"Cloud Atlas" production notes [PDF] - VisualHollywood

CLOUD ATLAS (2012) PRODUCTION NOTES
later, the city's famous Walter Scott Monument served as his retreat and the place where he last sees
the love of his life. The 200-foot monument, heretofore never closed to the public for filming,
granted "Cloud Atlas" two days' access so cameras and equipment could be hoisted up to the viewing
platform by crane rather than via its narrow spiral staircase.
For Ayrs' stately manor where Frobisher seeks employment, Tykwer and production designer Uli
Hanisch joined the locations team in scouting the Scottish countryside to find the privately owned
Overtoun House in West Dunbartonshire. It would serve not only as Ayrs' home in 1936, but appear
re-dressed as the nightmarish Aurora Country Estates where Cavendish is incarcerated in 2012.
"We have nearly 80 years between them so the trees and garden would be different. The strategy
was to add things like foliage for the earlier time that we could then remove for the plainer exterior,
decades later," notes Hanisch. To further suit the Cavendish scenes they added a conservatory and a
formidable front gate.
Symbolically, Tykwer suggests, "It was once the chateau where Ayrs, the elderly composer, tries to
imprison young Frobisher, and then a lifetime later it's him, reborn as Cavendish, who finds himself
imprisoned in the place where he used to be the warden."
It was determined in the film's conceptual stages that certain spaces should likewise be repeated
from one part of the story to another. "We wanted to be flexible, however," states Hanisch. "Sometimes
it's the real place, sometimes just a hint. Our starting point was Ewing's cabin under the deck
of the ship, and we recreated the shape of this room throughout: Cavendish's office, Luisa Rey's
apartment, Frobisher's room in Ayrs' mansion, Sonmi's safe house and Zachry's hut."
Thus, the interior of Ayrs' opulent musical salon, built on a soundstage, became the Aurora Country
Estates' depressing dining room. The restaurant where Sonmi works, which Bateup designed, boasts
a cheerful, brightly lit, virtual atmosphere for consumers to enjoy, but after-hours reveals its grey
cavernous reality. "We had to invent a consumer society of 2144 and imagine what a fast-food restaurant
would look like. Lana and Andy have definite ideas about how they see these periods so we
tossed around ideas and eventually came up with the Sonmi world," he says. After filming wrapped
for those scenes, the space was repurposed in black, white and red as the rooftop venue for Cavendish's
book reception, where a massive aquarium pays homage to the virtual fish pond of the restaurant's
floor.
The designers also established reappearing elements such as trains and bridges that figure in Frobisher's,
Cavendish's, Luisa Rey's and Zachry's storylines. Egg-shaped objects also recur, from the
toys in the factory that Luisa Rey runs through in San Francisco to the restaurant seats and the recording
device of Sonmi's archivist.
"We wanted our depictions of each era to be clear so there's no question whether it's the 1930s or
the 1840s," says Hanisch. "At the same time, visual cues and recycled spaces reinforce the idea of
connections and the continuity of a single story."
Also responsible for the film's lush and seamless look were cinematographers John Toll and Frank
Griebe. "The principal visual design elements were in place when we came onto the film," notes
Toll. "One major goal of the cinematography was to blend the look of the individual sequences that
spanned 500 years to create an overlapping and rich dramatic feel for the entire story, but not necessarily
by trying to create one specific and detailed look for the whole film. Basically, this meant a
visual approach that was appropriate to each chapter while still maintaining a sense of continuity
throughout."
© 2012 Warner Bros. Pictures 16