Given the unique nature of “Arrival” as a parable about time, memory and love, there was a special collaborative rapport between director Denis Villeneuve and his crafts team. Together they achieved an aesthetic about unity and beauty that goes to the heart of the alien heptapod philosophy.
It began with an oval and circular shape language about time, which binds the heptapods with Louise, the sensitive linguist played by Amy Adams.
The seven-limbed heptapods (a cross between a spider and octopus) are charcoal-gray and oval, like their shell-like space craft. And their circular logograms spew forth like florid ink blots, expressing the beginning and end of thoughts all at once. What’s more, with foreknowledge of the future.
Yet the logograms were particularly challenging for production designer Patrice Vermette. “We looked at hieroglyphs, but Denis didn’t think they were alien enough, and my wife (Martine Bertrand) is a painter...
It began with an oval and circular shape language about time, which binds the heptapods with Louise, the sensitive linguist played by Amy Adams.
The seven-limbed heptapods (a cross between a spider and octopus) are charcoal-gray and oval, like their shell-like space craft. And their circular logograms spew forth like florid ink blots, expressing the beginning and end of thoughts all at once. What’s more, with foreknowledge of the future.
Yet the logograms were particularly challenging for production designer Patrice Vermette. “We looked at hieroglyphs, but Denis didn’t think they were alien enough, and my wife (Martine Bertrand) is a painter...
- 12/9/2016
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
World building doesn’t get more varied or adventurous than in Damien Chazelle’s front-running musical, “La La Land,” Denis Villeneuve’s ethereal alien thriller, “Arrival,” Jon Favreau’s inventive Disney hybrid, “The Jungle Book,” Scott Derrickson’s Magical Mystery Tour, “Doctor Strange,” and Martin Scorsese’s spiritual passion project, “Silence.”
“La La Land”
For production designer David Wasco, La became a Technicolor/CinemaScope dreamland where past and present intersect for jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone). And although the designer got to explore such hidden gems as Redondo Beach’s historic Lighthouse Café, his two greatest triumphs were the bravura, Busby Berkeley-like opening on the interchange of the 110 and 105 freeways overlooking the downtown skyline, and the Griffith Park Observatory planetarium.
With a brief window during a hot August weekend, the California Highway Patrol shut down the freeway interchange so they could shoot “Another...
“La La Land”
For production designer David Wasco, La became a Technicolor/CinemaScope dreamland where past and present intersect for jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone). And although the designer got to explore such hidden gems as Redondo Beach’s historic Lighthouse Café, his two greatest triumphs were the bravura, Busby Berkeley-like opening on the interchange of the 110 and 105 freeways overlooking the downtown skyline, and the Griffith Park Observatory planetarium.
With a brief window during a hot August weekend, the California Highway Patrol shut down the freeway interchange so they could shoot “Another...
- 11/23/2016
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
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