Poppets, we finally saw, “Star Trek Into Darkness”. And, besides the whiz-bang-doing-the-backstroke-through-my-gallon-sized-MEDIUM-coke, and clutching Mr. Lester’s hand at regular intervals, I had a wonderful time.
The highpoint of the experience for me was seeing Production Designer, Scott Chambliss’, deep bow to the master, Ken Adam.
If ever we meet, Mister, expect a tremendous hug. (And, please don’t call security.)
True, easily the best thing about ST:ID is the design.
Dearest V
The ST:ID (oh I do like an at first incomprehensible acronym) set looks lovely, but somehow not as cavernous and forebodingly vast as so many of Mr Adams incredible interiors.
Production design is so often the best thing about so many films these days though,… whereas Ken had the luck to work on some masterpieces.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Dear Ms. Lester,
You are very kind indeed. Paying tribute to Mr. Adam is a delight and a privilege, one that I didn’t expect many to pick up on. I’m glad you did. His work was trailblazing. In terms of present day scope of an environment, it is an unfortunate truth in my industry now that when a piece requires a vast, sweeping interior environment it will be fabricated primarily through digital effects or clever theatricality. Therefore what you see of such sets is never actually physically present. However smaller in scale our STID set above may comparatively be, everything you see is physical real estate, and it was the largest footprint we could fit on the largest stage we could get our hands on. And, you know what? It was seriously fun to shoot…and shoot up!
Many thanks & cheers,
Scott Chambliss
Dear Mr. Chambliss,
I have to say only you could lure me out of book prep and a little self-imposed exile from the blog to respond. You, sir, ROCK. I was riveted by your designs and when I saw the command room I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from cheering, unfortunately this did not keep me from jabbing the Mister in the shoulder to draw his attention. We had both seen the Kubrick exhibit at LACMA and had the good fortune to see the set model and drawings for the war room. I hope you saw it too, it was a treat. I cannot agree with you more on the importance of real design and real sets – well done!
And in real life I owe you a hug,
Vickie