This, this Volume technology, is the beginning of a new era of visual effects. No, we just forget them immediately. So with every project we did, we, we always had that in mind that one day we want to reach a global audience., After the 2014 film Who Am I No System Is Safe, a techno thriller thats been compared to Fight Club and Mr. The ultimate example of that is Season 2s epic revelation that police chief Charlottes (Karoline Eichhorn) mother is actually her daughter Elisabeth (Carlotta von Falkenhayn) through more time travel shenanigans. Were going to see a bit more about grown Ulrich, she said. Insane. Stuff like that always happens. She also doesnt want viewers to expect to learn everything when the show ends. It's Me, Margaret' to 'R.M.N.' In talking about a mirror world, though, we wanted to use that trick and actually mirror the images. Everything happens constantly in loops. "We started in Season 2 to outsource my brain, so to say," Friese explained in a Zoom interview. We dont think theres only one answer to a thing. I think we we focused on the stuff where we just personally felt it adds to the overall mystery and we need to deliver the ending. I love that theres so much fan fiction out there. If youre in that core group, and youve figured it out, you should be proud of yourself, its an awesome experience. It was really fun. There are all of these images, and even in dialogue, hints that give it away. Published Jan 26, 2023 There was much more to untangled in the criminally cancelled show. I had phonetic scripts, and I was constantly looking at the monitor and reading along, trying to follow the dialogue, which is hard in French, because theyre so fast, and is super hard in Cantonese, because that language feels like its from some other world. A lot went down between the lifelong friends like, a lot. Dark only really got complicated in seasons two and three. They said the most complicated thing was actually the logistics, scheduling when you can shoot what, how to get sets in and out and the reverse shots, all those sorts of things. When you write, how do you plot things out? The entire first season was filmed at the Dark Bay LED studio on the Studio Babelsberg lot outside Berlin. I went out with my large format camera and I was taking pictures of those locations like a fan. 1899s full eight-episode first season streams on Netflix starting Thursday. Of course, thats just a tiny part of the hook of Season 3s new alternate reality, one in which Marthas younger brother never travels back in time and never becomes Jonas father. Just even her wearing the yellow raincoat in the costume test was really weird. Friese: I think its a relief for them compared to green screen, just because you can actually look at something. But it also means props-wise, you have to change a lot of things like books and bookshelves. You just trying to be flexible, to really allow the process to surprise you while youre going through it, but still kind of knowing where youre sailing to. If a door was on the left side, it would then be on the right side in the other world. Here are all these hints who will figure out [what] at what moment? So theres always a tone in the end, which all mean something different. 'Dark' final season: here's what happens at the end of the Netflix time travel thriller. "We've dedicated our past years to deciphering human behavior and trying to find out why people also do very bad things. These meet-cutes will bring on all the feels. We wanted to have this beautiful mix of voices and languages." When we started, it was about what is the next step? Can we change anything? We put a dot, wait a little, and then we put a question mark at the end. There are so many ideas and concepts out in the world, said Friese. How much room do you give for people trying to figure it out and when do you push them into the right direction? Wheres he going? According to Friese, creating the mythology of one of their shows is a long, painstaking process. Also for [Lisa] because it was so iconic for Jonas as his character. Why set it at the end of the 19th century? Those were a key reference. One frustrating mystery that still hasnt been answered over the course of the first two seasons is what happened to Torben Wllers eye. "When I read it, I was like, 'I finally got it!' It was such an interesting time, that, unfortunately, was the build-up for a lot of terrible things that happened afterwards: With the First World War and then the Second World War, as people entered a new century, there was a lot of hope, but also a lot of fear, regarding new ideas and older ideas the old world versus the new world. When it came time for Martha (Lisa Vicari) to take on some of the some iconography that in previous seasons was associated with Jonas (Louis Hofmann), that exchange between the two main characters made for a moment that forced them and series co-creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar to recalibrate a little. Sign up here for our weekly Streamail newsletter to get streaming recommendations delivered straight to your inbox. I need 360 degrees. Thats when the idea came to use a turntable so you can swap things in easily. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! We already have ideas for a second and third season on 1899, and it gets complicated. We werent 100 percent convinced that we would get people [away] from the second screen and actually take the time and investment to watch whats going on. ", Someone at Netflix mentioned the volume tech, and Odar and Friese were very impressed by how it looked. ", If all goes according to plan, fans have many more episodes to look forward to. Some of it, we knew. ", Friese says she was bothered by this for the first few months actively working on the scripts for 1899, but, "At some point, we just said, 'Let's shake it off.' When you work with time travel, you basically have to decide on one concept. Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, and director Rob Marshall share the tale behind making their underwater musical with a groundbreaking Disney princess. Just opening Final Draft took like five minutes because of all those script notes. What other Easter eggs did you plant throughout the season? We said, this is a determined world, or it's based on determinism. And they love that show! A mysterious journey unfolds for a group of London migrs as they sail toward New York. Succession Reveals Logan Roys Successor: Who Is in Charge of Waystar Royco? Very simple things like opening a door, you have to do it with your left hand. The 225 Best Horror Movies of All Time 2023 Emmys Predictions: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie, We actually mirrored all the images that take place in a mirrored world, which means you mirror the sets. Friese:There are always three key elements. It's really awkward for us, this huge success, we always question it. Was this scene always part of the plan or was it something that developed in the writing? Friese: We didnt want to copy exactly the way we structured things inDark. And then you try to find ways to incorporate it throughout the story.". Did the actors all know about the ending? There was something fascinating about exactly that moment in time. All these hints subconsciously or consciously trigger something in your head. For Louis, being on set and shes entering the room with his jacket, the first reaction was like, Give me back my jacket! The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We thought: We really want to take a look at Europe, just take it, put it on a ship, in a confined space, with lots of ocean around, where you cant escape, and have like a little bit of an experiment, almost like a laboratory experiment. ", Odar mentioned that it was a children's book on quantum physics that finally made it all make sense to him sort of. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day, Inside the business of TV with breaking news, expert analysis and showrunner interviews. So it is truly a beast of its own, but shares a lot of the same maybe mechanisms as Dark does. It's all rooted in one core idea. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, 'Dark': Season 2's Insane Ending and All the Burning Questions Season 3 Needs to Answer, Dark: Here Are 8 Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed Amidst All Those Time Travel Shenanigans, The Best 36 LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now, The 25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of This Century, Adult Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) and Elderly Ulrich (Winfried Glatzeder). ", "There is a lot in the DNA that is kind of close to Dark in terms of the puzzle and needing an engaged active audience," Friese says. What were some of the touchstones you used when designing the series? The international cast worked on one of the biggest virtual stages in the world. The triquetra and things coming in three is one of them. Especially working on Cantonese was interesting, because they structure the language completely differently. Friese compared it to the Season 1 episode that first travels to the 1950s and the Season 2 episode that revisits the day of Michael's death. bo Odar: We always think any piece of pop culture should be a reference to some other element of pop culture. I think what was the most surprising thing was that there are actually some words that you cannot translate into certain languages, or they have a different feeling or nuance to it. For example the room number 1011 is binary code. The two resulting timelines are more than just metaphorical reflections of each other. In the development process we never thought of it as [just] a German show. We also decided to shoot that scene on the very, very last shooting day. When Netflix was looking for the first German show, there were two things happening. It feels quite right and satisfactory. Even after watching it, there is no such thing as a cursory consideration of its events; each and every character who lives in the fictional town of Winden, Germany is greatly impacted by one another, whether its because someone is secretly someone elses time-traveling father or, weirder still, their own time-traveling granddaughter. I think 95 percent of the shots are handheld to make it feel alive and wild. See how the filmmakers used Volume to create a story at sea. First time filming in new cutting edge LED-Volume at Babelsberg Studios. It isnt just a big green screen where you have to imagine a ship in your head, but you actually see the waves, you actually see the ship. Two weeks after the release of Season 1, I was on Twitter honestly 24 hours a day. That relates to everything. 2023 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. We planted it everywhere, but no one saw it yet. [The German meaning is closer to unlikely to succeed.] When we got the notes back from Netflix on Dark, they said: Such an ambitious project. We thought they hated it. Michael (Sebastian Rudolph) is Michael. People write stories about the relationships between Aleksander and Regina, and stuff like that. It's just the camera trick. who wrote the triquetra notebook? I used the wrong hand! (Laughs.) Thats where character development goes. But that simple trick, listening to the music rather than trying to follow the words, that helped me a lot. And then we try to find a world of symbols that all ties into our theme," she says. There are actually two things. InDark, we wanted the images to be almost like still photography, which is why we have these very blocked shots, very much like photos. It just gets complicated when you try to figure out what comes first.". So, as I said, we learned a lot. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the German creators of buzzy cult series Dark and 1899, have been tapped to develop a series. "Slowly you build your own mythology and set of rules. Netflix series 1899 was shot entirely on a virtual LED Volume production stage at Studio Babelsberg. Then you have the world of origin in the middle. I think its great. Sometimes its just a table or a column in the dining room, or in a landscape, maybe a hill, to create depth. Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Are You There God? Friese: When we started to research games, simulations, constructing virtual realities, [we learned] the way that content is created is that you use tetrahedron structures to basically build everything. What kind of trigger words do you use? But the biggest challenge was actually for actors to play everything in a mirrored way. Writing is really about going back and forth between all three of them. It would have felt like selling our souls and not delivering on what we wanted to do [if we had more seasons]. As you know with Dark, you dont have the straightforward narrative where you can go from one thing to the next. Make sure to check outEW's Fall TV Preview cover story as well as all of our2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29. We asked creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar as many of those questions as we could. Its just a nice nuance with which to end. [This story contains major spoilers for the final season of Netflixs Dark.]. Whats this all about? So, but Im not going to tell you whether were going to or not.. We always knew we wanted to save Regina. Dark is a show that certainly invites a certain kind of theorizing. If you're ready, you can also read our series finale recap and explainer. I mean, we're always mixing genres, but the DNA is not per se a horror show.". "But there are also things that are quite different in terms of atmosphere and tonality, but also pacing and more action-y stuff happening. When we arrive at the start of Season 3, the big twist of Season 1 that main character Jonas Kahnwald is actually the son of Mikkel, the young boy who mysteriously vanished from 2019 and somehow ended up 33 years in the past seem quaint by comparison. Season 2 ended with Jonas being whisked away to another world, possibly another dimension by a version of his now-dead girlfriend Martha (Lisa Vicari). "Because in their arc, the narrative is straightforward. When we got to the second season, we changed it again. Do you already have the world of 1899 built out in your mind for the potential next two seasons? Its like it was with the dinosaurs inJurassic Park. That was very fun. Jonas and Martha sacrifice themselves and their own worlds in order to stop the loop and save the origin world. Its the same with Blade Runner, and how there are still people thinking Harrison Ford is not a replicant; where Im thinking, How can you think hes not a replicant? Thats the beauty of that story, that theres a question amrk. We wanted to be fair and just to each of the characters, but obviously some of the endings needed to be cut out or just arranged in a different way, Friese said. "We worked on a database where every scene is broken down under certain circumstances. How did the script work did you write in German and then have things translated? If they are right-handed, they had to act with their left-hand, though it would appear as though they are right-handed. "We do love challenges," Odar says with a laugh. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Are You There God? And then something thats quite important for series, especially compared to movies, is the whole world-building process. Thats the fun of it. I love challenges, and I get bored very easily, even on set. Dark Season 1 and 2 are currently streaming on Netflix. bo Odar:Another good example is the word ambitious. And we're just waiting for the moment where someone shows up and says, 'April Fool's! As for fans of. It was originally a photo that we found. The treasure hunt is just getting started. "We prepped a year to get there, because it is a beast that you have to understand. In other [projects] weve done before, we dont like to end on a dot. Odar promises another "very interesting, weird theme" to 1899, but can't reveal what it is. The 25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of This Century, According to Variety, about 90 percent of Darks audience comes from outside of Germany, and after the release of Season 1 in December 2017, Parrot Analytics noted that the show actually increased its viewership in its second week, mimicking the word-of-mouth viewership success of Stranger Things and Maniac., Its something you hope for, but it actually hit us really hard, said Friese. One was we didnt want to do it and we were kind of pressured into it. ", Triangular symbols, such as those used in alchemy to denote the four elements, have popped up in the promo materials for the show so far. I always loved that idea. Poguelandia is not quite the paradise the Pogues hoped. Then you start putting characters into that idea, but they might feel a bit one-dimensional, so you get some ideas for the plot and you work it in. It was really challenging for us in the third season to establish another world with maybe even other timelines, too. How difficult was it to interact with the actors when youre performing in a language you dont understand? But you can create huge worlds with it." In constructing the visual representation of that Season 3 idea, Odar wanted to flip things literally, too. Hannah reveals shes thinking about Jonas as a name for her unborn child. You dont need to see it on screen. We said from the start that1899should not look likeTitanic. We were actually really afraid of what was going on. But usually, its the theme that starts the whole process. Old Ines (Angela Winkler) in actual life has a mole, so you put that on younger Ines when you tried to make them match.. That was the thing Claudia wanted to achieve. There were a lot of [directions] we knew we wanted to go, but didnt necessarily know at which points in the narration we would address them. Thats why, for me, its a very happy ending, even though it feels very sad. Thats what triggered the process. And I think, especially as a filmmaker, you love creating illusion. It takes 60 seconds to spin and its a huge turntable. There was something fascinating about exactly that moment in time. One of the most challenging roles to cast was the nurse Ines who actually adopts Mikkel when he travels back to 1986. At the same time, the refugee crisis was happening in Europe [around 2015/2016] and it was a very unstable phase. But I honestly believe that the contrary is true, Friese said. With that being said, is there still a story to tell in the universe of Dark, or do you feel closed at this point? Its not every word but you learn how a language sounds and, especially if you do a lot of takes, you get really used to it. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. You see Adam blowing wind on the one world, and on the other, you see Eva blowing wind on the other world. So you didnt have to really change the way that youre shooting; you can do the shot and the reverse shot in one day, which was really helpful. Thats the beauty of storytelling. One may be desperate to see the world the duo has created for 1899, the teams new Netflix series, but could also be slightly worried their brain might not be able to handle it. Friese: I completely agree. You can follow the Back to the Future kind of way where you can actually change stuff in the past that will affect the future which with my very personal more deterministic view of the world is nonsense, said Friese. "We hate green screen, always did. Teases Friese, "There's definitely a core theme in the center of 1899, as well, and it's basically looking at that core theme through a narrative, but it's not time travel. Could bruiseless avocados, sugarcane plastic and carbon-capturing concrete actually exist in real life? It creates such a powerful illusion that, in the beginning, the crew and actors were actually getting seasick because the horizon was moving on the volume screen. I have an answer, but its very personal. Science and religion clashed a lot. Its really mind-opening and I personally still read stuff and Im really blown away. She is a writer and producer, known for Dark (2017), Who Am I (2014) and 1899 (2022). When the crew decides to board the Prometheus, things take a horrific, and decidedly weird, turn. That was the biggest structural issue: when do we reveal what? It just looked pretty. Some of it was something that we developed throughout the process. Netflix was even kind enough to share a 10-minute catch-up video in the week ahead of the final season's release. He almost reveals what happens before hes interrupted. After that, it goes straight to the computer. They always knew where it would go, but they recently watched the last episode in the cinema and they were like, oh my God!, Odar: We dont play with the audience and treat them as fools and idiots; rather, the opposite.