Hannah Beachler's career as a production designer is booming — from "Fruitvale Station" to "Moonlight," "Lemonade" and "Black Panther"; how will the clash between the NFL and President Trump affect TV ratings?; "It" is now the highest grossing R-rated horror film of all time, so who is that little girl featured in the creepy score?
For ‘Black Panther,' Hannah Beachler designed a futuristic African nation that was never colonized
Production designer Hannah Beachler is a very busy woman.
Her list of credits includes Don Cheadle's Miles Davis film "Miles Ahead," Barry Jenkins' Oscar-winning "Moonlight," and Nicolas Winding Refn's upcoming Amazon detective series "Too Old to Die Young." She was also a production designer on the singer Beyonce's visual album "Lemonade."
Before this run of high-profile projects, Beachler worked in horror films and commercials. But it was the independent drama "Fruitvale Station," directed by Ryan Coogler, that turned her career in the direction it is today.
Her collaboration with Coogler continued in "Creed" and, the Marvel film "Black Panther" which is due in theaters early next year. It stars Lupita Nyong'o, Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Daniel Kaluuya, Sterling K. Brown, Andy Serkis and Chadwick Boseman as the eponymous superhero and leader of the fictional world of Wakanda.
"For me, it was always understanding that Wakanda had been there for 10,000 years and then what does it look like now?" says Beachler. "It was supposed to be a place that was never colonized too, so what does that look like?"
For many "Black Panther" fans, Wakanda is an example of "Afrofuturism," a term used to describe an art form, often found in comic books, that explores the experiences of black people through science fiction. Mark Dery first coined the term "Afrofuturism" in his 1994 essay "Black To The Future."
When Beachler stopped by The Frame, she talked about the challenges and opportunities in designing a new world for "Black Panther;" her work on "Moonlight" and what it was like to get the call to work on "Lemonade" without being told who the singer was.
To hear the full conversation click the play button at the top of the page. To get more content like this, subscribe to The Frame podcast.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On building the world of Wakanda:
It was a challenge for us. For Ryan and I we saw the opportunity to create something with Marvel that they haven't done. You know, that's the way I looked at how I would utilize the money is I had more of an opportunity to bring place to it. And be more detailed about it. And because it wasn't a place that existed or had really been defined in any other film -- I'm talking about Wakanda -- we could really play with that and we wanted to do a lot of practical builds. We didn't really want to use a lot of blue screen. And that's also where the money went.
On building real sets instead of relying on visual effects:
We had a lot of extensions. I would build so far and then I would extend. We tried not to put the VFX in front. Pretty much every single set is practical and then the bigger world outside of that would become an extension. It was a lot about making sure that those VFX were in the background. And that it was tactile and tangible and the actors had things to act off of and could sit in and you know that's really where it went. It was to creating all of these builds. And even some of the exterior stuff that you see in the trailer, we built. You know the waterfall? We built it. And it was an extension then because it was really tall. I mean it was huge. But it was fantastic to have that water being real being live being there and people wading in it all day everyday and fighting in it and doing the thing that they're doing and having the extras in their beautiful costumes by Ruth Carter up on the set. It was just breathtaking and when you see something like that for the first time that you did, that you worked on for months, it was just... it just took my breath away.
On the responsibility of building a utopian African world:
It's the first time I actually did a world building on that. And it was a lot of research. I mean we went to Africa. I was there for quite some time. Ryan and the producers joined. And we traveled extensively for a few weeks. And it was a lot of research. It was talking to people, taking pictures of everything and connecting with... we were in South Africa mainly... connecting with it, with the motherland. And understanding all of the tradition, all the different tribes, how they responded to each other, what things were important in their lives. That was part of building that world and then pushing it all into the future so for me it was always understanding that Wakanda had been there for 10,000 years and then what does it look like now. And there was a lot of discussion because it was supposed to be a place that was never colonized too. So what does that look like? There was a lot of discussion about that and how we make that relevant.
On the challenges in representing what Africa could be if it weren't colonized:
It's a huge thing. And it was daunting because I felt a lot of responsibility to get it right. And also to create Wakanda, create its own feel and look, outside of... because over time it has morphed. All of these tribes came together, and while they're individual tribes, they've created this country, so in a sense they are one. I hope people could look at it and really feel, like, Okay, yeah, this feels good, this feels right. It doesn't feel false in some way and that this could have been what happened. Of course, you know, vibranium helps.
On ensuring authenticity in her work with each director she works with:
The really important thing to me as a designer is that for every director that I work with -- because they're all different -- that I am doing a service to their vision. I have to change who I am and what I'm looking for. I have my aesthetic and I have certain things that I do and colors that I work with. So it's important for me to be able to connect the work I do with Nicholas [Nicolas Winding Refn] will be different than anything else that I've done. ... We want to kind of do maybe a punk rock film noir Los Angeles ... Nick Refn style.
On getting the call to work on "Lemonade":
Well I had done an "Apple - The App Effect" for Apple commercial and I had done a Nike commercial in Tampa with a director and he had used the same cinematographer who was working with Kahlil Joseph (the director of "Lemonade") and since they were going to New Orleans he was Chayse Irvin, who was the cinematographer, was like, Hey, I worked with this production designer Hannah Beachler, and Kahlil, he knew Ryan (Coogler) so he reached out to Ryan and was like, Oh, you know I want to bring Hannah on. So they called me.
I actually just got done with "Moonlight." I just got home and I was kind of tired. So the first time I was like, You know, I'm not available. And then I thought about it because I really didn't know who the singer was. They didn't tell me. And I was like, I'm not available, you know. And then a week went by and I thought, Oh man, you know, I would like to go down. ... And then I thought, Well that went by. And then they called me the next week and I jumped on it as fast as possible. ... I didn't know until I literally walked in and talked to Kahlil and he told me [that it was Beyonce]. ... I'm glad I said yes.
To hear John Horn's full interview with Hannah Beachler, click on the player above. To get more content like this, subscribe to The Frame podcast on iTunes.
'It' movie score: Meet the adorable 4-year-old singer of your nightmares
There’s a monster at the box office, and its name is Pennywise the Clown. “It,” based on the 1986 Stephen King novel, broke the record for biggest opening weekend for a horror film with $123 million, and is now officially the highest-grossing R-rated horror film of all time.
The very first thing you hear in the movie is the voice of a little girl — four-year-old Elodie Barker — singing a nursery rhyme.
“She sings all the time,” says Barker’s mom, Harriet Fraser, a former doctor who now sings with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. “She has since she was tiny. She has a sweet, lovely voice, and just makes up songs about everything.”
A few months ago, Fraser got an email from a vocal contractor who was looking for five and six-year-old singers.
“I didn’t know it was for this film at the time,” Fraser says, “and I thought, Well, she acts like a five-year-old. So I did a little recording of her singing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ and sent it along. And then the email came, and he said: ‘This is what it’s for. We need both parents to sign off on it — it’s a kind of strange thing to have little children in.’”
The idea of using the old English nursery rhyme, “Oranges and Lemons,” came from director Andy Muschietti, and was executed by composer Benjamin Wallfisch.
“[Muschietti’s] approach, I think, was to try and find a sound for Pennywise that is somehow the sound of him thinking, the sound of him contemplating the idea of attack — or actually attacking,” Wallfisch explains. “What was fascinating about using something as seemingly innocent and innocuous as a children’s play song is that incredible dichotomy between what’s on the surface and what is under the surface.”
Wallfisch gathered an untrained chorus of young girls and boys at Capitol Records for a decidedly un-creepy day of singing. Fraser says Elodie had a ball.
“She doesn’t know, obviously, what it was for,” Fraser says. “She called it her rehearsal. She said, ‘I’m going to my rehearsal.’ I mean, she’s just full of joy when she’s singing.”
Wallfisch had the boys and girls sing the song in a dozen different ways.
“We just asked them to characterize,” the composer says. “So we had them sing it as if they were yawning and very tired, or screaming as if they were really angry, or whispering it like it’s a secret to their neighbor.”
“Oranges and Lemons” usually plays when Pennywise is baiting his next victim, and Wallfisch manipulated the vocals and added disturbing orchestration.
The nursery rhyme was only a small part of the “It” score. Wallfisch wrote two hours of orchestral and electronic music, including themes for the friendship and puppy love that blossoms between the kid heroes, and a shapeshifting melody for the shapeshifting monster.
“I almost discovered later that the sort of ghost of ‘Oranges and Lemons’ kept appearing in the other tunes — which is exactly what I hoped would happen,” Wallfisch says. “There’s that sense of an omnipresent DNA, where even though you have distinct character themes and distinct narrative themes, they’re all linked by this central, malevolent tune.
“The middle gesture [of ‘Oranges and Lemons’] turned itself into the first gesture you hear in the composed score, which is this Derry theme...
“And weirdly, too, in the Pennywise theme, there’s that rising [idea]. Somehow they’re all part of this weird rising-of-three-notes idea, which all stems back to ‘Oranges and Lemons’ — that strange song.”
But how can the sound of an adorable little girl singing a nursery rhyme be the cutest thing in the world ... and the creepiest?
“This pure sound coming out of a small human being is so touching and intimate,” says Fraser, “and it can be then manipulated into something amazingly joyous or manipulated, with visuals, into anything you want it to be.”
Fraser says she didn’t have any reluctance letting little Elodie contribute her voice to this terrifying scream-fest — “although I will never see the film,” she says with a laugh.
"It" is not her kind of movie.
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