Production design

Rob Cohen

And now we're at last going down below into the tomb of the dragon emperor. This is a very large set I had built in Montreal. My wonderful production designer, Nigel Phelps, shining in this set and in all the sets in their scale, their beauty, their period correctness, and the way they gave me a setting to

17:19 · jump to transcript →

Rob Cohen

I'm proud of this scene, the scale of the set, which you see here. And it's a hope that you all get to Xi'an, or at least look it up, Google it, so you can see how much verisimilitude is actually in the film. Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist, a guy I actually personally knew in college when my girlfriend was going to Sarah Lawrence,

24:25 · jump to transcript →

Rob Cohen

And again, we're off to Shanghai. Now it's a few months later. It's Chinese New Year, which takes place in February usually. It's a two-week celebration. Here's a set we built and refurbished on the Shanghai studio lot. The set, most of it existed before, but we gave it quite the facelift. And here is a set also right there in Shanghai.

26:24 · jump to transcript →

Jim Clay, a very wonderful production designer. He is wonderful. - He did About a Boy of course. Yeah, fantastic film. Available on DVD? Yes, with a commentary. That's a very good joke. Brilliant. Where is that building? It was a set, it was a set. Really early on, I have to say now, that there's been a few misunderstandings. These people are stand-ins for what I hoped was going to be a very sexy mainstream film, that was the idea. Something like Don't Look Now. That's why it's set in Venice. A mainstream film with lots of sex. -/s that your mobile? - His phone has gone off. Who is it? - It's Hugh, my golf coach. I'd better talk. Hang on a sec. Hugh, hi. That is true. Oh, dear. Okay, and here we go. We've got Andrew and Chiwe in another church. I know. Now this is my favorite shot of the film. Wow. Great. I should say so. Artistic as well. Directorial flair. - And now it gets a bit disappointing here. That's what you call an entrance. Here we are, outside cardboard Downing Street. Cardboard Downing Street, but... -/f you pushed hard on that... -/t would just tip over. ...the whole of Downing Street would fall over backwards. But this was us trying to show off about our set, that we had the one shot and then headed on in. So we did this how many times? Like 30 times. The whole thing. - Yeah. Ad nauseam. I must work on my wave. Yeah, that's true, it wasn't just a facade. You remind me now. It actually went straight into the... The whole of Downing Street was built together. Now this is one of our favorite things in the whole film, you and your tie. Do you want to talk about that? I don't remember there being anything amusing about my tie. Remind me. You went to sleep between this shot and the close-ups. And when you woke up... I put on the wrong tie. - You put on the wrong tie. So this tile changes now? - Yeah. This tie changes. Oh, get out. - When we go to a close-up, you'll notice. That"s my mother-in-law. - ls it? That's Emma Freud's mum Jill. - Oh, God, yeah. And the funny thing was her line consisted on saying, "Hello, sir." But Emma rewrote it so she now says, "Hello, sir. I'm Pat, the housekeeper." She doubled the size of her part. - She got a name. I'm just so excited for my tie change. Any minute now. Any minute now, the magic tie change is going to happen. There it is. - Yes! No spots. Well, no, there are spots, but they're just much, much, much smaller. And the guy who was in charge of Hugh's dress, called Martin, was forced, in a sort of medieval manner, to wear the tie around his neck for the next few days. Now this is Martine McCutcheon. And when I wrote the part, I actually called the character Martine 'cause I so wanted Martine to play it. But when we sent it to her we called it Natalie, so she wouldn't get cocky. But then she turned up for the read-through and did it so brilliantly. - She was pretty cocky anyway. That's Jill, trying to get some extra lines. The girl on the right here is my favorite. She was very cross for some reason. Just look at her. - What, the dark girl? Totally furious. She voted for the other side. Oh, no.

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I have. - Let Mommy go first. I'll get it. I'll get it. Is this the scene where Emma suggested it should be more Christmassy? You then spent the rest of the day... The only directorial note you gave was, "Do it again but do it more Christmassy." It's so true. She said there wasn't enough of a family atmosphere, and then every time I said, "Can we have more family atmosphere," everyone on the set just said, "He didn't even realize that. "That's pathetic. He's only doing it 'cause Emma told him." This is... This is a version of Both Sides Now that Joni Mitchell recorded I think 30 years after she originally wrote it. It's a CD. Joni Mitchell. I can't remember what came first, but I think when I heard the song I thought it was so powerful that it was the thing that made me write this plot, really. My brilliant wife. - Yes. Actually, do you mind if I just absent myself for a second? All that ice cream. God, she's good. Darling, could you just make sure the kids are ready to go? I'll be back in a minute. - All right, all right, let's take it easy. So Classy.

1:27:27 · jump to transcript →

She's a wonderful actress, this girl. Her name's Carla. Wait. Wait. And this set was what we spent half our budget on. This isn't Heathrow airport, it's Shepperton. lt was very good, actually. - The set? I know. Except I notice when I go to Heathrow, it's a bit clean. Very hot, as well. -[t doesn't really look as nice as that. Very hot. I love this guy's performance. No. Did you direct him? No. No, he just spontaneously... - He was great. Here we go. This was the return of the angel. And we actually did a scene after this where Rowan disappeared as he walked across, but it all went. Thank you. Hold those. Okay. - Yes! No, I must have left them where I was having... Thomas, this is where all your gymnastics disappeared. Yeah. - All that gymnastics you did. Originally, he was... - I was amazing. I did a back-flip over all these people. Did you? - Wasn't really you, was it? No, I know, but... Has it gone, then? It's gone because we never could establish it properly at the front of the movie, and therefore felt very odd. -/ do a little thing. Look at that! That's pretty impressive. This was Heathrow. - That was Heathrow, yeah, late at night. At 2:00 in the morning. - Pretty exciting. It's a stirring theme, this, don't you think? This could be in a war film. That looks good. - It's great. And I liked it first time around in Shakespeare In Love as well. Shut up! That's a great shot, Tom. What about that? We had to work through the night at Heathrow, didn't we? This was all real Heathrow here. Just running. Did you sleep all the next day? Yeah. Quite easily, actually. And then this is Shepperton. This next shot, rather annoyingly, was directed by Duncan Kenworthy, 'cause I was somewhere else. Very weak. -[t's a parody of The Graduate. Do you remember, when he shouts through that glass thing? Homage. - Homage, that's right, sorry. That's good. That's very good. - Cool. Yeah, very good. Brilliant. There's me. - Bill, watch out. Oh, no. I'd forgotten about this. - Watch out. Here it comes. I may have to turn away. No, look. It's important. That"s your bottom. - It's not actually me, it's Christina Aguilera. Oh, my God. You missed it. - Thank God. No, no, no. You're a very, very attractive man. - Tom, don't look, Tom. You'll have dreams about it that'll keep you awake. Joanna. sam?

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Mark is very, it's funny, my son who was 12 visited the set and he was obviously very impressed by Elijah and Jim because he knew them from movies and he didn't know Mark. But Mark totally captivated him. I remember they were sitting at the table for lunch and Paul was eating with his finger and Mark took to him very seriously saying, would you do that in front of a lady? And Paul was like tetanized and stopped eating with his finger

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And when he saw it on the set, he was really delighted. I should have put some sound of honk for truck. So that was your game you were playing, Charlie. Yeah, it's a game that I've played.

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In France, we had this TV show in the 70s by Bernard Pivot, you know, Mark Linton, I always refer to him. On the set was a book painted in white. So I don't know if I got the idea from that. Yeah, this scene to me is like the saddest scene of the film, when they're trying to have a second chance.

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Ridley Scott

It's a set, it's not a location. I chose it underneath the freeway, which was a kind of nice place to be. It was a big empty ground, which was normally a parking lot. And my production designer, Norris Spencer, and his team moved in. And of course, we needed to create somewhere which wasn't used every day, because otherwise it would be impossible. Because we were in here to shoot this sequence. I think we were in here for about four or five days. And we need to be in total control.

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Ridley Scott

So this was created by the art department and my production designer, Norris Spencer. I was using my special effects, floor effects, every kind of effect. A person that I'd used on Gladiator called Neil Corbould and his team, his formidable team. And he's...

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Tom Tykwer

photographed all the films that I've directed, and Uli Hanisch, the art director and production designer, and I mean all those heads of productions who are responsible for the language of a film, and to be as prepared as possible in advance, and then be ready for a movie that's so much obviously driven by the acting and by emotional impact.

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Tom Tykwer

this idea of a fable or a dream or even something like a dark fairy tale. Just to add this idea of those helping hands and minds, even the construction of this room was like a long way to go. Uli Hanisch, the production designer and I, we sat together and we tried to create something that was as

42:21 · jump to transcript →

How to make a movie when you have financial constraints. Borrow your friend's place. This set was built for the film. It's like in some ways our greatest accomplishment of Jodi Asness, our production designer, and the people who worked with her to make an actual sensory deprivation tank.

45:23 · jump to transcript →

Shift. That could only be done by somebody who has a white noise machine. People have asked. I do have one. Oh, there's a Va Va Sisters. There they are. They were fun on the set. People have asked if there is such a thing as the Realm of the Senses egg. We should possibly copyright that. Well, you know, in the Realm of the Senses refers to the famous Japanese film of the 70s. It was highly explicit and had common hard-ons and sexual obsession going on that was banned by the U.S. Customs.

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But calling it in over the radio can be tough. But in this situation, we had no choice. And then our production designer, Andrew, he kicked ass on this movie for having so little money to start with. Like, I think he literally had, like, what, a thousand bucks to do the inside of this tank. It was pathetic. But he made the tank look fucking cool. And, you know, it's like... And then, like, those lights on the top, this lighting company had these new fiber optic light things. So we put those actually in there and...

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Obviously, all of our cast, John, Reiko, Steven, Ricky, Ariel, and Johnny Lewis. Everyone else, there's not enough time to go through all the names, and our great crew up in Vancouver. Yeah, I want to really thank Lars. I mean, like I said, Lars and Paul Deason, and then Andrew, our production designer, who really... And I forget, Daniel Pearl. Yes, and the man, Mr. Pearl. Fantastic.

1:36:04 · jump to transcript →

Tell us about the frame, the playground thing that she's standing on. Yes, that is designed by Eva Norén, who is the set designer. And she has made a wonderful job to recreate the early 80s. And she designed this playground thing to match the format. It's made in CinemaScope, this film.

12:49 · jump to transcript →

The fantastic things with Eva Norén, the set designer, she suddenly comes when we were to take this scene, when he's looking out of the window, and she has found this little plastic toy, and she says, put this in, have him to play with this, and it's beautiful. It's very, very typical for a child in his...

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And Bill Hader, just in his full-on studio. Was this the most surreal part, though, of directing the movies, when you got Tom Cruise there on the set and you're directing him? I imagine that that would be the most... It's definitely, because Tom is such an iconic figure in our culture, it's definitely a little bit... Well, if you're directing Tom Cruise, you're like, well, holy, we are in Hollywood right now. There's no way around...

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Yes, but, you know, because of his look and everything, it was just so different, and everybody was just, I think, into the moment. And then you got McConaughey there. You got a lot of bigwigs on the set. You know, Tom was just really having so much fun with the character. I like this line.

1:06:47 · jump to transcript →

Mark Tildesley is the production designer that made the fantastic work, helping us. We are not Londoners. He tried to complete in a very, very fast way our understanding of how London's working now. These new neighbourhoods around what we all know.

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Part of why he is so good at this, I think, is not only does he have a tremendous amount of talent, but he works on the movie as a filmmaker the way Francis does or I do. We all sort of get into it and try to make the movie as thoughtful and to understand it as thoroughly as possible. And I think what you find is in everything from the production design to those...

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Roman Coppola

I remember doing this scene was-- That driver? No, I don't remember the driver. Because he was-- That was a driver with henna hair who we always would see at the place where all the auto-rick drivers wait there. We would always see that same driver. He was our stunt driver for this shot. I remember this sequence, with the dialogue scene with the short story... Yeah. - ...we found a little hill so we could roll the rickshaw down the hill without having the motor on ruining the sound. Yes, that's right. We rumbled down the hill. And what's the name of that--? Of the boy on the bicycle? He was a... - Spot boy? He was a spot boy for us. He brought tea, chai, onto the set, and he was very bright. I'm trying to think of his name. One thing about Brendan's character, I just wanna-- Would just mention just as an homage is his hat-- There's a logo on his hat for Francis Whitman Industries, which is actually my father's business. I mean, he's retired now, but it was-- His business was called Mel Anderson Communications. That symbol was his-- It's his-- It's based on his logo. In this part of the train, we have Brendan's living quarters. I think this is the non-a.c. section. These cars on the Indian trains usually don't have windows. The engine, as you can see there, is-- The paint job on it is based on the Tata trucks that you see on the roads in India, hand-painted by the drivers.

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