Source丨IndieWire
Curated by the IndieWire Crafts team, Craft Considerations is a platform for filmmakers to share the creative process of great film and television productions. In partnership with HBO, Craft Considerations enlisted showrunner Ben Kutchins, composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer and casting director Meredith Tucker to share how the team behind White Lotus Resort created a dark and complex Hawaii of.
We've always felt that Hawaii is a bright, relaxing tropical paradise. For the White Lotus Resort to be both the realism of a luxury resort and the horror of a terrifying fate lurking somewhere, the production team had to use different techniques to deliver this perceptible undercurrent of doubt, darkness, and fanaticism. At the same time, serving the unique comedy taste of screenwriter Mike White is the biggest challenge to the team behind the scenes.
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Photographer Ben Kutchins
Kutchins is well versed in the use of dark tones (he used deep blues in "Ozark"), but in "White Lotus Resort" his challenge was, "what contrast and color to use to show the audience this The beauty of [the location], but at the same time allowing the audience to [capture] its dangers and make sure the process is fun?"
Bringing shadows from both the natural landscape and the architectural design of the White Lotus Hotel itself, Kutchins deliberately pushes the landscape shots to find ways to be slightly off-angle or to allow the natural beauty of Hawaii to loom over the characters, to suggest something from nature and being among them Most ignored information.
soundtrack
Cristobal Tapia de Veer
The film's soundtrack caused a small Twitter sensation because its composition and texture were very different from other TV series. That's because composer de Veer doesn't want his music to stem from the character's emotional state, but instead focuses and inspires on how the resort's guests are disconnected from the landscape and their own sense of self.
To this end, de Veer eschews the subject line and the subject itself, because the audience's mood can be easily influenced by suggestion. Instead, de Veer says he deliberately opted for traditional sounds—a native Hawaiian flute and South American guitar, along with numerous African percussion—to create a messy, almost cheerfully tense overall sound palette, Perfectly reflects the show's dark comedic tone and fatalistic narrative drive. It keeps amplifying the weight of an insult or a failure in the plot, as if a chorus of monkeys mocked their beleaguered human cousin. "The soundtrack brings more dimension and perspective to what's going on, and maybe adds something that isn't there but could be there. This sense of being low but present, and possibly being and not fully aware of it, Driving the characters into madness is what keeps the show suspenseful - the soundtrack keeps stirring our anxiety."
casting
Meredith Tucker
Finding actors who can blend dark humor, observation, and human frailty into their performances was the goal of the film's casting directors. Tucker has worked on previous projects with screenwriter White. When the script was written, White already had cast members: Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya and Molly Shannon as mother-in-law Kitty. So Tucker consciously built a cast around existing productions that would elevate the tension of the series.
The hardest part to settle, Tucker said, was the actor who played Lobby Manager Almond. Murray-Bartlett's audition impressed her: "He's using his own unpolished Australian accent, which I think really works for the characterization. He hides a knife in his laugh, just grins a bit, You know he has a murderous side too - that's what characterizes the character."
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