Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512164
London Interior The design for London came from imagining how Baxter would design his house and prepare it for Bella's world to be spent solely inside. Not an evil plan, just misguided. There are padded floors and quilted walls. Painted fields and trees, horizons everywhere, hot air balloons, flights of fancy and maps, all depicting the outside world in the hope she wouldn't miss the real world. She sees through that very quickly. This was layered with her view of the world, inconsistent and joyful, both tiny and huge at the same time. Bella had no interest in the way things should be and we used this approach when making choices. Look out of the window, is the sky really water, are the birds suspended in flight… We wanted Bella to appear small in her sheltered world, so chairs are oversized, beds are high. We can see her for the child she is inside, rather than the woman she is on the outside. This idea of what one sees on the outside not relating to the person within was used a lot in the design. The use of color in London is now hilarious to us. We were working so hard on the colors in Baxter's world being of the body, dry human flesh, stained bloody shades, surgical green and blood pink and in the end, Yorgos shot it in black-and- white! It surprised us, but I think he always knew because he would say, "Don't be shy of big, deep textures," "extreme textures" and it of course, now looks incredible in the black-and-white. Because Yorgos and DP Robbie Ryan were using a fisheye lens at times, all the ceilings became very important, the lounge had two huge interlocking ears on the ceiling that started as a bit of a placeholder, and then in the end, we missed them, so they were put back in and became the real deal. There was a lot of comedic moments in the lounge. It had a memory foam floor that was in the concept from the very beginning, but we probably didn't explain it clearly to Yorgos, he couldn't understand why the floor was bouncy. In the script, Bella falls off the piano stool and we thought it would be A. EXTERIOR BAXTER'S HOUSE. BUILT ON THE BACKLOT AT ORIGO STUDIOS, HUNGARY. SET PHOTO BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA. B. BAXTER'S CURVED GARDEN AND HOUSE EXTERIOR. THE FINAL SCENE IN THE FILM IS SHOT FROM THIS ANGLE. SET PHOTO BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA. C. BAXTER'S HALLWAY. CONCEPT ART CREATED IN BLENDER BY JONAS BETHGE. D. BAXTER'S HALLWAY. THERE IS A INTERIOR BALCONY OFF OF BELLA'S BEDROOM, OVERLOOKING THE HALLWAY WHERE MAX COULD TAKE NOTES (NO ONE EVER WENT THERE!!!). SET PHOTO. A B C D