchen while peeling mushrooms with Ever’s head chef, Terry (Olivia Coleman). Terry talks to him about her background; the pristine kitchen is otherwise silent. Benjamin intentionally removed any body noises and almost all other sound around the pair, rendering the moment as still as possible. “It’s remarkable what you can do to the emotion of a scene if you do something as simple as getting rid of all that kind of stuff,” he said. 

 

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, the season travels back about five years to Christmas dinner at the dysfunctional Berzatto household. Carmen’s brother Michael is still alive and chucking forks at his mother’s boyfriend, Lee, in retaliation for Lee’s condescension. Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), their mother, is preparing a Feast of the Seven Fishes and having a meltdown. She eventually drives her car into the house, a climactic moment made less dramatic by the sheer amount of fighting and griping that precedes it. Marked by anger, shame, and tension, “I think that dinner scene is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to edit,” Benjamin said. “You’re trying to get each one of those arguments, and sometimes those arguments are colliding with each other in a way where they’ve layered multiple takes on top of each other. So you have to pull out one voice from a tangle of voices. It’s very hard to do.” The process started with Smith, who “recorded things on the sly” on set to get as much material as possible, including background effects and dialogue cadged from rehearsals. “The dynamics of that scene, as it ended up on the screen, were more or less the dynamics when it was shot,” Smith said. He and Benjamin established the episode’s unusual sonic landscape, while Giammaria worked with producer David Woods to settle on how Michael’s final, climactic fork throw should sound. “We went a little understated. When the table flip happens, all hell breaks loose. We [thought], let’s dial this moment back because it’s the last little straw before the dam explodes,” Giammaria said.

 

Back in the present day, at the restaurant-in-progress, aligning what’s happening between the characters with what would realistically be underway at any given time of day is a priority, though “emotion always wins,” Giammaria said. If Richie and Natalie are arguing during busy prep time, the sound team might play the background noise a little more quietly to avoid overshadowing the dialogue—but the makeup of those sounds is still carefully considered. “We get as granular as, hey, there are too many forks and not enough dishes,” the supervising sound editor said, with different objects influencing the show’s tenor on a case-by-case basis. “Things that are a little more vertical tend to cause chaos, as opposed to just a running sink, a boiling pot,” he added.

The Bear feels tangible, not just for its close attention to the food, but because what we see on screen is what we’re actually getting. “In season two, they’re really knocking those walls down. There are really sledgehammers flying. Those pilot lights are turning on. There’s something there, and we’ll enhance it. We’re building on this foundation that Scott makes, and Evan keeps in there, and then we’ll pepper it up with effects,” Giammaria explained. But even more important to the final sound is that on The Bear, its significance is accounted for from the very beginning. “You can’t just wedge in good sound after the fact,” he added. It’s given the scaffolding it needs early on, “which is evident in the final product—they actually leave room for some sound design and the ebb and flow of chaos.” When Carmen and his team finally open their doors to friends and family, the door between the kitchen and dining room acts as an almost magical sonic buffer between the two worlds, which makes the relatively soigné nature of the dining room all the more appreciable to viewers who understand what it took to get there.

 

For more interviews with recent Emmy winners, check these out:

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part One

Eye on the Emmys: “Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Mariko’s Heroic Journey

Featured image: “THE BEAR” — “Sundae” — Season 2, Episode 3 (Airs Thursday, June 22nd) Pictured: Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto. CR: Chuck Hodes/FX. 

 

 

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part Two

Posted on by babrams

*After the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners, announced on September 8, and ahead of the 2024 Prime Time Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Costume designer Carlos Rosario won for Outstanding Period Costumes for a Series for Shōgun, episode 6, “Ladies of the Willow World.” He won alongside his colleagues Carole Griffin, costume supervisor, and assistant costume designers Kenichi Tanaka, Paula Plachy, and Kristen Bond. 

In Part One of our conversation with costume designer Carlos Rosario, we talked about the monumental effort his team went through to research, design, and handmake 2,300 costumes for FX Networks’ gripping historical saga. We continue the discussion today on how his team designed a distinct closet for each of the three main characters.

Unlike most other projects, Rosario could not design a collection that could be utilized throughout the series. As the story moves from the royal court to Ajiro village and the battlefield, and from tea ceremony to palace intrigue to war, his team dressed hundreds of characters: the samurais, koshōs (the equivalent of a squire to a warlord), and soldiers in battle; the lords and ladies in the royal court; the courtesans in the teahouses; and the villagers in Ajiro, all with varying looks. “Sometimes it took two or three people to dress each character in armor, and we had so many in some of the battle scenes.” On one occasion, he spoke with costume designer Kazuko Kurosawa (daughter of filmmaker Akira Kurosawa), who did not work on the series but offered valuable insight on whether the lords would tone down their wardrobe when visiting the villages. “I was wondering if their costumes should be more like what everyone else was wearing around them. But she said no, that’s actually when they want to show their wealth and power.”

“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured (C): Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX

“When I first read the script, two words came to me: ‘texture’ and ‘colors.’ In the novel, Ishido’s [Takehiro Hira] army is described as the gray army, and brown for Toranaga’s [star/producer Hiroyuki Sanada],” Rosario reveals of the color palette used for the different armies and, by extension, their lords. “That was the starting point. For Toranaga, what is more elegant than brown? Gold and copper. That gave me a framework for each of the lords. Even though that wasn’t how it was done, we wanted to respect the novel. It is also easier for the audience to visually understand who’s part of which clan and follow the storyline.”

“SHOGUN” — “Tomorrow is Tomorrow” — Episode 3 (Airs March 5) Pictured (L-R): Takehiro Hira as Ishido Kazunari, Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “The Eightfold Fence” — Episode 4 (Airs March 12) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX

When it came to texture, each group of characters has distinct qualities to delineate rank, wealth, and power. “For the residents in Osaka, I used a pale color palette with subtle patterns and mostly linens. The nobles wore luxurious costumes made of silk, elaborated hand-painted textiles, and lots of embroidery, and many layers to signal wealth and abundance. The villagers in Ajiro wore rustic, textured, natural fabrics like hemp, which was the predominant fabric of that time and reflected their connection to nature.”

“SHOGUN” — “Servants of Two Masters” — Episode 2 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured (C): Tokuma Nishioka as Toda Hiromatsu, Yuki Kura as Yoshii Nagakado. CR: Katie Yu/FX

The most intricate costumes for Toranaga was his armor, which Rosario made from leather rather than metal. Not only was leather more period-appropriate, but it was also more comfortable for the actors. “At first, we looked at renting armor from Japan, but it was too expensive. Once we decided to make everything, I thought, why not make them as light as possible to keep the actors happy? I remember Hiro [Sanada] told me it was the lightest armor he has worked with,” Rosario says. But there was another reason for using leather: since Japan had been fighting a civil war for over 100 years by this point, he wanted to give the armor a battle-worn look. “You can break down leather easily and age it to give it life and depth. I wanted the armor to look worn down – there’s an ongoing power struggle with the lords, they’re going into battle, and everything is sort of falling apart. I wanted the audience to relate to that visually.”

“SHOGUN” — “Tomorrow is Tomorrow” — Episode 3 (Airs March 5) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX

Like the other lords, Toranaga has several jinbaoris (陣羽織), the stunning vests worn over his armor before going into battle. “Besides acting as an extra layer of protection, it also shows wealth. Each is handmade with 20-25 different fabrics, trims, and a painted crest. One of Toranaga’s has hundreds of peacock feathers, each attached to the base fabric by hand. I had a lot of fun designing the jinbaoris,” Rosario says about the vests that took hundreds of hours to make. Some of his favorites are the ones made for one of Toranaga’s vassals, the volatile and serpentine Lord Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano). “Since he is edgier and grittier, I was even more creative with his jinbaori and added black spiky swan feathers to give it some attitude,” he adds.

“SHOGUN” — “The Eightfold Fence” — Episode 4 (Airs March 12) Pictured (Center L-R): Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige, Hiroto Kanai as Kashigi Omi CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “The Eightfold Fence” — Episode 4 (Airs March 12) Pictured: Nobuya Shimamoto as Nebara Jozen, Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige. CR: Katie Yu/FX

John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), a beleaguered stranger trapped in a foreign land, is at the mercy of his captors. Slowly but surely, he figures out how to survive by learning the Japanese way of life. “I had to convey his evolution from the stranded sailor to when he begins to blend into Japanese culture. The first time they dress him in a kosode (小袖) is the beginning of that evolution,” Rosario shares. [Kosode is the standard unisex garment that serves as the precursor to the modern kimono (着物).] “But we also needed to contrast him with the Japanese characters because he is also at the heart of the story. So, I kept his clothes very subtle and muted, mostly because he’s powerless in that environment.”

“SHOGUN” — “Servants of Two Masters” — Episode 2 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne. CR: Katie Yu/FX

“His fabrics are very textured, raw silks and linens; some of his kosodes were handwoven in Vancouver over several weeks,” Rosario continues. “After that first kosode, he also gets hakama pants. When he leaves Osaka to go on the fields, he gets into the tattsukehakama (裁着袴), which are hakama pants tied at the bottom with gaiters to make them more functional.” The first formal piece that Blackthorne wears is a kataginu (肩衣), a vest with broad wing-like shoulders inspired by Chamberlain’s white and brown kataginu in the original miniseries. “It was such an iconic costume – anytime anyone thinks of Richard Chamberlain in Shōgun, they think of that outfit. So that was our homage to the ‘80s miniseries.”

“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Broken to the Fist” — Episode 5 (Airs March 19) Pictured (L-R): Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne, Yuki Kura as Yoshii Nagakado, Jodai Suzuki as Toranaga’s Brown Kosho. CR: Katie Yu/FX

The sartorial feast continues with Mariko’s [Anna Sawai] wardrobe, which evolves as she moves beyond the crestfallen and subservient wife. When we first meet her, she is stoic and merely going through the motions, bearing the shame of her family name. As Toranaga admits, her husband’s decision to forbid her from committing seppuku “kept you from your fight, robbed you of purpose.” Her melancholy and emptiness inspired Rosario to start her wardrobe with a winter motif. “She was lifeless in a way. The first thing that came to me was a branch without flowers; there was nothing blooming. So, we started with her wearing monochromatic colors, the patterns have snow covering the grass. That was my way of showing a woman who felt empty; she was like a ghost,” he explains. But as she finds more courage and agency, “it goes from the winter concept to camellias blooming, and more colors and patterns are added as she finds her path, her empowerment, and her voice towards the end of the story.”

Eita Okuno as Saeki Nobutatsu, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Hiromoto Ida as Kiyama Ukon Sadanaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Tomorrow is Tomorrow” — Episode 3 (Airs March 5) Pictured: Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Broken to the Fist” — Episode 5 (Airs March 19) Pictured (L-R): Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX

The first five episodes of Shōgun are available to stream on Hulu.

 

 

Featured image: “SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX

“Women in Blue” Cinematographer Sarasvati Herrera on Lensing Apple TV+’s Gripping New Thriller

Posted on by babrams

The Apple TV+ series Women in Blue (Las Azules) is torn from the history books of Mexico during a time when the first female police officers joined the ranks. Created by Pablo Aramendi and Fernando Rovzar, the ten-episode crime thriller follows four women – María (Bárbara Mori), Gabina (Amorita Rasgado), Ángeles (Ximena Sariñana), and Valentina (Natalia Téllez) – on a psychological whodunit as they to catch a serial killer terrorizing the neighborhood. 

Cinematographers Alejandro Martínez, Daniel Jacobs, and Sarasvati Herrera captured the visually painterly series. The latter lensed the series’ emotional turning point in episodes 5 and 6. Herrera shares with The Credits how she recognized the gravity of the project’s historical significance.

“As a female artist, I thought this story was absolutely necessary to talk about. Especially in Mexico, where it’s still very hard for a woman to get a job that a man generally does, like working in the police department,” she says. “These women were real, and they did a lot for the community. They couldn’t believe we were representing them.” Being the sole female cinematographer had its own merit as well. “For me, everything that puts women up front is wonderful because when I grew up, you couldn’t even do what I am doing now. Now, to be on a show where the lead characters are women and to have women in the creative departments, I am very honored to be part of this series.”

In expanding the visual story, Herrera used a LUT with low and mid-lights, three stops down in exposure. This altered the texture of skin tones and required the cinematographer to approach lighting differently while embracing darker, moodier tones. Working in low light, a Sony VENICE II was paired with Cooke S4 uncoated lenses for their slightly “vintage look” and Angenieux Zooms for speed and practicality. While collaborating with director Carlos Moreno, Herrera says it was all about the “camera language.” In prep, they referenced films like David Fincher’s Seven (1995) and Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005) and discussed how zoom and dolly language would shape compositions. Another ingredient was how the camera followed the characters or how it moved closer to the subject to heighten emotional touchstones in a character’s performance intentionally. 

Below, Herrera talks about the making of the most stirring images in her two episodes. 

 

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Miguel (Jerónimo Best) and Maria (Mori). Courtesy Apple TV+

Maria (Mori) ‘s relationship with her husband Miguel (Jerónimo Best) is tumultuous at best, as he’s having a not-so-secret affair. Connecting the duality of their life at home is a pair of mirror shots: one showing Miguel breaking down and another showing Maria being lifted by the potential of her newfound love of police work.

Herrera: Miguel’s mirror shot came out when Carlos and I were blocking the scene, as it was the first time we saw that bathroom location. We talked about reflections and how you see yourself when you’re lying. So when we got to this bathroom, it was perfect. With Maria, we have this simplicity in the lighting with a little bit of diffusion on her forehead that wraps underneath. It was lit with an Astera tube LED above the mirror and an Arri Skypanel S360-C outside the window. The simplicity was nice in that very small space.

Gabina (Amorita Rasgado) in “Women in Blue (Las Azules),” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

As the women collect clues, Gabina (Amorita Rasgado) follows a police officer into an abandoned hotel. As she peers through a door window, she’s shocked to see an officer beating someone. A bloody handprint hints at terror inside the room.

Herrera: That was a great location. We had that disco ball behind, and I love that we had that in there. Gabina didn’t have any light on her face because she’s very tight with the door, so I put a tube light in the corner of the door just to have her eyes lit.

The scene touts the most disturbing violence of the series, a decision made with purpose.

Herrera: Showrunner Fernando Rovzar made it clear from the beginning that he didn’t want to see the victims of the serial killer because your imagination already does that. But with the police, we wanted the violence to be much clearer and direct, so you almost compare them in a way. Like how close does this police officer become a serial killer himself?

A Symphony of Clues

A scene from “Women in Blue.” Courtesy Apple TV+

As the women get closer to finding the suspect, Maria visits a prison to interview an inmate for potential clues. What unravels is an intellectual standoff akin to Clarice’s visit with Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. But for Maria, the inmate won’t play nice until the piano that’s been taken away is replaced. By the end of episode six, she grants his wish, and in a melancholy moment, a group of guards and prisoners circle around him as he plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” The room blooms with a bluish-cool hue as a montage of crippling events juxtaposes the music.

Herrera: That scene was one of my favorites to shoot. The actor was really playing the song, and all the men and extras around him really got into it. We did all the close-ups from the extras, and then we played with the actor for the final shots, which had tighter close-ups of him. We did the song about 30 times, so the atmosphere became pretty melancholic. Lighting it we hung an Arri SkyPanel S360-C with a crane on the top of the building with diffusion. Then we had another Sky Panel on the other side and a 100-watt tungsten bulb just above the piano. 

Women in Blue (Las Azules) is streaming now on Apple TV+.

For more stories on Apple TV+ series and films, check these out:

“Manhunt”: A Visual Journey Through Time with Graphic Designer Gina Alessi

Apple Original Films Planning Sequel to Brad Pitt & George Clooney Film “Wolfs”

“Disclaimer” Teaser Reveals Alfonso Cuarón’s Star-Studded Limited Series

Featured image: Bárbara Mori, Amorita Rasgado and Natalia Téllez in “Women in Blue (Las Azules),” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Eye on the Emmys: Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Mariko’s Heroic Journey

Posted on by babrams

*After the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners were announced on September 8 and ahead of the 2024 Prime Time Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Editors Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake won the Emmy for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Drama Series for the season finale, “A Dream of a Dream.” 

The first season of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo’s masterful Shōgun was an expertly paced slow-burn drama that plunged viewers into 17th-century Japan with a passionate obsession with the rigors and wonders of the period and location. The new Shōgun shifts its center of balance from the swashbuckling but woefully out of his depth British pirate Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) to his Japanese captors. Blackthorne has washed ashore on a land in the midst of a tectonic power shift, with Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira) plotting his takeover in Osaka while the brilliant but taciturn Lord Yoshi Toranaga (star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada) strategizes a way to keep the peace and, if possible, his own head in the process. He entrusts the brilliant, emotionally bruised Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai) to act as his translator to the “Anjin,” their name for Blackthorne, whom Toranaga sees as a potential key chess piece in his eventual move against Ishido.

All of this plays out over a perfectly paced 10-episode arc, easily one of the most captivating seasons of television this year. While editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales are quick to point to the embarrassment of riches they had to work with—sensational performances, an incredible story, period-perfect details—it was their work, alongside fellow editor Thomas A. Krueger, that gave the rebooted Shōgun its perfect, haunting shape.

We spoke to Miyake and Gonzalez about what it was like cutting a series with an ensemble that included so many memorable performances and pacing a story that never felt rushed or halting but moved with its own brilliant, brutal logic.

Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake.

What conversations were you having with showrunner Justin Marks about your approach to pacing the series?

Maria: Maybe a week before they started shooting an episode, we have these tone meetings, which for Justin are kind of legendary on his shows because they can go for hours or even sometimes a couple of days. Justin is a cinephile, so we hear a lot about movies that inspired him and what TV shows inspired him, but there’s no specific talk about pace. I think for both Aika and me, once we started getting the footage, you just sort of let the footage guide you on what it wants to be.

Aika: A funny thing about our show is that we have Japanese and English, and Japanese tends to take twice as long to be said. So I looked at the subtitles in the initial cut, and they just sat there for a long time. So I remember the moment realizing I had to cater to both Japanese and English audiences and strike a good balance so the Japanese subtitles weren’t too fast and the English subtitles weren’t too slow—that contributed to pacing. And to add to Maria’s point, we had so much great stuff that it could feel like, “I don’t want to let it go,” but you have to make difficult decisions. And Justin and the studio allowed us to experiment.

How do you make those difficult decisions about cutting sequences and scenes you love?

Maria: So initially, we do our cut, and then we work with the director of the episode for several days on their cut. And for the most part, the directors cut very few scenes. Once we get to Justin, a lot of the really big decisions get made. There was a lot of back and forth, and some lovely scenes in the first episode had to go because you’re weighing your options and asking, “Am I getting the same emotion from this other scene?” We also had lovely scripts and all the work that Justin, Rachel [Kondo], and the writers did to establish these really dynamic characters. And casting did a phenomenal job, like casting Tadanobu Asano as Yabushige. So it was just an embarrassment of riches for us when those dailies started coming in, so it was our job to give its due and do it justice. It’s inherent that information will repeat, but to Justin’s credit, he never wanted to dumb the show down for the audience. There was a trust that the audience was in on the ride and would get it.

Aika: I want to add something to what Maria said about the repetitiveness of emotions or information. We identify if two lines are actually doing the same thing, so when something felt really repetitive, I’d explain to Justin that’s why I just took this line out. We had that freedom to explore, and I really appreciated getting that space. I remember in episode 8, the initial cut was a hundred minutes or so, and I remember the shift where we had a lot of Ochiba [Fumi Nikaidô] scenes at the beginning of the episode, but while we started editing the whole thing, episode 6 was more about Ochiba, and that was doing enough of her story that we didn’t have to come back to it in episode 8. When I took it out, it felt so right. I watched episodes 5 through 8, and the flow made sense at that point.

(Spoiler alert) An interesting element of the series is that Toranaga is a step ahead of everyone, including the viewer, throughout the season. This is especially true in episode 8, when his number two guy, Toda [Tokuma Nishioka], commits seppuku in what appears to be despair at Toranaga’s decision to give up.

Aika: My understanding was there were spies everywhere. In episode 2, one of the Kosho working for Toranaga turns out to be a ninja coming to kill Blackthorne. So, understanding the world and everyone’s a spy, I understood that Toranaga had to have a poker face in that scene with Toda. Once you understand that, you understand the acting choices that Hiroyuki Sanada makes. He’s almost a guide for me to pick out the good parts and build the story. Especially the scene with Toda committing seppuku. In my first cut, I missed this close-up of Hiromatsu and Toranaga staring at each other. Toranaga flinched a little bit, and Hiromatsu realized he was doing it for real. That was something that director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour said, “This has to be in this scene.” I understood then the way the scene was built, and that moment was so crucial. Hiromatsu didn’t exactly understand what Toranaga was doing, but he trusted him enough that he must die today. That was a huge, huge moment.

“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Tokuma Nishioka as Toda Hiromatsu. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Abyss of Life” — Episode 8 (Airs April 9) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX

Maria: I think the way Hiroyuki Sanada performs, there’s no real choice to make on our part. It’s not like we were going through a variety of takes and trying to make sure he stayed consistent; he was very consistent. He knew what this role was. So, between him and the writing, I think it was kind of inherent to the project.

Aika: The funny thing about that scene is it’s the most emotional we see Toranaga, and he’s really holding back.

Maria: It’s the only time really in the show he’s emotional, there and a little bit toward the end when Mariko dies, but for the most part he’s very consistent and on his mission.

Let’s end with Mariko, who is such an amazing character. You could argue that among all these fascinating characters, she ends up becoming the one we root for the most. I’d love to hear about what it was like cutting Anna Sawai’s amazing performance.

Maria: We’re so lucky to have Anna on the show. Most of my work was with her in episodes 1 and 4. For me, her introductory scene in 1 was one of my favorite scenes that I cut. This is when she comes to Fuji [Moeka Hoshi]’s aid. Her husband has made a misstep, and now he needs to commit seppuku and end his bloodline, and she’s holding her baby and not wanting to let it go. Mariko comes in and handles the situation, and right from the get-go, even though it’s a brief scene, so much of who she is is established in this scene. She shares a past with Fuji, that she too wants to die, she’s such a complex character. For me, as a woman cutting a character that is so complex, torn between her duty to protect her family name, her duty toward Toranaga, and her love for John Blackthorne, it just made all the scenes I had with her multilayered. Even in episode 4, which was the love story development between her and John Blackthorne, almost every scene is imbued with such complexity and tries to explain her loyalty toward her culture, but she is also torn with this love interest. You don’t always get such complex female characters.

“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Moeka Hoshi as Usami Fuji. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Katie Yu/FX

Aika: I have an easy answer [laughs]. So, in episode 9, I’m credited as an additional editor. I had an opportunity to do a female point-of-view cut. Thomas [Krueger] did an amazing job, and then Justin came to me later in the process and asked me to have a look and add a female point of view to the edit. At that point, episode 8’s intensity had been so high, and episode 9 needed a tweak to get it above that. So, I mainly touched on Mariko’s scenes, including when she’s fighting. A year after our job was finished, I looked back, and the scene in which I felt I contributed the most as a woman and a Japanese woman was Mariko’s fighting scene. That sequence was almost completely recut. The original choreography wasn’t long enough for us to feel like it was as intense as necessary. It felt like it needed more intensity when I watched it, so I tried to make it longer. If you look closely, she throws the naginata (the long staff with a blade at the end), and the guy catches it—that only happened once in the choreography, but if you watch the edit, you see it twice because I’m using the same choreography from different angles to make it seem like the fight was longer. I added Blackthorne and Ochiba watching and a sound layer underneath so that the sequence feels longer and more intense. Then I added Mariko’s scream at the end. I wanted to speak to the female point of view where we want to fight and we have the rebellious spirit. The writers said Mariko has this punk personality [laughs]. I relate to that and the frustration of being a woman and finding a way to fight. I really wanted Mariko to give everything in that scene.

For more on Shogun, check out stories about the lush costume design by Carlos Rosario, the high-tech take on ancient gagaku instrumentation from composers Atticus and Leo Ross and sound engineer Nick Chuba, and the fatally stylish, no-moves-wasted samurai swordplay created by stunt coordinator Lauro David Chartrand-DelValle.

Shogun is streaming now on Hulu.

Featured image: “SHOGUN” — “Crimson Sky” — Episode 9 (Airs April 16) Pictured (C): Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Katie Yu/FX

Eye on the Emmys: Outfitting Feudal Japan with Emmy-Winning “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part One

Posted on by babrams

*After the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners, announced on September 8, and ahead of the 2024 Prime Time Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Costume designer Carlos Rosario won for Outstanding Period Costumes for a Series for Shōgun, episode 6, “Ladies of the Willow World.” He won alongside his colleagues Carole Griffin, costume supervisor, and assistant costume designers Kenichi Tanaka, Paula Plachy, and Kristen Bond.

“I wanted to create from a white canvas without any mental references going into the project,” costume designer Carlos Rosario (The Girl in the Spider’s Web, Jolt) explains why he chose not to read the James Clavell bestselling novel before working on FX Networks’ cinematic historical saga, Shōgun (将軍), and only used the 1980 miniseries adaptation as a broad reference. “As a costume designer, you build a strong psychological, spiritual relationship with these characters. You live and breathe with them for two years. The mental references would have stopped me from tapping into who these characters really are. So, I wanted to start from scratch.”

Forty-four years after Richard Chamberlain’s hit series, co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo revisit the Clavell classic to bring us a thoughtful and lavish tale of war, honor, love, and betrayal. Chronicling the civil war in 17th-century feudal Japan, the exhaustive commitment to authenticity in this 10-part miniseries is evident not only in the script — which hews closely to the Clavell text — but also in the largely Asian-American writers’ room. Not only that, lead actor and producer Hiroyuki Sanada personally translated portions of the script to ensure the period-appropriate speech and cultural nuances were accurate.

 

That level of authenticity permeates every facet, including the meticulous care that went into every costume. For Rosario and his Vancouver-based assistant designers — Kenichi Tanaka, Paula Plachy, and Kristen Bond — the Herculean task of making over 2,300 costumes went beyond adding depth to the characters; it is the pivotal element in immersing audiences in 1600 Japan. Since the story begins as the Sengoku period (1477-1573) was waning into the Edo/Tokugawa period (1603-1868), it gave him more creative freedom. “It was great because I could play a little outside the boundaries and still be authentic since a lot of things were changing,” shares the French-born Spanish designer, who took the big leap into American cinema in 1995 after commencing his career at Christian Dior Homme in Paris.

“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX
“SHOGUN” — Pictured: Costume Designer Carlos Rosario. CR: Katie Yu/FX

Filmed on location in Vancouver over ten months, the series utilized production incentive credits from the Canadian federal government as well as the Province of British Columbia. Rosario and costume supervisor Carole Griffin managed a crew of 125, including cutters, fitters, dyers, seamstresses, shoppers, and set costumers. “Several set costumers, experts in kimono dressing, came from Japan, but everybody else was based in Vancouver. This was by far the most talented and experienced crew I had worked with. I had incredible textile artists breaking down the costumes and making beautiful hand-painted textiles, and excellent dyers who helped me stay within a strict color palette for each character,” he says of the monumental effort to deliver all the costumes on time for every episode.

“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX

With five months to prepare before filming began, Rosario started researching right away. “We worked with experts and historians to dissect paintings from that period and visited museums anywhere in the world that had relevant pieces, including the Met.” Although he first tried to source fabrics from the United States, he could not “find anything remotely close to what we needed. The fabrics from Japan were one-of-a-kind and extremely expensive, so I had to convince the studio to increase my budget. That’s what made the show — the patterns, the colors, the weight of the fabric all captured the essence of Japanese culture.”

“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX

When the warship Erasmus drifts into a sleepy coastal village, British sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) quickly finds himself engulfed in the power struggle within the Council of Regents: the five warlords collectively ruling Japan until the heir comes of age. Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Sanada) — a brilliant strategist and warrior — sees Blackthorne as a potential ally in his fight against chief rival Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira), both for his expertise in naval warfare and Western weaponry. Serving as Toranaga’s translator is noblewoman Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai), a devout Christian who is the last of her disgraced family lineage. Amidst the constant threat of war, the arrival of Western powers also complicated matters, as the Catholic Portugal and Spain, the Protestant English, and the Dutch clamored for their share of trading supremacy in the region. 

“SHOGUN” — “Anjin” — Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne. CR: Katie Yu/FX
“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX

“Every single costume on the show was handmade. We made all the armor and helmets in China. The soldiers’ uniforms and peasant’s costumes were manufactured in Thailand. And the fabrics came from Japan,” Rosario says. His first task was to design the armor so it could be manufactured in time to be broken down before the first costume fittings began. “I did everything pretty much within the first six weeks. I started with the historians so we could be as accurate as possible since these characters are loosely based on historical figures. Then, I worked with illustrators on the concepts and drawings. Once the showrunner approved them, we created 20-30 boards for each armor for the lords and soldiers. We had five illustrators across five time zones to get everything done on time,” Rosario recalls of the intense process. Fortunately, his first instincts proved right, as “everything you see on-screen is from the first drawings I designed — there was no time for anything else. In the end, nothing much changed, except for the Ashigaru’s (foot soldiers) sleeves that had to be more protective, so we added more metal pieces. Otherwise, what you see is what I offered at the beginning.”

“SHOGUN” — Pictured: Costume Designer Carlos Rosario. CR: Katie Yu/FX

Every element of these ornate costumes has meaning. The number of layers a woman wears indicates status and wealth. For Lady Ochiba (Fumi Nikaido), the calculating mother to the heir: “Since she is the most powerful and highest-ranking female character, she wears the most layers: five compared to Mariko’s three layers. The lords’ wide-pleated pants – the hakama (袴) – have six or seven pleats, whereas men of lower rank have maybe two or three,” Rosario explains of the society where status and rank meant everything.

“SHŌGUN” — Pictured: Fumi Mikado as Ochiba no Kata. CR: Kurt Iswarienko/FX

For the first five episodes, Rosario enlisted the help of the textile artist who worked on The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha, especially for some of Ochiba and Mariko’s more elaborate pieces. One of Ochiba’s uchikakes (打掛) — a long, decorative outer robe worn by high-born women — “was made with 50 stencils [silk screens], each hand-painted based on a painting of her historical counterpart. We made a lot of the fabrics, with 15 people working in the textile department,” Rosario shares. Part of the uchikake’s fabric also functioned as a matching hair accessory for the ladies. [Interesting sidebar:  The Last Samurai’s DNA in this series is not limited to its costumes: not only does Sanada have a prominent role in that film, Shōgun’s second unit director, Lauro David Chartrand-Del Valle, also worked on the film as a stunt performer.]

Please check back tomorrow for the second part of our chat to learn how Rosario’s team utilized texture and distinct color palettes to set each character apart and the intricate work that went into assembling the jinbaoris (陣羽織), the embellished vests worn by the samurai.

Check out part two of our conversation with Carlos Rosario.

Episode 5 streams on on March 19.

Featured image: Eita Okuno as Saeki Nobutatsu, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko, Hiromoto Ida as Kiyama Ukon Sadanaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX