ALEX LAURANT

I was ILM's VFX Art Director for Stephen Spielberg’s 2002 near-future sci-fi thriller.

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Here I extended and interpreted the deep foundational research and terrific production design of Alex McDowell and his team - with whom I was honored to share the Visual Effects Society's award for Best Art Direction.

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For the architectural and Mag-Lev elements of the film's key VFX action sequences, my goal was to respect both Spielberg’s and McDowell's aesthetic direction, maintaining a future-urban plausibility to the designs and materials. Our depiction of Washington DC in roughly 50 years was meant to feel familiar and utilitarian, sometimes bordering on the mundane.

 

The aim was to ground the film's science-fiction vision in a gritty noir realism and keep the inherently futuristic technology and architecture from becoming too fanciful or "shiny."