Arrival (2016 Film)

Production

Development and pre-production

The film was the brainchild of screenwriter Eric Heisserer conceived in order to popularize the works of Ted Chiang.

Arrival is based on the Nebula-winning 1998 science fiction novella "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. The novella involves Earth's first communication with heptapods who speak in a cryptic language. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer had been introduced to the story through another of Chiang's stories, "Understand", and had begun reading Chiang's collected works when "Story of Your Life" had a "profound emotional effect" on him. As a result, he tried to adapt the story into a film script as he wanted to share it with a wider audience.[11] After writing an initial spec script, Heisserer pitched it to production companies for several years without receiving any interest and nearly gave up on the project.[12] Heisserer believes it was not until he had successfully completed and produced 2013's Hours that others took interest in his work, his having proved himself capable.[11] Eventually, Dan Levine and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps Entertainment expressed interest in Heisserer's script. Shawn Levy of 21 Laps said they had become aware of "Story of Your Life" around 2011 and considered it a powerful work; when they learned of Heisserer's script adaptation, they started working closely with him, helping him refine the script before they began seeking a director and distribution studio.[13]

Director Denis Villeneuve had been seeking out a science fiction film to make prior to being approached to direct.

One of the directors that 21 Laps approached was Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve had wanted to make a science fiction film for some time, although he "never found the right thing".[14] Cohen and Levine introduced Villeneuve to the novella, which he immediately took to, although his work on Prisoners meant that he did not have the time to properly adapt it into a screenplay with Heisserer.[14] Heisserer completed a first draft, which he and Villeneuve reworked into the final script.[14] Villeneuve changed the title, as he felt the original sounded like a romantic comedy and that the script had become very different from the short story.[14] While Villeneuve went through "hundreds" of possible titles, Arrival was the first one his team of producers and writers had suggested.[14]

Heisserer made several changes to "Story of Your Life" between writing his original screenplays and the final script, the main one being that the heptapods actually arrived on Earth in a type of first contact situation, as he felt this helped to create the tension and conflict needed for a film.[11] Heisserer said that earlier versions of the script had a different ending: the gift from the heptapods was to have been "blueprints to an interstellar ship, like an ark of sorts", to enable humanity to help them in 3,000 years. But after the release of Interstellar in 2014, Heisserer and Villeneuve agreed that this would not work, and decided that the heptapods' gift would be what was "there in front of us ... the power of their language".[15]

Amy Adams entered negotiations to star in the film in April 2014,[16] and was confirmed by the time Jeremy Renner joined the film in March 2015.[17] Forest Whitaker signed on in April, with Michael Stuhlbarg joining in June.[18][19] Adams consulted with linguist Jessica Coon to prepare for her role.[20]

Filming

The municipality of Saint-Fabien, Quebec doubled for the state of Montana.

Principal photography lasted for 56 days, beginning on June 7, 2015, after Renner had fulfilled his obligations to Captain America: Civil War.[17] Filming was done mainly in and around Montreal, Quebec, with Saint-Fabien serving as Montana.[21][22] The team took some time to find the right site to represent the landing of the spacecraft because producers wanted to avoid a mountainous site that might dwarf the scale of the ship, but thought a barren location would be cliché.[23] Most of the filming that did not involve the exterior of a ship was done indoors on sound stages, although a real house in Chemin de l'Île, Vaudreuil-Dorion, was used as Banks's home.[23][24] The scenes of the university where Banks teaches were shot on the main campus of Université de Montréal, including HEC Montréal's auditorium and cafeteria.[25] Bradford Young was sought out by Villeneuve as he was looking for a cinematographer with a sensibility toward natural lighting. Said Villeneuve: "I wanted the movie to have strong roots in realism. I wanted a cinematographer who would not be afraid to deal with intimacy. It's a very specific sensibility that I felt in Bradford's previous work."[26] Color timing was used as a means of matching Louise's state of mind at a given moment. Young said, "I went for cooler colors when I wanted Amy to feel worn down. We tried to pull back on that a little bit, but then Denis stopped me in the [color timing] and told me not to be so concerned about skin tone and let her be pasty, let her exist in that melancholy space, let us feel that visually."[27] When discussing the film with Villeneuve, Young described the director's goal of making a "dirty" science fiction film by making it look more grounded and "slightly boring", as Villeneuve put it. Young also used the book Speedway by photographer Martina Hoogland Ivanow as a reference for the film's look.[28]

Visual effects

Production designer Patrice Vermette discussed the film in a February 2017 interview with Popular Mechanics, saying that a big influence on the film's look was the works of James Turrell, particularly the design of the meeting room aboard the alien craft. "I wanted the simplicity and the sensorial experience you feel in a room like that. That big screen was always there in the script, and I used it as an element to unite Louise's world. For me, that big screen is more than a screen—that room, which they called in the script 'the interview room,' is a classroom. That big white screen, [you see it] represented in Louise's house with the big window. You also see it in her school, in her classroom."[29]

Rodeo FX completed 60 visual shots for the film, and said that its biggest challenge was the sequence in which Louise and Ian first enter the alien craft.[30]

The asteroid 15 Eunomia is the inspiration for the look of the heptapod ships.[31]

Linguistics

Both the book and the screenwriting required the invention of a form of alien linguistics which recurs in the plot. The film uses a script designed by the artist Martine Bertrand (wife of the production designer Patrice Vermette), based on scriptwriter Heisserer's original concept. Computer scientists Stephen and Christopher Wolfram analyzed it to provide the basis for Banks's work in the film.[32][33] Their works are summarized in a GitHub repository.[34] Three linguists from McGill University were consulted. The sound files for the alien language were created with consultation from Morgan Sonderegger, a phonetics expert. Lisa Travis was consulted for set design during the construction of the scientist's workplaces. Jessica Coon, a Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages, was consulted for her linguistics expertise during the review of the script.[35] Heisserer said at the Alamo Drafthouse's Fantastic Fest premiere of Arrival at the end of September 2016[36] that Shang's wife's last words, translated into English, were "In war, there are no winners, only widows".[37] Villeneuve decided not to include subtitles for the line; Heisserer said he would have preferred it not be kept secret, and was happy to reveal the translation.[38]

Music and soundtrack

Jóhann Jóhannsson began writing the score as the shooting started, drawing on the screenplay and concept art for inspiration. He developed one of the main themes in the first week using vocals and experimental piano loops.[39] The original soundtrack was released by Deutsche Grammophon on November 11, 2016.[40]

Max Richter's preexisting piece "On the Nature of Daylight" is featured in the film's opening and closing scenes. Due to the prominent use of Richter's music, which had also featured in Martin Scorsese's film Shutter Island, Jóhannsson's score was deemed ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the rationale being that voters would be influenced by the use of preexisting music when judging its merits.[41]


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