An Exploration of Insurgent Production Design

As life would have it, I ended up taking a Production Design class and a Film Theory class in the same quarter.

I found this coincidence to be interesting and helpful as the two subjects are surprisingly interrelated.

A film's production design can tell us a lot about what the filmmakers are trying to communicate (which is film theory), and those same concepts can have a great amount of influence on a production team's production design decisions.

These two classes (and a few others) have ruined my ability to watch movies without paying attention to stuff like the production design.  Thus it was that I rewatched Insurgent.

I did this for two reasons:

1. So that I could see if it was as bad as I remembered it
2. So that I could watch it alone in order to form my own opinions

Having grown up with a rather controlling mother, I find it hard these days to express my opinions if they don't reflect the opinions of everyone else in the room.  Thus I have never told my teacher or my classmates exactly how much I disliked Nightcrawler, A Most Violent Year, Dope, or Foxcatcher.

The same is true of Insurgent.  When I first saw it on pre-opening night (see http://lynzmediathoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/insurgent-count-down.html), I was with my Divergent fan who ended up not liking the movie.  Before passing judgment, however, I wanted to see the again without an outside influence.

So it was that I ran to Redbox one beautiful summer day and used my "rent one, get one free" coupon to grab a copy of Insurgent.  And while I'm still not entirely happy with the plot deviations and some of the dialogue drove me up the wall, I found that Insurgent really wasn't all that bad.

I turned from a story about a hopeless, depressed girl rediscovering a reason to live into a story about a hopeless, depressed girl who learns to forgive herself.

It's a powerful message, and one that mainstream media doesn't touch on very often.

But that wasn't the only thing I noticed during my second viewing.  I noticed a few things about the production design that stuck out to me.


It All Started with the Erudite Sequence...

Spoiler Alert: Tris ends up as a prisoner in the Erudite compound.

Well, okay, she hands herself in for "research" in order to stop Jeanine from killing innocent people.



Regardless, Tris spends a good half of the movie between a holding cell and a science lab in the Erudite compound, always under guard.  She's a prisoner.  A voluntary one, but a prisoner none the less.

In the book, her reasons for doing this are made quite clear.  Overcome by guilt over the deaths of her parents, Will, and a handful of others who have been killed by the Erudite in their efforts to round up Tris and the Divergents once and for all, Tris decides she doesn't want to live anymore.  She also convinces herself that Four, and Caleb, and everyone else she loves will be safer if she dies.  So instead of throwing herself off a bridge or jumping in front of a moving train or shooting herself, Tris hands herself over to the Erudite, knowing they will probably have her executed at the end of whatever experiments they wish to run on her.  This also serves the dual purpose of giving the Erudite a Divergent to study so they'll stop killing innocent people.

The movie makes a point of saying that the Erudite are specifically demanding someone to hand Tris over because she somehow the most divergent Divergent person in Chicago, and therefore is the perfect test subject for their experiment (aka opening that strange box that was hidden in the Prior home back in Abegnation).  Overwhelmed by guilt over the deaths of the innocent people are the Erudite are killing to "motivate" everyone to hand Tris over to them, Tris takes the situation into her own hands and turns herself in.  Problem solved...kinda.

Upon the first viewing, I remember thinking, "Oh, this is different, but at least the plot is mostly the same."

But upon the second viewing, I began to notice something interesting...

...like enough to make me search Google to demonstrate my theory interesting.

The lab where Tris is hooked up to the device that's supposed to open that mysterious box everyone's been going on about for half the movie is a square.  Tris has to stand on a circular disc in the center of the room in order to be hooked up to the device.  And she separated from Jeanine and the other Erudite scientists by a large glass viewing window

At first, I thought nothing of this.  The Erudite are, after all, intelligent and also seeking to further their understanding of things.  It seems natural for Tris to find herself in this type of enclosure as a test subject.

Then they moved her to a prison cell so she could recoup for another day of experiments, and I noticed something interesting...

Her cell is a square with a square-shaped window.


But...

...the hallway outside is circular.

And...

...oh hey, look!  The cell doors are large panels of glass.

Large panels of glass that look a lot like viewing windows.

This poor girl gets, like, no privacy.

Which makes sense.  I mean, after all, the Erudite are the intelligent ones who are always seeking to expand their knowledge.  Therefore, it makes perfect sense that even their prison would feel like a lab where innocent subjects can be observed and tested without discretion.  I'm not a huge fan of animal testing...

But the cherry on the top of the cake comes in the form of the shower scene.  Don't let that scare you.  It's not that kind of shower scene.  It's all of five seconds long, and only shows Tris's head and shoulders as water pours over her.  That's all.

This honestly one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie.  Tris is alone in this dark room.  She's just come from a long day of intense simulations.  She is exhausted.  Hopeless.  Alone for the first time since her ordeal began.  Simply standing there as cold water cascades over her.  I like to imagine it's cold water.

There's something beautiful about the whole scene.

And, of course, I can't find a picture of it anywhere.

But, one needs only rent a copy of the DVD or [legally] download it from the Amazon Instant Video to find it.

And the reason you should go look it up is not because it's my favorite scene and I told you to, but because if you did go watch the scene I've just described to you, you would notice something interesting about the design of the shower.

It's a square with light coming from little round objects on the walls.  Or are those windows?

Square, circle, viewing window.

Maybe this is all just a coincidence (in which case the production design team should scold themselves for not thinking of that earlier).  But just in case it wasn't a went on a serach to find more square-circle-window patterns.  And I found....

Circular Building

Square Windows

...at the Amity Compound.

Am I going crazy?

I think not.

At least, I hope not.

...and Evolved into Film Theory

So, as I sit here at work typing up all this stuff about squares and circles and windows, I began to wonder why the filmmakers chose to use this theme throughout the movie.  

If this is just a happy coincidence, then the production designer should pat himself on the back after he slaps himself for not thinking of it sooner.

If my suspicions are correct, however, and this whole square, circle, window theme was planned (which I sincerely hope it was), then one must go further and ask, "What does this mean?"  What concept are they communicating to us through their choices in set design?

While I can't say for certain what these guys had in mind when they designed the sets and all, I have formed a possible theory.

A common theme in Divergent is reflection.  Tris sees her reflection in mirrors, windows, puddles of water, anything with a reflective surface.  I think this is to personify Tris' search for herself.

Does that make sense?

The first book/movie is primarily about Tris trying to figure out who she is.  

In the Divergent universe, a person is defined by their Faction.  Are they brave, selfless, honest, intelligent, or kind?  Your Faction defines you.

Problem is Tris tests positive for three Factions, Dauntless, Erudite, and Abnegation.  She does not fit into any one category.  She's Divergent.

She spends a good portion of the beginning of the story trying to figure out where she fits into their society, and it takes her the rest of the movie to figure out that she doesn't have to necessarily be confined to one trait.  It's perfectly okay to be divergent, other than the fact that Erudite is trying to kill you because you can't be controlled by traditional means.  

My theory regarding Insurgent is that the production design is meant to represent exposure.  Tris spends the majority of the movie trying to hide who she really is and what she's done (namely killing Will while he was under the attack simulation in Divergent) from everyone around her.  First of all, being divergent is dangerous, in and of itself, because the Divergents are being hunted by the Erudite and are generally frowned upon by everyone else.  Second, Tris fears that revealing the truth about Will's death to her friends and remaining family will make them hate her.  On top of all that, Tris is hiding with a bunch of Abegnation and Dauntless fugitives who have taken refuge in the Amity headquarters, so they're trying to blend in as much as possible.  

Contrast Tris' closely guarded personal life with the openness of the Amity compound.  Everything is open and exposed.  The buildings are only half built and have trees growing right in the middle of them, and most everyone hangs out in public places, which usually have wide windows to let in the most light.  The Amity are at peace because they do not fear exposure.  Tris, on the other hand, is not peaceful because she is constantly having to watch her steps and look back over her shoulder to make sure nobody catches a glimpse of her secrets.  She is, in fact, so wound up by the guilt of her actions and grief over the loss of her parents and trying so hard not to draw attention to herself that she has probably developed one of the shortest fuses in literary history and will try to kill people for looking at her the wrong way.

Flash forward to Candor.  The Candor are honest, even to the point of being impolite.  The Candor building is a gigantic glass structure, lined with huge windows and bright lights.  Everything is out in the open again.  Everything is exposed.  There are not secrets in Candor.  This is best demonstrated by their Truth Serum, which makes a person prone to share their deepest secrets to achieve true honesty.  This is why Tris is so against taking the Truth Serum when they are arrested by Amity for the murder of the Abegnation (back in Divergent).  The exposure of her secrets is the last thing she wants, and why she tries to resist the serum once she's been injected with it.  Being exposed like that in front of all of Candor and half of Dauntless must have been one of the most traumatic experiences of her short life.  

The Erudite compound is the epitome of Tris' exposure crisis.  Practically every room she's kept in is a lab -- a box with a window and nowhere to hide.  She is a lab rat in the purest sense of the word.

But she doesn't really have anything left to hide, if you think about it.  Her divergence and the fact that she killed Will have already been exposed while under the Truth Serum.  The only thing that is still hidden is what makes her so special.  What is it about Tris that makes her Divergent, anyway?  In the book, Tris makes sure to negotiate the terms of her captivity so that Jeanine and her cronies can study her all they want as long as they share their findings with her.  Not so much in the movie, but in the book she figures, "They're going to kill me when this is over anyway.  What harm could be done by telling me what they learn from studying me?"  She's been laid open like a book back at the Candor headquarters.  I don't think she's still trying to hide her secrets anymore.  I think she's trying to reveal more about herself, trying to learn whatever she can about her divergence in hopes of finding out who she really is.

In short, my Insurgent production design theory is this:

The filmmakers have constructed a world where Tris is completely exposed.  They place her in a series of sets where nearly every wall is a window and every move she makes can be seen by those outside.  They have put her on display in a glass cage for all to see.  She has nowhere to hide.

I think is this a reflection of Tris' inner fear of exposing her secrets, and it was very well devised on the part of the production designers.


So...

Five months ago I would have said, "No, don't see this movie!  It's terrible!" for the simple reason that my Divergent fan friend said she didn't like it.  However, coming back to it on my own, I think I can now say, "Well, it's not the book, and some of the dialogue is a bit stiff (no pun intended), but I liked it."

I thought the soundtrack was fantabulous, most of the acting was good, and the special effects of pretty cool!

So, should you see it?

I think it's worth a viewing or two, if you liked the first movie, are over 16, and are not one of those people who find Shailene Woodley's voice to be irritating (I don't have a problem with her voice, but that's just one film student's opinion).

Be advised, though, there is a kinda sex scene in the middle.  When I say "kinda", I mean the characters take off their shirts and make out rather passionately, but it's all filmed very carefully so that nothing too inappropriate is shown, and we (thankfully) don't see the actual act of sex on screen.  It's all kinda implied by the aforementioned passionate kissing and Shailene Woodley's bare back.

Aside from that, there's the usual amount of violence.  People get shot, stabbed, fall down stairs, fall off buildings...you get the picture.  There's a bit of language, most of which are four letter words with one possible muffled use of the f-bomb (it's hard to tell because the character says it so quietly).

Kids definitely shouldn't see this movie until they're much older.  Older teens and adults, I think, will be fine, but I'll leave that decision up to you and/or your legal guardians (depending on how old you are).

Anyway, I didn't think it was half-bad, and I'd happily watch it again.

The Martian

Disclaimer: I am a believer in extraterrestrial life.

That, however, is not what this movie is about.

While a deceptive title at first glance, the lack of actual martians in The Martian does not diminish the beauty or intensity of this fascinating movie!

In a way, The Martian is a bit like Castaway.  There's an accident and one guy gets stranded in an isolated and desolate area and has to learn to fend for himself.  But Chuck Noland had it easy compared to Mark Watney (Matt Damon), who finds himself stranded on Mars after a severe dust storm forces his crew to abort their mission and evacuate.  As the world mourns the heroism of Watney back on Earth, Watney wakes up in a pile of martian sand with a satellite antennae sticking out of his gut and the realization that there likely won't be another manned mission to Mars for the next 4 years.

After sewing himself up and spending a few days moping around while he waits to die, Watney becomes determined to survive the 4 years until the next Mars mission arrives.  He rations his food and figures he has enough to last about a year.  To account for the remaining 3 years, he uses his magical skills as a botanist to grow potatoes inside the aborted mission's artificial habitat.  He then starts to experiment and figure out a way to communicate with NASA and let everyone know he's still alive.

Meanwhile on Earth, an astute NASA worker notices movement in some of the satellite photos they've been receiving from Mars.  Mission Control is called in, at which point it is somewhat unofficially determined that Mark Watney is alive after all.  But to save themselves from the embarrassment of admitting they were wrong, NASA coordinator Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) tries to rig any attempts to rescue Mark so that they would arrive too late to actually save his life (therefore, he's pretty much dead).  When the news of Watney's survival is released to the public, Sanders advises his team not to get the hopes of the public up too high since a rescue mission wouldn't be able to reach Watney for the next 4 years.

In the meantime, Watney finds the location of the Pathfinder (yes, the one sent to Mars in 1996/7) and figures out how to get it working again.  Back on Earth, the NASA team who have been closely monitoring his progress figure out what he's doing and set up an exact replica of Pathfinder in hopes that they'll be able to communicate.  Since Pathfinder can only take still images, Watney devices a sort of morse code in order to communicate with Earth by turning Pathfinder's camera toward certain numbers and symbols Watney sets up around it.  They tell him how to hook Pathfinder up to his computer so that they can communicate in a more efficient manner.

Meanwhile, an brilliant (if not highly disorganized) astrodynamicist, Rich Purnell, figures out that it would be faster and easier to send crew from the last Mars mission (still on their way back from Mars) back to Mars to get Watney instead of trying to send him supplies to help him survive until the next Mars landing.  When Sanders at NASA turns down his proposal, he disguises an email to the crew in space and sends them his data.  Together, the crew discuss the possibilities -- they could defy a direct order for NASA and go back for Watney or they could return to Earth as planned and hope Watney survives the next four years.


This movie has something for everyone.  It really does.

I know this because I know a Mars enthusiast, a case worker, a graphic designer, a youth pastor, a college instructor, and two film students who all loved it!

Mars enthusiasts will be existed by anything to do with Mars, particularly all of the geography and historical references (Pathfinder, etc.).

Film students and filmmakers will like the gorgeous cinematography and production design.

Everyone else will love this movie for a variety of reasons.  They may love the picturesque landscape shots on Mars, or the concept of the story (after all, how would one survive if one got stranded on Mars?), or they may just like movies that show the inner workings of NASA.

And Lord of the Rings fans will get a kick out of Project Elrond!

But, overall, this movie inspires.  It has long since been a goal of NASA to send a manned mission to Mars, to colonize our nearest partially habitable planetary neighbor.  My hope is that movies like The Martian and Interstellar (among others) will once again inspire us to reach for the stars, literally, and influence the government to refund NASA exploration.

There was a bit of language, but it's not very frequent and mostly justified (if you consider the predicament Watney is in).  We briefly see a Watney's naked backside, but nothing overly graphic is shown.  The most disturbing part to watch is probably the part where Watney has to give himself stitches (I had to cover my eyes).

That being said, I feel comfortable recommending The Martian to anyone in the over 20 crowd who love beautiful movies, compelling survival stories, and/or anything to do with Mars.  Young children probably shouldn't see it, as some of the Mars sequences can be quite intense and I don't want to be responsible for anybody's five-year-olds walking around saying the f-word or the s-word.

Personally, I really loved this movie.  I loved the story, and the science, and the filmmaking, and I would see it again in a heartbeat!

The Twilight Saga: A Summary

Twilight was hugely popular when I was in high school.  Even at the local Christian schools, you couldn't go very far without seeing Team Edward/Team Jacob references or hear mad fangirls fangirling about it with their fellow fangirls.  

Two things saved me:

1. My mom didn't think it was a good idea for influential teenagers to be reading romance novels about humans and vampires hooking up.

2. It was all a bit too sappy for me, anyway.  

How would I know if I didn't like sappy romances if I'd never read Twilight?  I didn't have to.  All I had to do was read A Gown of Spanish Lace, Elsie Dinsmore, and watch the Love Comes Softly movies to figure out that sappy romances weren't for me.

At my pre-wedding movie night, I'll probably be watching Lord of the Rings.

Anyway, more often than not, I found myself to be the only person in a room who hadn't seen Twilight at that point.  And usually, when people found out I wasn't a Twilight fanatic like "everyone else", they would literally freak out as if I'd just told them I was responsible for blowing up the World Trade Center, as if the very act of not liking Twilight was, in and of itself, an act of terrorism.  If any of them had been undercover Volturi, they would have ripped my head off right on the spot.  But after dealing with this same reaction from Harry Potter fans for 11 years up to that point (books and movies combined), I quickly just learned to roll my eyes and go with it whenever Twilight came up.

Years went by, my mother passed away (may she rest in peace), and Summit Entertainment spat out four more Twilight movies.  I was now a film student at an art school, and it suddenly occurred to me that now that I was older and more mature it would probably be safe for me to watch Twilight.  Not for the sake of watching it and getting the fangirls off my back, but simply as a filmmaker and critic.

As luck would have it, my brother's friend happened to loan him the box set with all five movies, and since my brother wasn't particularly excited about watching them, he let me borrow his friend's box set.  Six weeks later, I finally got through all five movies, so all the fangirls of the world (if any do, in fact, remain) can calm down.  

So here, for the very first time, are my not-entirely-humble thoughts and opinions on The Twilight Saga.

Movie #1: Twilight

Kinda typical love story.

Girl meets boy.  Boy likes girl.  Girl likes boy.  Girl and boy make out.  Other boys are jealous.  

The only difference is that the boy in our story is an undead vampire who has been 17 years old since 1918-ish.  Bella, who is an actual not-undead human doesn't really seem to care that he's a vampire who has to struggle not to suck her blood everytime he's around her.  Love conquers all, I guess...

All mushy romance and creepy vampire stuff aside, this movie is an embarrassment to all things good and glorious about filmmaking.  Dialogue was really terrible, with Bella starring as Captain Obvious for the majority of the story.

And don't tell me they didn't have the technology to make it better.  Fellowship of the Ring came out seven years earlier, and the production quality on that movie was ten times better than on Twilight.  

In summary, I came away from the movie disappointed.

Movie #2: New Moon

Things seem to be going well for Bella and her undead soulmate.  Until an ill-fated paper cut leads to familiar troubles and Edward breaks off the relationship in the name of saving Bella from further vampire trouble.

But Bella is a clingy, lovesick teenager who can't bear the separation, and starts to do these incredibly stupid and dangerous things because when she does she imagines that she can see Edward.  

A third corner in the world's most forced love triangle appears when another boy, Jacob, enters the picture and tries (without luck) to get Bella to fall for him.  It is, however, later revealed that Jacob is a werewolf, which is a trait passed down through certain members of the local Native American tribe...?  Anyway, this is part of the reason the vampires and the local Natives don't get along since vamps and werewolves are mortal enemies.

Regardless, after Bella almost dies in an act of stupidity, Edward's kinda-sister, Alice (who possesses the ability to see the future), tells Edward Bella has committed suicide, and since Edward is just about as clingy and lovesick as Bella, he can't imagine living without her...even though he's already dead...and travels to Italy to beg the vampire elite, known as the Volturi, to kill him by ripping his head off.

Finding out that Edward intends to get himself killed because he thinks that Bella is dead, Bella then travels to Italy to stop him, and the Volturi laugh because the whole thing is rather hysterical.  Then they say, "Well, since you brought a snack, we might as well dig in."  (this is a paraphrase)  But Alice (who came with Bella to Italy) tells them that she's seen Bella turn into a vampire in the future. So the Volturi says, "Okay, sounds good!  Safe travels home!" and let them go.

While the overall quality of the movie was much better than the first one, I found the ending to be a huge letdown.  Who seriously lets a tasty morsel go on the claim of an emotionally attached vampire who says the aforementioned tasty morsel will become a vampire someday?   It makes no sense!  

Someone fix this ending!  

Movie #3: Eclipse

I am of the not-entirely-humble opinion that this movie exists for the sole purpose of advancing the love triangle forced briefly eluded to in the previous movie.

Okay, yeah, so a bad vampire from the first movie comes back and tries to eat Bella, but this subplot could have easily been touched on without the sickeningly forced and mushy tension between Edward and Jacob.

Save me!

Movie #4: Breaking Dawn Part 1

We've suffered through the last three movies to get here, and Bella and Edward's beautiful and surprisingly human wedding makes the journey worth it.  But their honeymoon turns upside down when Bella gets pregnant with a half-undead child...which shouldn't be possible, but we'll let that one slide for now.

This half-undead baby practically kills Bella, but Edward saves her by turning her into a vampire (and thus the predictions of Alice come true!).  The werewolves aren't happy about this for some reason and plan to attack the vampire's residence, but Jacob enlists the help of several other werewolves to help in defending Edward's family.  And if this whole franchise isn't creepy enough, Jacob discovers that he is destined to marry Bella and Edward's baby...

...whereby he claims some ancient werewolf wright that states that no werewolf can harm another werewolf's mate...even if that future mate is a half-undead kinda-vampire who was born five minutes earlier.  Again, this makes no sense, but whatever.  

As an aside, this is the first franchise to casually redefine "book adaptation" by splitting one book into two movies. This will later be imitated by Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows and eventually lead to the Hobbit trilogy (three movies from one book).  Thank you, Breaking Dawn.  You've revolutionized the definition of a movie adaptation.  Where would we be without you?  One Harry Potter and two Hobbit movies short, to be sure.

Movie #5: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Hey, guess what? Bella's a vampire now! 

But the real problem comes when the Volturi over in Italy find out about Edward and Bella's kid...because apparently it's a crime to turn a child into a vampire in the vampire world...? 

Well, whatever, they spend the majority of the movie gathering a vampire army to fight the Volturi in an epic battle that is actually really cool...but which never actually happens...? 

Anyway, Bella and Edward end up living happily ever after with their kid, who will later grow up and marry Jacob, thus creating the first every half-undead/werewolf relationship in undead history!

Which leaves me with questions like:

~Will Jacob live forever too?

~Will Renesme try to turn Jacob into a vampire?

~If so, what would happen to Jacob?

~Will their whole relationship be really weird for Edward and Bella since they went to high school with Jacob?

BTW, this is probably the best of the 5 movies in terms of production quality.

Movie #6: 50 Shades of Grey

To date, this is the only Twilight movie I haven't seen.  Nor do I really want to see it...

...oh wait.  Wrong franchise.  My bad.

Well, not entirely since it was originally an erotic Twilight fanfiction series.

Sadly, there's literally an erotic fanfiction piece for almost every popular book series and movie franchise, including The Hobbit, Divergent, and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events.  I know this only because I've spent some considerable time perusing fanfiction websites and it can be hard not to accidentally stumble upon these rather disturbing pieces of fanfiction.

 The only difference here is that E. L. James was the only one (I know of) who actually got hers published.

So, next time you read the FSOG books or see the movie, think of Bella and Edward.