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Dec 12

by Andrew Li in Production 0 comments tags: awards, emmy

SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES WINS EMMY FOR BEST ART DIRECTION

I’m proud to announce that our TV series Spiderwick Chronicles got 13 Children’s and Family Emmy Nominations and WON for Art Direction/Set Decoration/Scenic Design! Congratulations to my fellow WINNERS in this Category: Production Designer Elena Albanese, Set Decorator Ide Foyle and Art Director Michael Corrado. Special thanks to my amazing Art Dept. – Sandra Nieuwenhuijsen, Fraser Hagen, Kacey McDougall, Randy Hutniak, Zachary Shymka, Parya Lotfiazar, Sussanne Hoiberg, Shawn Luke, Austin Wang, Rodrigo Segovia, Jim Ramsay, Melanie Viger, Jordan Grant Pedersen, EJ Kim, Sumit Sura, Lisa Canzi, Angela Pineau, Ray Lai, Brian Cunningham, Matthias Beeguer, Jason Castago, Paolo Venturi, Nim Ben Reuven, Pouya Maoyedi, Sunil Pant, Stevo Bedford, Michele Stumpo, Constantine Sekeris, Luca Nemolato, Jerad Marantz, Jeremy Simser, and Chris Donaldson. Our very talented Production Designer Elena Albanese had a research library with over 30,000 images to inspire the fantastical but grounded scenic design. There are many layers of beautiful graphic and sculptural designs inspired by Co-creators Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black world of fairies, goblins and other fantastical creatures. This series was challenging to make due to many reasons – budget, schedule, COVID, supply-chain shortfalls, bad weather, etc. But thanks to our strong team under the leadership of our incredibly […]

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Sep 16

by Andrew Li in Film 0 comments tags: thelastofus

THE LAST OF US GETS 24 EMMY NOMINATIONS

Congratulations to everyone who worked on #thelastofus for getting 24 Emmy nominations including Best Drama behind the Emmy dominator #succession with 27 nominations. Not bad for our first-season debut! We also got nominated for Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour Or More). Congratulations to Production Designer John Paino, Art Director Don Macaulay, and Set Decorator Paul Healy.

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Aug 02

by Andrew Li in Film 0 comments tags: predator

THE PREDATOR IS BACK!

Our production of The Predator marked a major turning point in this franchise, serving as a reboot and updating of the original concept for today’s audiences. One of the key challenges was to strike a balance between paying homage to the classic Predator movies while also offering something fresh and new. Our director Shane Black, who co-wrote the original Predator film, brought a unique perspective to the project, infusing it with his signature brand of humour and wit. Did you know that Shane not only co-wrote the original 1987 Predator, but he also played one of the poor soldiers named Hawkins who didn’t quite make it to the end of the movie? One of my main sets was the interior of the Predator spaceship. We tried to come up with the design concept for this ship using 3D models and illustrations. But none of it stuck. It was not until our talented production designer Martin Whist, who has a background in sculpting, sculpted the design in his mind out of foam that we had our concept design. Analog wins! The next step was to scan the model and translate it into a 3D model so that we can produce construction […]

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Oct 16

by Andrew Li in Film 0 comments tags: cranston, morphin, powerrangers

IT’S MORPHIN’ TIME AGAIN!

We just wrapped up a reboot of POWER RANGERS. The last time we saw a Power Rangers feature film was in 1995. Our version takes the production value up a few notches while we try to bake in the fun. Director Dean Isrealite understands teenage drama after his successful Project Almanac feature, so he knows how to navigate the complicated emotions and conflicted motivations of five teenagers who accidentally become superheroes. It was great to team up with Production Designer Andrew Menzies and Supervising Art Director Sandy Cochrane again. We did Monster Trucks together two years ago. This time around, the stakes were higher with a bigger budget and expectations to honour the franchise yet make it something new and exciting. One of the toughest designs to crack was the new suits. I can’t tell you how many iterations we went through under extreme time pressure to deliver the suits in time for production. Luckily we had one of the best special effects makeup/costume makers on the job – Weta Workshops! They worked with Andrew directly on the designs before giving the final approval to start building the final custom-fit suits for the actors as well as their stunt doubles. […]

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Jan 16

by Andrew Li in Film 1 comments tags: startrek

STAR TREK BEYOND – NEW TRAILER

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Ah, wait a minute! I’m getting my sci-fi STAR movies mixed up with Star Wars: The Force Awakens which is on everyone’s mind right now as it passes $1.5 billion at the box office in record time! What I meant was, space – a final frontier, these are the continuing movies in a 50 year franchise with the upcoming Star Trek Beyond! When this feature film is released on July 22, 2016, it will be 50 years since Gene Roddenberry premiered the original Star Trek television series. I started working on the third installment of the latest reboot of Star Trek in Sept. 2014. It had already been in prep for a few months and had most of the key elements of the movie already designed under the very talented and versatile direction of production designer Scott Chambliss and director Roberto Orci. Then it all changed when the script was tossed out! Fast forward a few months to Feb. 2015 and we have a new production designer Tom Sanders and a new director Justin Lin. And we had also lost four months of prep time, but we were still scheduled […]

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Jan 08

by Andrew Li in Film 0 comments tags: clooney, tomorrowland

TOMORROWLAND NOMINATED FOR BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Congratulations to production designer Scott Chambliss for his nomination by the Art Directors Guild for his work on Tomorrowland! The other nominees for excellence in production design for a feature film in 2015 in the category fantasy film are Dante Ferretti (Cinderella), Edward Verreaux (Jurassic World), Colin Gibson (Mad Max: Fury Road), Rick Carter & Darren Gilford (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). When the nominations were announced, Scott was the first to contact everyone in the art dept. who worked on Tomorrowland to thank them for their contributions. Classy guy! We had a HUGE art dept. which I’ll list at the end of this post! Good luck to us all when the winners will be announced on Jan. 31, 2016 at the awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. A big shout out to Thomas Sanders for his ADG nomination in the category period film for his work on Crimson Peak. I just worked with Tom on Star Trek Beyond, so it is great to see him get nominated again. I feel very priviledged to have worked with many of the other nominees in past films: Dante (Seventh Son), Ed (X-Men 3) and Darren (Tron Legacy). Good luck, gentlemen! Tomorrowland […]

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