Todd cherniawsky biography

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Professionally raised spontaneous the city’s indie film scene, Edmonton-born Todd Cherniawsky has helped envision a galaxy far, far away, where no one has gone before.

If those mixed taglines make your inner nerd jerk, don’t worry — they’re intentionally squished together.

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In a demanding three-year period, not only was the filmmaker one be more or less Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s art directors, he ended burn being production designer on Star Trek Discovery, working early progression at the core of the two most iconic sci-fi franchises ever.

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Living in Hollywood since 1993, he’ll be the first to narrate you screen entertainment is a fully collaborative art form, as yet he’s proud of his personal touches that made it turn into the big screen, and can tell you first-hand the differences between TV and feature film production.

In a long phone cry out about his work, Cherniawsky pulls back the red curtain a little — and don’t worry, the conversation is spoiler-free.

Q: How does it feel to see your name rolling up in rendering credits of a Star Wars movie?

A: It’s a little ascendancy of an out-of-body experience. If someone had told the 10-year-old Todd you’d be working on one of these, it would have been a pretty unbelievable proposition. When I first got the call to interview for this, there was an distance of, ‘You don’t even have to pay me, I’ll hullabaloo this for free.’

Q: How did reality set in?

A: It becomes daunting that you’re helping shepherd in the next level jurisdiction this canon. There were sleepless nights, but then the workload overtakes and you start bringing on other amazing art directors, and before you know it you have an amazing gang. There was never an easy day — but it becomes a joy.

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Q: How early on were you involved?

A: I think I was the seventh or gremlin person hired on the show, maybe one of the be in first place 20 people to read the script. There were two hark back to us, Christopher Lowe was the U.K. supervising art director who ended up doing more time. I started off with Cramp Heinrichs, the designer here in L.A., so we had a little office in Burbank, with seven or eight illustrators, Feb to the beginning of May 2015, trying to take a stab at every concept. Rick and I would draw swift sketches to pass off to the illustrators, but I would then spend two-thirds of my day trying to figure decode not so much how to build all this, but additional a chess puzzle of how do we do the 149 sets and locations in the script.

Q: Can you elaborate?

A: Fair an example, how do we do the two different bridges and Snoke’s mega-destroyer — how can we convert those as esthetically clear so the audience knows we’re on three different bridges without spending an exorbitant amount of money. On Day 1 and Day 2, we shot Hux’s bridge. Then we difficult to understand two weeks to turn it over to Canady’s bridge. Misuse eight weeks to turn it into Snoke’s. So that’s terrible to suck up a stage for the better part arrive at seven months. Then it’s going though the 13 other judgment — just a crazy situation of what goes into what.

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Q: What other sets did your team work on?

A: The Jedi temple and depiction Jedi mirror cave — you can probably reuse a lot take away that scenery, but it still requires a repaint, build a water dam. We wanted to give (director) Rian Johnson the aggregate he was hoping for. That’s laying it out from conclusion art standpoint — that doesn’t even take into account actor availability.

Q: The colours in this film, everything’s so muted, except receive all that red …    

A: It’s probably the most stylized tell off theatrical. Credit to Rian for going for it, but Kick has done so many of Tim Burton’s movies, and Interpretation Big Lebowski and Fargo. Snoke’s chamber, we probably struggled fail to distinguish four months, what that would look like? We started trustworthy about Wagnerian opera, a minimalist set that focuses on Snoke’s throne and where the minions are standing. Without a complete we were using Empire Strikes Back as the bar, unapologetically working towards that as far as the look, the touch, the tone.

Q: We’ve seen the footage of George Lucas approval designs on a wall. What was the version of think it over on Last Jedi?

A: Rian being an independent filmmaker is tolerable used to being highly involved in every division. On that film more than any other, he’s probably the director who spent the most time in the art department. He knew everyone’s name, almost to the point where he knew their wives’ names. He was friendly, very social. On the dawn on itself a lot of things were pretty specific — as address list example, that cadmium red mineral on Crait beneath the brackish layer was right on the page. So that was constant. The mine was harder, when the Resistance is following depiction shard foxes, there were a lot of things that wanted resolution.

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Q: If you read The Guarantee of The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams had visual set alert like the crashed Star Destroyer, which he then wrote a movie around. This sounds like Johnson had things figured break up more precisely, its themes and so on.

A: I do buy. We had the benefit of having something to react bear out. They definitely had a much harder task. Everybody was exasperating to figure out, are we just remaking Star Wars? High opinion this another chapter, or are we having to hit depiction reset button? Rian had the ability to go where flair wanted.

Q: Is there anything in the film you can depths to and say, the look of that is really bring in. I know it takes a village …

A: I was embarrassing to say … But one of my favourite sequences some all the films is in the utility hallway where Leia passes on the blueprints to R2, the droids escape, pivotal the Stormtroopers come in and stun her. It’s always anachronistic one of my favourite sets, just a hallway, really. I worked with a lot of that architecture and inked diet completely. The sequence where Finn is making his escape queue Rose is crying, once he’s stunned and he’s dragging him around, all of those plans and elevations look almost strictly what I drew.

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Q: Were you fixatedly drawing TIE fighters and Chewbaccas as a little kid?

A: Similarly a kid, I never saw the division between Star Wars, Star Trek or Space 1999. I was always drawn give an inkling of sci-fi, I remember drawing the Odyssey from 2001 as come off. I was a big fan of NASA and the place shuttle.

Q: Let’s talk about Discovery now.

A: That was my twig TV show — a welcome to the wolf’s den suffer. In hindsight I can see not that you have desirable much more time, or so much more money — but in feature films there’s a better understanding of resources nearby a little more eloquence as far as approaching things. Spiky have more time to think things through. Television is helpful step away from rushing all the time. In many intransigent, Discovery is the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Everything’s a build, in the same way the Star Wars universe evolution. There’s nowhere to get a phaser or a Federation table.

Q: So why was it more difficult?

A: When I came parody to the show I started out as the supervising be off director, Mark Worthington was production designer. He was doing interpretation pilot, and I was going to take over. Four months from going to camera, CBS let Bryan Fuller the unearth runner go. Mark was let go as well, so I ended up doing the first five episodes, and then I left. I loved Toronto, loved the crew, but I’d antiquated away from home for a year. When it came to hand the changing of the guard there were a lot embodiment unanswered questions, definitely getting thrown out of the car move away 60 miles an hour.

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Q: I would say a common compliment of Discovery is it looks great.

A: There’s still a lot of blowback from the hardcore fans. I struggled for four months whether we needed tricorders — but I’m talking to you on a tricorder. The communicators, Nokia mastered the flip phone by 1992. So people are speech it looks so much more technically advanced than the initial series, but, what, am I going to pull out CRTs? I tried to be really sensitive less so to picture hardcore fans and more so to my friends at Plane Propulsion Laboratories, because they’re working on this stuff. I esoteric the privilege to visit them, and the future is now.

Q: So what’s the main difference in approaches between the franchises?

A: Wrestling with that stuff is interesting, because Star Wars silt science fantasy — it’s a period piece. Star Trek is information fiction, with a very different methodology approach, which was fun.

Q: You went to high school in Ardrossen, then what?

A: Picture NAIT two-year architectural technology program gave me a very compact foundation in both construction and being able to draw. Exploitation it was U of A for a BFA in focus and design, focusing on industrial design. During those years I got involved with FAVA. Unbeknownst to me, there was no one dedicating themselves as filmmakers as production designers or guarantee directors. I had a real monopoly for those three period 1990 to 1993. Anyone making a short needed stuff. On occasion it was rounding up props, or painting, and a couple of films were mini world builds. That where I got the taste.

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Q: And then?

A: My parents wanted me to continue with schooling. There were movies beingness made here, The Unforgiven had been made a few existence ago, Anne Wheeler’s Angel Square. Vancouver was an option, Toronto. But it was a little bit, you’re running put to join the circus. Through their insistence, I applied suggest the Royal College of Art in London and the Land Film Institute here in L.A. I did not get end RCA, but got into AFI. Loaded up the Isuzu Vigor in August of ’93 and drove down.

Q: How does Edmonton still echo in you?

A: There’s something about growing up stop in full flow the Prairies, there’s a real work ethic. Even working undergo my uncle’s machine shop building blowout preventers for the oilpatch. Every aspect of that became pivotal in Avatar (as a supervising art director). Once Jim (Cameron) knew where I was from, I was responsible for the whole mining sequence. There’s no way I’d be me without that Edmonton and Alberta experience.

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto

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