Apple’s ‘See’ director on why the TV series cost less than ‘Game of Thrones’ and if he’d return for the next ‘Hunger Games’ movie – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
- Francis Lawrence, an executive producer and director of Apple TV Plus’ “See,” gave a wide-ranging interview to Business Insider about the show’s budget and development.
- Lawrence said The Hollywood Reporter’s reporting last month that “See” would cost $240 million for two seasons was “blown out of proportion.”
- Lawrence said he used everyone from blind consultants to an evolutionary biologist to a survivalist to develop the show.
- Lawrence also said that he “would definitely” return for the “Hunger Games” prequel movie in development.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Apple TV Plus’ “See.”
Apple TV Plus launched on Friday with four original shows. One of them is “See,” a post-apocalyptic fantasy series starring Jason Momoa. It takes place hundreds of years in a future where the remaining humans are blind.
Francis Lawrence, who executive produced the series and directed the first three episodes, talked to Business Insider about the show’s budget and the intricacies involved in its creation.
“We had a think tank with blind consultants and an evolutionary biologist and a survivalist and all these different people come in to brainstorm ideas,” Lawrence said. “How long after civilization had vanished does the story take place and what would things look like and what would remain?”
The Hollywood Reporter reported last month that “See” will cost $240 million for two seasons. Lawrence told Business Insider that the series is expensive but that the budget “got blown out of proportion.”
Before “See,” Lawrence directed three out of four of the “Hunger Games” movies: “Catching Fire,” “Mockingjay — Part 1,” and “Mockingjay — Part 2.” The studio Lionsgate announced in June that it was developing a prequel movie based on series author Suzanne Collins’ upcoming book, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Lawrence’s three “Hunger Games” movies grossed $2.2 billion worldwide combined.
Lawrence said he would “definitely” return to work on the prequel in development.
The full interview with Lawrence is below.
Sylvia Hoeks as Queen Kane in “See” Apple TV Plus
Travis Clark: How much of the series was practical versus CGI effects?
Francis Lawrence: I don’t know if I can give you a percentage, but we shot, for the most part, on location for the first five episodes, and episodes seven and eight, as well. We didn’t step on stage until episode six. So we were always in real environments, which would sometimes get augmented with visual effects. Sometimes we would have to make a village a little bigger than we could afford to build, or when we’re shooting inside Queen Kane’s dam, we were inside a huge abandoned paper mill on Vancouver Island. It was so vast we couldn’t age it all appropriately for the time period.
For the most part, everything is real. We’re not doing crowd duplications and things like that, but sometimes we’d have to augment real environments. That and the eye effects. Those were not contacts, those were effects that were done in post.
Clark: Yeah, I was going…
https://www.businessinsider.com/apples-see-director-wants-to-return-for-next-hunger-games-2019-11
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