Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1514626
6 6 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4 The world of Hala had been featured in the first Captain Marvel film, but Nia, producer Mary Livanos and I wanted to create our own version specific to this film. It turns out that designing a sprawling, urban alien city from scratch is pretty hard. Halfway through the film (two years later during additional photography)—upon seeing our initial Hala design being developed in post—I decided that we should scrap the whole design and start from scratch. The script had changed dramatically during the edit and the first Hala design no longer made sense. Thankfully, everyone agreed and let me do it! The newly developed idea for Hala determined that in the past it was an extremely advanced planet ruled by artificial intelligence (AI). The AI brain was deemed oppressive by Captain Marvel and destroyed—leaving the Kree to govern themselves—a task they could not do. They mined their own planetary resources to the point of exhaustion and polluted their own planet until they could not breathe the air. Their sun was now dying and all of their water was gone. By chance, I happened upon an article about Neom—a "smart" city being conceptually developed from scratch by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. With plans for the city to be run by AI, not only was the concept to Hala eerily similar, but I also loved the visuals. To help me develop the wide views of the city world, I collaborated with George Hull. He created incredible visuals showing designs of Hala during its advanced past and a decaying present. Simultaneously, Chris Kesler developed the city square with me—a cubist and brutalist set in which the film's villain Dar-Benn would rally her people. I also worked with Andrew Leung to develop the Supreme Intelligence—a set that I imagined as a pulsing monolith cocooned in a nest of hardwiring. George Hull also worked with me to design the villain Dar-Benn's warship. The idea that I had for Dar- Benn's ship was that it would be extremely sculptural and made entirely out of repurposed bronze metal. I wanted it to feel like a Richard Serra sculpture hovering menacingly in the sky and also designed as a hive of ships. Her ship would be the queen mother, Cara Brower, Production Designer Ben Collins, Andrew Bennett (AP1), Andrew Palmer (AP2), Super vising Art Directors Gordon Champ, Rhys Ifan, Patrick Harris, Mark Harris, Samuel Leake, Rod McClean, Chris Peters, Luke Sanders, Elicia Scales, Alex Smith, Tom Whitehead, Art Directors Alex Bowens, Hollie Cleaver, Tessa Flanagan, Sonia Kasparian, Michael Pybus, Assistant Art Directors Nancy Deren, Anne Porter, Set Designers Shalina Bhamra, Emily Connell, Greig Cockburn, Georgina Devine, Madeleine Dymond, Joe El-Hendi, Giulia Iddas, Jordan Muir, Sara Taddei, Julia Tonetti, Draughtspersons Paul Chandler, Fae Corrigan, Yujin Choo, Karl Simon Gustafsson, George Hull, Chris Kesler, Thang Le, Andrew Leung, Peter McKinstr y, Nathan Schroeder, Shae Shatz, Henrik Tamm, Colie Wertz, Concept Artists Conrad Ayling, Emily Bates, Alasdair McKay, Model Makers Charis Theobald (Lead), Evangeline Allum, Josie Kealy, Hannah Kons, Dominique Sanglier, Graphic Artists Jille Azis, Naomi Moore (AP1& 2), Set Decorators A B C