Chapter 8. Valkyrie
CREATION OF PERIOD GRAPHIC PROPS from THE 1940'S for International feature film directed by Bryan Singer.
“Long live sacred Germany!”
Project Description
SYNOPSIS
At the turning point of World War II, German generals (Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson) and politicians plot a desperate and daring plan to overturn the Nazi regime before the near-inevitable defeat. The mastermind behind this elaborate plan, known as ‘Operation Valkyrie’ is Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) – a loyal soldier to the Reich but secret recruit of the German resistance movement. He has access to the inner workings of the government and military, putting them in perfect position to assassinate the Führer and seize control of Berlin. As the plan is put into action a combination of bad luck and human failure conspire against the unlikely heroes.
The movie was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, United Artists, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Cruise/Wagner Productions, Studio Babelsberg and is property of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and 20th Century Fox.
Project Details
THE TEAM
On behalf of Schein Berlin, in close collaboration with calligraphy artist Jan Jericho, production designers Lilly Kilvert and Patrick Lumb and the film crew working directly for director Bryan Singer.
ESSENTIAL ROLE
Together with Jan Jericho, Liliana was responsible for the creation of hero props (please see visuals). In addition, she was in charge of providing all decorative elements, which were necessary to establish the sets.
DATE | DURATION
Completed in 6 month (May 2007 till October 2007)
MILESTONES | HIGHLIGHTS
Working with Jan was a major opportunity for Liliana, not only for the fact that their personalities and skills complemented each other; also, he had acquired film experience before, which helped her incredibly to focus on what’s relevant and stay in line with the vision on what to deliver. His attention to details, his work ethics, and approach on how to tackle design problems were inspirational, and truly set milestones, which Liliana considers significant and beneficial knowledge for her further career. Jan also made her aware of her passion to the aging of materials in order to create props that help to give the audience the real feeling of what a graphic design piece from the past looks like.
LEARNINGS | FALLBACKS
In order to give the project her full attention, as well as keeping up with the amount of work, Liliana’s most important learnings were finding the balance between feeling overall responsible and letting others take over to safeguard deadlines when the limit of capacity is reached, as well as equalizing the pressure of performing in the best possible manner for long, intense periods of time versus essential personal needs.
Because there are so many different departments involved in a film production process, responsibilities of tasks can overlap and depending on specific requirements the workload can be logically shared. The natural way of dealing with it is that departments start discussing who takes on what. Liliana needed to develop a fundamental understanding how much to take on while still ensuring to deliver on time, with care and within her own quality standards.
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Jan Jericho (Calligraphic Art)
Daniel Porsdorf (Photographs)
