Designing The Last Airbender
August 20th, 2010 | 
Category: Movie | 
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Designing “The Last Airbender”
The design transformation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series into feature film began in November 2007, when executive producers (and series co-creators) DiMartino and Konietzko handed over all of their sketches and designs from the show to production designer Philip Messina. In seeking to blow up this world from the small screen to the big, Messina and his art department began gathering references. Looking at everthing from travel and history magazines, to sociology journals, to tomes dedicated to dead languages, they slowly began to complile a bible of their own concept illustrations. From China to North Africa to India, even Medieval times, Messina ruled nothing out to inspire him during the design process. Later, Messina’s original conceptual art for every set stood as the ultimate reference throughout production.
Messina, who worked with Shyamalan as an art director on “The Sixth Sense,” says, “I had to think of what the communities of each nation were like. From the perished Air Nomads, to the grandeur of the Northern Water Tribe, versus the Earth Villagers who were more organic, to the industrialized Fire Nation. Designing the nations were like four pieces to a puzzle. Every time I changed one of them, it affected the other. I wanted to do them in concert with each other, and make them feel coherent, yet uniquely different.”
A year prior to filming, Messina was ready to build with a full art department and construction department of more than 250 artisans. The production designer collaborated closely with costume designer Judianna Makovsky, hair and makeup designer Ivana Primorac, and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie. Together, they sought to relate all design decisions—from a button, to a wig, to an establishing shot—so that no detail was overlooked.
Four Nations, Many Worlds
Perhaps Messina’s biggest design challenge lay in the fortress of the Northern Water Tribe (NWT). The impressive structure—which needed to appear is if made entirely of ice—is the setting for the last third of the film, which features the siege of the fortress by the soldiers of the Fire Nation (employing more than 400 performers in the battle sequences). Says Messina, “The NWT set was the hardest to design. You essentially have an environment that exists in a polar ice cap. You have to start questioning, ‘How do these people live?’ We took the conceit that they were one with their environment, and that they lived in this extreme climate by choice.”
Messina designed the NWT set with many Islamic, Indian and Turkish influences in mind. Utilizing more than 200 workers, the construction of the massive set took nearly four months to complete, and it slowly rose from the floor of an airplane hangar the size of two football fields laid side-to-side. To reinforce the feeling of being hewn from ice, the set was enrobed in thousands of gallons of blue- and gray-tinted polymer, all topped with Epson salt-based snow.
For the raw and natural sets of the Earth village, a rock quarry provided the perfect environment in which to build the outdoor sets. Designers co-opted the colors in the soil, rocks and surrounding wilderness into their palette. Primitive tent structures were built free-hand from the logs of the nearby forest, and the town took on the feel of a nomadic Bedouin encampment.
When scouting the quarry for the Earth village prison set, Messina was pleasantly surprised to find pre-existing industrial equipment right in the middle of the space. “Instead of fighting it, I thought we could incorporate it into our set. The huge tower and conveyor belt machinery felt like it could belong to the archaic and industrialized look of the Fire Nation.” A constructed pair of steel doors and catwalk later, the design challenge was transformed into an asset.
The design of the far-reaching Fire Nation—drenched in fiery reds and ominous blacks—stands distinct and alone from the looks of the other worlds…and for a very specific reason. Says Messina,“‘Avatar’ co-creators Mike and Bryan reminded me that the Fire Nation began as a tribal people, just like all the others. It was just so easy to label them as bad guys. But as their empire grew through industrialization, they also grew in power.” Messina’s resulting design is reminiscent of early industrialized America, mixed with elements of ancient Japanese culture.
Perhaps the best example of this is the Fire Nation Dining Hall, where Prince Zuko is humiliated in front of his rank-and-file tribesmen. The hall was constructed in the interior of a former power plant. Shuttered more than 25 years ago, the plant offered Messina a network of exposed pipes and walls with peeling paint. The production designer saw visions of Japan in the age of the shoguns and China under Communist rule, and incorporated them into the look of the dining hall.
When the film begins, the Air Nomads have already fallen to the military campaign of the Fire Nation, so Messina knew that the sets of this formerly great nation would be largely in ruin. He looked to ancient temples in, Cambodia for many of the references that inspired the design of the Northern Air Temple. The Temple is the site of a showdown between Aang, the Blue Spirit and a squad of Fire Nation soldiers. The set was built on a soundstage in northern Philadelphia, and while it looks to be entirely made of stone, rubber is incorporated into the structure to provide the stunt men a softer place to break their falls.
Clearly, four nations, each centered in a different climate, could not all feature the same clothing, so costume designer Judianna Makovsky and her team created unique looks for each nation. In total, more than 1,800 costumes and armor pieces and 50 pairs of shoes and boots were designed and built for “The Last Airbender.” Makovsky drew color palettes, shapes and designs from the “Avatar” series, and brought them into the real world.
All four of the resulting civilizations emerged as a mixture of ethnicities and diverse cultures—cultural specificity was avoided. Each featured a distinctive design and color palette. The Southern Water Tribe villagers were dressed in muted blues, browns and grays, trimmed with the roughest of fake fur. The more sophisticated Northern Water Tribe is awash in vibrant blues, purples and grays, utilizing richer fabrics trimmed with expensive-looking faux fur. The imprisoned peoples of the Earth Nation sport distressed costumes with colors and design touches from ancient Korean and Chinese dress. And Fire Nation soldiers are outfitted in blacks, reds and golds, with helmets and armor harkening back to warriors from the cultures of Japan, Russia and Mongolia.
In addition to the hundreds of makeup and wig designs generated and executed by the production, two signature “looks” took a special collaboration between Shyamalan, Makovsky and makeup and hair designer Ivana Primorac. For Prince Zuko’s facial scar, the team employed a prosthetic makeup artist to create a healed burn that looks as if flames had licked the Prince’s face; the basic design was futher stylized until it almost resembled, according to Makovsky, “the flames on the side of a muscle car.” The signature blue arrow that adorns Aang’s forehead was created by a New York City tattoo artist and is comprised of dots, almost like lace. Mindful that the mark not become distracting or overbearing—and to prevent any recognizable symbols or lettering—Primorac and the artist developed a wholly created alphabet based on a conglomeration of everything from Native American, Thai and Japanese calligraphy, to symbols from the practice of alchemy and Tibetan Mandala. The team came up with the resulting arrow, which was stenciled using blue-green makeup. That color resembles tattoo ink that has weathered the test of time.
No matter how many benders they had on the front lines, soldiers from the Earth Nation would still require weaponry. For that, Messina worked with the prop master. They came up with designs for various swords, spears and halberds (ancient battle axes) based on weaponry and armor from the Dark Ages and Medieval times.
