Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1400113
L O K I | P E R S P E C T I V E 3 1 Time Variance Authority Style, fashion and technology all evolve in the flow of time. The TVA is an organization that exists outside of time; let that sink in. The folks that make up the TVA have been plucked from different eras, place and permutations of reality. So what does this organization look like? The mid-century look the script described made a lot of sense as we were building a monolithic bureaucracy. Precisely the type of well-resourced, brutal and overreaching organization that blossomed in the United States on the heels of victory in the post- war era. Receiving and Processing When you first enter the TVA, the hope is that one is bewildered by contrasting visual elements. Warm and soothing earth tones that are signatures of American mid-century modernism, adorn a confounding, windowless, circular room. Set Designer Nick Cross expertly laid out hundreds of light tubes in a dizzying ceiling. As one is checked into receiving, every direction looks the same, orientation is illusive and soon you're unceremoniously shoved into a narrow metal processing chamber. Here we paid homage to Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil, from the smirking robot that wordlessly incinerates Loki's fine Asguardian clothes to the beleaguered lifer clerk wasting away eternity with his cat behind a tiny screened computer. Art Director Drew Monahan and Set Designer Rob Johnson meticulously detailed the various Gilliam-esque gadgets to perfection. Miss Minutes Queue Straight away I knew the spirit animal for this set had to be the Department of Motor Vehicles we all know and loathe. Narratively, it had to feel like a pointless and dehumanizing labyrinth of stanchions and belts quadrupling the amount of time it takes to walk through an otherwise empty rectangular room. To contrast the drabness of the room, I went with a matrix of all-seeing eyeballs watching the variants from the ceiling. Inspired by the ceiling in the Breuer Building in New York, this was meant to feel more literally like eyeballs; so rather than hang a grid of fixtures, holes were cut in a black ceiling to have the eyes peering down. To further increase the oppressive quality of this place, the ceiling was slammed down to seven- foot six-inches, which worked great with the production's anamorphic aspect ratio. For the character of Miss Minutes herself, the design references '40s and '50s animated figures with hyper simplified geometric form language, very few colors and no gradations. Illustrator Josh Viers nailed it after only a couple of passes. In B. TVA RECEIVING AREA. SET PHOTO. C. TVA PROCESSING CHAMBER. ILLUSTRATION BY JOE STUDZINSKI. D. TVA PAPERWORK CHAMBER. ILLUSTRATION BY JOE STUDZINSKI. B C D