This year’s class of 10 Remarkable Artisans discussed the importance of collaboration.
Leading artisans working on 2025’s major awards contenders discuss their creative journeys on projects and how their collaborations influenced their work on set.
During a panel discussion led by Variety’s senior craftsman editor Jazz Tuncay, cinematographer Autumn Durard Arkapaw spoke about collaborating with Ryan Coogler on his supernatural thriller and world-building in 1930s Mississippi. “If we were going to put it on screen, we had to texture it,” Arkapaw said. It had to be broad and show these characters in the most beautiful and spectacular way. These characters, their skin colors, and our ancestry had never been represented this way before, so that was the most important thing to him. ”
Creating the record-breaking soundtrack for KPop Demon Hunters was no easy task for EJAE. After working on the project for five years, the singer-songwriter who voiced Rumi incorporated elements of her personal life into the cathartic release of the ballad “Golden,” which topped the Billboard 200. “Rumi and I had a lot of similarities. I fell in love (with her) the moment I read the script. ‘Golden’ means a lot to me because I was going through a really tough time and Rumi was going through this whole idea of trying to be perfect and trying to put your patterns aside,” EJAE said. “I felt the same way when I was a K-Pop trainee. I had to hide my flaws and always try my best. It was a problem because I understood how exhausting it was and that I empathized with the character.”
The opening sequence of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another immediately draws the audience into the world of the revolutionary group The French 75. With a quick montage showing the evolution of the revolutionary group, editor Andy Jurgensen knew the time jumps needed to make an impact throughout the film. “The whole prologue went through different versions, because it’s set in French 75 and it’s also set in Perfidia (Beverly Hills),” Jurgensen said. “It had to be content enough to ensure she stayed alive throughout the movie, but it had to be fast enough to tell the story and be ready to start the story 15 years later at the end. It took a lot of different passes to make it dynamic but also emotionally strong. We (showed it) to a few test screenings to figure out the exact length, and I think that turned out to be the best version.”
Make-up and hair artist Stephanie Pashkoff helped show the characters’ evolution over the years in creating the look of the Shakers in Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ang Lee,” which follows the rise of a titular religious leader in 18th-century America. “We had to make sure that each of the characters, especially Amanda (Seyfried), had a huge imprint of traumatic experiences. She had all these traumatic experiences and abuse and sadness all collected and expressed on her face, so we had to think about how to translate that onto her face,” Pashkov reveals. “(Ang Lee) went to prison, and she had a skin disease that appears in malnourished people. This is called downy hair, which is the downy hair that appears on the skin. In the end, you can see Ang Lee wearing a collection of various subtle prosthetics on her face, which shows a kind of archive of everything she had to endure.”
In creating the luxurious world of F1, ‘F1’ production designer Ben Munro used his access to and access to races with the world’s top drivers during filming to create the look of the APX GP team. “We were incredibly lucky to be invited into the world of four teams: McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin and Williams. There were a lot of things that were going to be the biggest challenge for us, and one of them was the pit stops because we were filming a lot of scenes during the Grand Prix weekend. We were in front of the fans and in front of the media. ”
“Rental Family” tells the story of American actor Philip (Brendan Fraser), who works with a Japanese agency to fill in for various families. Composer Alex Summers worked with the director to emphasize Philip’s adjustment to Japan and how he gradually becomes comfortable in other people’s lives. “We were really fascinated by Philip. He’s a big foreigner in a faraway place who doesn’t fit in and doesn’t belong,” Summers said. “We essentially thought about the instruments involved in it. We thought about instruments that break or don’t work very well and things like that. And[eventually]we settled on Optigun, which is a toy made by Mattel in the ’70s.”
While various films about William Shakespeare’s life have been made for the screen, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet explores a different side of the Bard that audiences have yet to see, focusing on the love story of William (Paul Mescal) and Agnes (Jesse Buckley) following the death of their son Hamnet. Using Shakespeare’s original work and Maggie O’Farrell’s book of the same name, costume designer Malgosia Trzanska created organic costumes set in 16th century England. “[Hamnet]is a movie about grief, but above all it’s also a movie about healing. We thought a lot about the color of blood and the different stages. When we first see Agnes, she’s full of life, wearing a bodice made of bark cloth. Gradually she becomes a little rusty with an ironic blood color. As she experiences tragedy, she becomes this scabbed prune color. I wanted to see that.” Her color and her costume made her look like a pulsating muscle. ”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti has worked on three film projects throughout this year’s film lineup, including Josh Safdie’s new film Marty Supreme starring Timothée Chalamet, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, and Benny Safdie’s Smashing Machine, which focuses on the journey of former mixed martial arts fighter Mark Carr in the ’90s. “The world of MMA was new to me, and what I love about casting is learning about the world and building a person within that world,” Venditti said. “We did a ton of research within the MMA community to find out who could translate, because it’s not always easy to be authentic in front of the camera, so we focused on getting a lot of real talent.”
In Bugonia, head of hair and make-up Torsten Witte reveals how Emma Stone shaved her head while chasing a CEO who has been abducted by what appears to be aliens. “Yorgos and I discussed the option of making this film with a bald hat. As we all know in film, time is of the essence,” Witte revealed. “We realized right away that we were going to have to shave Emma’s head. Yorgos enjoys the kick he gets from letting the actors and crew get away with things. I think he enjoyed telling her that[she]really had to shave her head.”
It’s been three years since audiences returned to Pandora, and Avatar: Fire and Ashes assistant art director Virginia Berg can’t wait for fans to see the new creatures and characters revealed when the film opens in December. Berg, an SCAD graduate, told the audience, “People may not fully realize that we’ve been shooting this movie for almost 10 years. What’s really exciting about the sequel is that every time you meet a new character, you see a new environment, a new land, a new creature. The character development is a little bit darker and richer, and I think people are really going to like it.”
Variety hosted this conversation in partnership with SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
Watch the video above.
