Greta Gerwig seemed like a natural fit in recreating the pink fantasy world while also showcasing much of its own fantastical Barbieland nuances and mixing them up with the complexities of the modern day real world.
To recreate the wonderland, Gerwig looked up several filmmaking approaches from different eras, before opting for the techniques employed by filmmakers in the 1950’s and went as practical as she could on the set design.
Speaking to Collider, ‘The Little Women’ director said “ Everything about the way this movie was made was a giant question mark. It was like I don’t know how we’re going to do all of this. Because I wanted to do practical builds for everything, and I also wanted, any time I could, to use whatever film technique from like 1959 was.”
“So I needed to build the entire thing by miniature and then shoot the miniature and then composite that into the image. I had to do everything practically, like the entire transportation sequences. That’s all practical builds, that all happens in camera. And so everything had to be worked out.”
Calling ‘Barbie’ the most terrifying venture of her career, she said everything in the movie was a massive challenge, particularly the execution of the whole thing. Elaborating, she said “In a way because I had this very clear vision that I wanted everything to be practical and in camera, it made it easy in terms of how we went about stuff like with, the mermaids or something.”
Comparing it the design of a stage show with its practical sets and designs, she said that the greatest aspect of the entire set design with its practical approach was its sheer simplicity and authenticity. The pink world was designed from the ground-up after a clear cut vision, and employing the techniques of the older days today, Barbieland reflects the aesthetic of the ‘50s.
Stating that with the creation of ‘Barbie’ she has now come up with new goals in filmmaking, Greta Gerwig said “ Every time I’ve gone to make a film, there’s always something challenging or a new aspect to it and, and this one, it felt like I got, it was like a level up. And also just learning how to execute something like this, how to work with certain constraints, the best way to realize certain visions, like all of that.”
“Everybody I think who’s a director has a bit of a fantasy baseball team in their head of like the movies they’re going to make in the future. And I have movies I want to make that are tiny and make ones that are huge. But I knew that if I wanted to make some of these big canvas movies, you got to get the hours under your belt because they can be totally overwhelming.”
An unknown aspect surely, but the reliance of practical effects as opposed to VFX in ‘Barbie’ is something to definitely look forward to, because its competitor ‘Oppenheimer’ boasts no VFX whatsoever.
‘Barbie’ is now out in cinemas and as the ‘Barbenheimer’ war rages on, the pink world of ‘Barbie’ is sure doing well both critically and commercially, currently being ahead of ‘Oppenheimer’ at the box office.
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