Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720
P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7 77 Designing a science fiction movie had always been a dream of mine. The opportunity to create the visual world of Arrival, the movie adaptation of Ted Chiang's short story, Story of Your Life, was a precious gift that I felt the need to take good care of. Meetings between mankind and an alien civilization from outer space have been portrayed in numerous films, some more inspiring than others, and some with aliens having very different intentions toward our kind. "The circular coffee-stain-like ink blobs that we called logograms provided the eureka moment. We all felt that we were on to something quite different: the ink particles would float to create strange circular shapes, their movements would be inspired by the distribution of ink drops in water on a piece of paper, and also by the massive formations of flies as they swarm over Lake Victoria in Africa." We all have some preconceived idea of what an alien ship should look like. We have been exposed—with some exceptions—to an aesthetic consensus of alien spaceship designs. I wanted to take a different route and explore unconventional shapes at first. After all, we are talking about a world that is supposed to be alien to us. Theoretically, there is a good chance that we have very little in common with their species. Here, I have to acknowledge the open mind and support of Arrival's producers for giving me their trust and allowing me to explore new worlds. I decided to focus on exposing the differences between them and us, differences that would bring us together in the end. Aesthetics was the driving force for the design. The goal was to create a ship that