Fortunately, Gassner and Mendes had already succeeded in shooting the bravura “Day of the Dead” pre-credit Mexico sequence from “Spectre” in this fashion. “The art department designed it in 3D modeling, and then we destroyed it, and then we built what we destroyed in the modeling.
The engineers who designed all these trenches made them a certain way. Then we had to build it all and we lifted it right out of the history. Again, Mendes, Deakins and Gassner worked in close collaboration with the art department.
We made adjustments and it was a giant piece of sculpture, sizing everything precisely to the camera. Dennis Gassner (born October 22, 1948) is a Canadian production designer. I can’t even remember yesterday.’ It was like fighting a war.”Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft.Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox “We had English winter, snow, everything was against us to try and get to a place where we knew what we were doing. I thought it was going to be costly, but it gave me a sense of what this would be like.” Gassner said. Dennis Gassner on IMDb: Awards, nominations, and wins. I did it all in this massive sequence of concept art that Sam and Roger and I were involved with.”Gassner visited the actual locations in Northern France, discovering, for example, that the trenches were made of chalk, and referenced about a hundred paintings from the period.
It was so unusual and we never expected it but that was the reality. For one scene, Gassner had to create a collapsing bridge for MacKay’s character Schofield to climb over. Read Next: Tunes for Tillermans: Songwriters Behind Apple TV Plus’ ‘Central Park’ on Their Creative Process Bill Desowitz Dec 20, 2019 3:58 pm “We had done that in ‘Skyfall– when they’re running from the burning house.”Deakins lit the scene while timed flares created shadows and Schofield runs through the devastation. Dennis Gassner, Production Designer: Blade Runner 2049. Every 10, 15 feet would be a habitat, it’s where people lived.
"Do not do the 'Bond' film," it … “We had been in mud clay forever and loved it. Using the narrative, we built them in the way that would tell the best story [5,200 feet at Bovingdon and Salisbury]. We were in a dreamstate during the shoot because of the movement of the camera.”But everyone said it was impossible to shoot “1917” as a series of long takes (stitched together by editor Lee Smith and the VFX team at MPC Film). It was the Art of War. For production designer Dennis Gassner, Sam Mendes ambitious "1917" was like entering a dreamstate, and there's beauty in every moment of horror.
There was no artifice. He is notable for his work on Bugsy, Road to Perdition, Big Fish, Blade Runner 2049, and 1917, as well the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th movies in the James Bond franchise, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre.He has been nominated seven times for the Academy Award for Best Production Design, and has won once. Deakins lit the bizarre landscape with a giant lighting rig in concert with timed flares to create moving shadows for a hallucinatory effect.“We had to design the entire city…150 buildings…and then we had to destroy it,” Gassner said. I remember walking with Roger after we shot on the last day. “That was intentional,” Gassner said.
We looked at it and examined it and rehearsed it at least 25 times. “Do not do the ‘Bond’ film,” it read.