Blade Runner 40 Years: SCAD Savannah Film Festival

During the SCAD Film Festival, I watched the final cut of Blade Runner and listened to the guests speak at the end. If you have not already watched the movie, I highly recommend it if you like dark dystopian worlds. The amount of set production, costume design, visual effects, and other art that went into this film was very thorough and amazing.

The guests that came to the panel at the end were Joanna Cassidy (actor of Zhora), Charles de Lauzirika (2007 Final Cut Producer), Michael Kaplan (costume designer), and David L. Snyder (art director). A little history about this movie is that when it came out in 1982, it was not the director Ridley Scott’s, intended final cut. He had wanted to make a few fixes to different scenes, but because of timing and budgeting, they needed to release it as it was. Additionally, over the years, there were other cuts of the movie, such as some that had different intros, different endings, and even a cut that was sent out internationally with a lot more violence and fighting. The movie shown at the SCAD Film Festival that Friday afternoon was the director’s intended final cut which was finally finished in 2007.

For the final cut,  multiple visual effects fixes needed to be made to the original. For example, in one scene where Joanna Cassidy, as Zhora, is running away from Harrison Ford, blade runner is actually a stunt woman going through the glass, not her. You can tell by the wig and face that the person is not Joanna but is, indeed, another woman doing the stunt for her. In the 2007 Final Cut, Joanna wanted it to be her going through the glass. In order to do this, a visual effects team helped make it possible. They had her get in the costume she was in all those years ago and sit in front of a green screen. They then recorded her upper body and face in order to match the same positions as the stunt actor in the glass scene. They then took that footage and replaced the stunt actor’s face with Joanna’s. 

Another visual effect shot that was done was a scene where Harrison Ford is speaking behind a window, and you can see his mouth, and the audio does not match up at all in the original. In order to fix this, they got his son, Ben Ford, to help. They recorded Ben speaking Harrison’s lines in front of a green screen and proceeded to replace Harrison’s face from his mouth below with Ben’s mouth. The visual effects team seamlessly combined them to make it look like Harrison’s mouth went with the original audio. 

On the art production side, there was a lot to be done to create the dystopian world that the director wanted. The art director David L. Snyder said that they had been given a lot of creative leeway in order to create this world. If the director didn’t like what they were doing, he would say to try again and make something better. There were multiple shots where sets needed to be created, such as one shot where they were on top of a tall building. This building in the movie is 100 feet high or more, but in reality, it was built only 20 feet high. In order to make sure that people would not see that the building wasn’t that high, the set was very dark to give a sense of atmosphere and distance. Additionally, a lot of matte paintings were made to extend the set.

On the costume side, there was a lot of inspiration from Spanish Art Deco and other ideas, such as different shapes for shoulder pads. Like the art team, the costume team was given a lot of creative leeway to make the costumes. The director also was an artist and would sketch some costume ideas for the costume department to create. Unfortunately, because of a funding and money issue in the middle of production, the entire production became a skeleton crew. But Michael Kaplan, the costume director, had talked about how it was actually a blessing in disguise because it gave them more time to develop additional costume ideas. And once the production got enough money to start again, the costumes were all created and ready to go. 

This film has a great set design and visual effects that make the dystopian world seem very immersive. It was amazing to hear about all of the fixes the team worked on to create the 2007 Final Cut, along with the original crew’s challenges and accomplishments. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t already watched it.