Mis-en-Scene - Interstellar and Designing the Tesseract

One of the most visually stunning moments of Interstellar was also the most complicated to design and produce. It took intense collaboration throughout the entire course of filming between the director, special effects and the design departments. "The best way I can describe it is I felt like we built this art installation on set and people would come in and you know, it would be very confusing to them about what on earth is going on here," said production designer Nathan Crowley.

Turning the impossible into reality is the sole guiding purpose behind Crowley's designs, a demand often tested by director Christopher Nolan. He is know as being part handyman and part artist and is responsible for the overall look of the film. His passion for building real and functional set pieces rather than relying on simulation in post production has earned him two Oscar nominations for his previous work with Nolan on "The Prestige," and "The Dark Knight." However, it was his nominated work for Interstellar that pushed the limits of his talents.

The "Tesseract" scene was meant to be a physical representation of time as a fifth dimension that could be interacted with by his lead character, played by Mathew McConaughey. It was something that has never been attempted in film and frankly has only existed in the minds of geniuses like Einstein, but Crowley was expected to bring it to reality. It took several months of planning and model making just to figure out the designs before the practical set building could begin. Nolan demanded that every set be built upon a set of rules and mathematics that had to be be invented on the spot and applied to the scene.

The simplest way to understand the room is to think of  a great system of cubes that are interconnected on all sides. The walls of each cube are composed of a series of lines that are meant to represent the waves of gravity that can span across time. All the objects in the room and the room itself would leave traces or extrusions that connect everything together inside this large array or system of rooms. It seems complicated because it is. Crowley had to figure out how everything had to be stretched in the X,Y, and Z axis before they could even began construction. The final set was built within a 100 x 90 x 45 ft. room. It began with recording the shapes of the items and recreating the shapes digitally in the visual effects department and stretching each of them. The designs then had to be printed out and wrapped around the enormous physical sets. Once that was completed, projectors were used to accent the walls and cause motion with light. It was imperative that everything in the Tesseract felt tactile and real.

I think this is a good representation of the Law of Continuity. As McConaughey is pulled through this "fifth dimension," the lines draw your eye to the center ahead of him and force you to the direction they chose. They create an index vector that is the foundation of everything you feel in the scene. I have to admit I was fooled the first time I watched into thinking it was entirely CGI. I thought it was so unbelievable that it had to be created artificially and that is where Crowley's job becomes so important. He comes up with new an innovative ways to make the audience suspend disbelief.

Composing My Frame - Holland Building

It took several trips around the Holland building, inside and out, before I finally settled on this shot. I am not personally a fan of modern architecture. I prefer the historic beauty of a grand, gothic church or a colorful Indian palace. That being said, I was determined to find something gorgeous and thankfully the colors of Spring lent a hand.

I used the rule of thirds to set up the building as the largest portion of the screen  and specifically the Zion room to create a frame around the tree in the foreground. The most important part of the photo was for me to show a contrast between the beauty and color of the tree and the industrial nature of the imposing structure behind it.

I was going for a sense of symmetry by splitting the building and the light exactly on the corner and the center of the tree an it took a while to get the right positioning of the branches. The horizontal lines on the light side pull your eye from off screen in to the center of the color and it acts as a bridge with the shadow side. I chose a wide shot to force a change in perspective and make it feel like the building is pushing out of the screen at the center. The vertical line of the corner is drawing the eye down to what I found most important, and as a bonus I caught the rocket streaming toward me from above. What started out as a seemingly boring building became a new and unexpected pleasure. Every time I see it, even in small form like a thumbnail, it feels like it is exploding off the screen.I couldn't help but keep it as a profile picture.

Axioms of Web Design -

I spend more hours online these days than I care to admit, mostly researching for school projects or mindlessly browsing Facebook for a brief escaping moment. I never actually had time to consider what I enjoy about the website designs I use on a normal basis and now as I pause to consider them, it is abundantly clear they are all actually quite terrible.


Mostly what I enjoy about web surfing is seeking out the best photographs and information about places to travel. I chose to evaluate the State of California tourism website (www.visitcalifornia.com) initially because I was born there and it still my favorite place on the planet, but also because the home page caught my attention above many other tourism sites, including Utah's, unfortunately.

The landing page has a simple and functional design that doesn't overpower the beauty of the full page photograph that is exactly what I was hoping to see. It gets right to the point will a bold title and simple tag line at lets you know you are about to discover everything about the state. Enough information to "fuel your dreams." The navigation is intuitive and easily recognizable with basic hash lines in the upper right corner for menu transport and a simple down arrow at the center of the page the scroll you through all the content.

As you scroll down through the page for content you find a strong grid design on each segment with only a few different styles depending on the subject. The arrangement and design remains consistent throughout the site. All gutters are equal distance, either two or three column, and there is ample white space to prevent it from feeling cluttered or chaotic. The focus is always on the colorful pictures which stand out perfectly contrasted against the white background.

Even though I was born and raised all over the state I couldn't hep but have fun exploring many of the different pages of extra information you can link to. It is set up for all people and as information and multi-media elements that can attract a variety of web users. I would advise checking out the skating at Tahoe video for an instant smile. It is also highly interactive will standardized links the the common social media sites and ways to access specific comments from previous users and California tourists.

It was hardly the standard and boring tourism bureau websites you commonly find when looking for places to take you next spring break vacation. It is easy to access the information you went there looking for and it sucks you in to a photo museum of one of the best places on the planet...ok little biased. The site is responsive and interesting to the eyes when the pictures jump off the screen and it converts for access on any device and enjoy much of the same functionality. It is an example of putting a great deal of thought into stepping toward the smartphone era and respecting that users respond to strong visual elements. Man I need to go home for a visit!