Behind the scenes of the electric

The directors took more of a colorful aesthetics from the 1990s than the spooky art that originally inspired their film. While some fans of Stålenhag's work expressed disappointment about this artistic choice, the artist himself had nothing but praise. “If you paint or draw something, you can do everything,” Stålenhag said. 'There are no other limitations than the time you spend painting. To see a live action film make something that I painted and to see it so truthfully translated, I impressed me at all levels. “

Bring a vision to life

The task of bringing that aesthetics to the screen fell on people such as Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner, whose many credits include Barton Fink, Bugsy, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Truman Show, Blade Runner 2049, Skyfall, Quantum of Solace, Specter” In the forestAnd Large fish. (In fact, a carousel can be seen in the design of the Happyland amusement park that Gassner used for the first time Large fish.) He and Richard L. Johnson (Pacific Rim, the Avengers) Led a team that not only designed and constructed more than 100 sets for the film, but also made a large number of original robot characters to enlarge the one who were considered in Stålenhag's book.

All robots in the film have their own stories, “different personalities and emotional arches”, per Anthony Russo. The directors wanted the robots to “felt authentic for the alternative nineties, but still had roots in recognizable designs,” said Joe Russo – the kind of things you would see in vintage commercials, shopping centers, business brands, and so on. “Everything is a story,” Gassner told Ars. “Story is of the utmost importance. What story do you tell? Who are the characters in this story? What are their environment? How do they feel in the environments?”

The Gassner team designed around 175 robots and selected their favorites to appear in the last film. “It's like a great casting call,” Gassner said. “So we played a lot, there was a long time of development in the art department between myself and a large team of artists. We have worked very closely with the Visual Effects department, but what the characters look like, are part of the art department, and our collaboration with Joe and Anthony Russo on the study of characters, the pretty part, the main part,”