Arrival is a classily crafted slice of sci-fi with a sublime performance by Amy Adams at
its core.
But how did the filmmakers actually put the film together?
In this video, I'm going to take a look at seven fascinating secrets you need to know
about the making of the movie.
The heptapod's spaceship owes its design to an asteroid named after the Greek goddess
of law and legislation, Eunomia!
During research for the design of the alien craft, director Denis Villeneuve came across
the asteroid 15 Eunomia and was attracted by what he called its "insane shape, like
a strange egg" and thought that kind of pebble or oval shape would bring a perfect sense
of menace and mystery to the heptapod's spacecraft which, in the film, is made from materials
unknown to man and defies current human scientific understanding in terms of how it works and
travels through space.
Octopuses, whales, elephants, and even spiders were all sources of inspiration when it came
to creating the aliens, Abbott and Costello.
Villeneuve wanted their design to evoke a very strong presence, an air of intelligence,
and the feeling of being close to a "huge beast underwater".
And he wanted to bring to life the sort of surreal creature you might imagine in a dream
or a nightmare and, in the later stages of the film, he wanted them to be suggestive
of the Grim Reaper.
On top of that, it was important to Villeneuve that the reveal of the full alien body happened
slowly, over the course of the film, in order to build the audience's suspense and intrigue,
and he also wanted to contrast their quiet arrival and calm communication with Louise
and Ian inside the spaceship with the panicked reaction of the world outside.
To achieve this, he brought on board creature concept artist Carlos Huante, who worked on
Ridley Scott's Prometheus.
The underwater creatures like octopuses and squid, which so influenced the heptapods'
appearance, also inspired the filmmakers to use blasts of ink to form their language.
While the idea that the heptapods' non-linear language should consist of circles marked
with twists and curls came from screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who even included rough sketches
of them in his script.
The alien's language is an absolutely crucial part of the film and Villeneuve wanted it
to be striking, almost frightening, completely distinct from human language, and suggestive
of a different mind-set.
So, Heisserer's concept was further developed by production designer Patrice Vermette working
with artist Martine Bertrand, whose idea it was for the language to appear as abstract
inky circles that resembled coffee s.
Vermette and his team then immersed themselves in the design process of creating a fictional
language that had its own set of rules and was internally accurate, not just a randomly
assembled bunch of circles, splotches and flourishes.
In fact, they created their own dictionary with over 100 logograms, each of which conveys
full sentences or paragraphs, and 71 of those were used in the film.
"Dirty sci-fi" is what Villeneuve and his cinematographer Bradford Young call the look
they created together for Arrival.
Basically, they wanted to avoid the kind of spectacle you see in a typical sci-fi blockbuster
and instead go for something more delicate and light.
What that means for the film is that it feels like "this was happening on a bad Tuesday
morning," to quote Villeneuve, "[�] like when you were a kid on the school bus on a
rainy day and you'd dream while looking [out the window] at the clouds � that kind of
atmosphere".
And a major influence on Arrival's very raw and naturalistic look for cinematographer
Bradford Young was the work of Scandinavian photographer Martina Hoogland Ivanow, especially
the subdued and mysterious quality of her exhibition and book 'Speedway'.
The film we see today is very different than it was originally going to be as its whole
structure was changed in post-production.
According to Villeneuve, while the original screenplay made sense on paper, the visual
medium of cinema made telling a non-linear story with a twist like Arrival much more
challenging.
And when the director got into the editing room, he realised that if he told the film
exactly as it was in the script, its structure wouldn't be dynamic enough, it would feel
repetitive in places, and there would be some discrepancies within the characters.
Fortunately, Arrival's editor Joe Walker came to the rescue and suggested restructuring
the footage they'd shot in a less linear fashion, which also means that the very structure of
the film now reflects some of the movie's main themes.
One of the only Hollywood Studios that showed any interest in making Arrival when the script
was initially pitched to them, actually wanted a male protagonist to replace the film's central
character, linguist Dr Louise Banks, who, by the way, is also the lead in the short
story the film's based on.
However, the movie's producers stuck to their guns and financed the film independently,
and later with Amy Adams attached, they sold the rights to distribute the film in North
America to Paramount for a record sum of $20 million at Cannes Film Festival in 2014.
Interestingly enough, before the role of Dr Banks in Arrival came along, Adams had been
planning to take some time away from making movies and just hang out with her family,
however, when she read the screenplay, she fell in love with the story, and the opportunity
to work with Denis Villeneuve was also too much of a draw to turn it down.
Originally, the film was named after Ted Chiang's short story, but director Denis Villeneuve
decided to change the film's title from Story of Your Life because he felt audiences would
think the film was a rom-com rather than a sci-fi movie, and because he believed they'd
moved away from the short story's focus.
Indeed, to increase the film's drama and tension, the screenplay made some significant changes
to the original tale, for example, the script added global conflict by having the aliens
arrive in a dozen locations on Earth, which in turn kicked off a ticking-clock scenario.
In the end, after considering hundreds of potential titles, the filmmakers settled on
the very first title they thought of: "Arrival".
Now, I'd love to know your favourite moment in Arrival and how you think the film compares
with your favourite sci-fi movies.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Plus, if you'd like to talk about the film in more detail, I've got a full spoilery analysis
in my Arrival Explained video which you can check out in the link to the left.
And if you're a sci-fi fan, you might also like my Interstellar video with 15 cool facts
about the making of that movie.
You can watch that by clicking over there on the right.
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Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!