Gadgetory

all right everybody we're here to talk black panther and sitting next to me Ryan miner Dean head of visual development for Marvel Studios Ryan thank you so much for joining us and spending time here oh of course thanks for having me so you know we're here to talk about Black Panther and I just you know not that I'm kissing your butt but I am but just thank you for this just amazing world building and character building that you and your team have done how was just that experience for you guys you know working at Marvel Studios is great because every every film's a little bit different and this one was was really an interesting experience because creating the whole world of Wakanda felt like a new and interesting challenge we had previously worked on Asgard but this one because it's on earth because it's a sort of sophisticated earth culture and because it's inspired by African tribal design motifs it really created a lot of opportunities for cool design there's kind of been a term that has been used like afrofuturism and Black Panther almost kind of really speaks to that and makes it a real thing consistently throughout the movie that people haven't seen when you guys heard that you're doing Black Panther the movie where they're kind of maybe some specific themes or tentpoles that you said these are the things that we want to make sure like this world feels like black panther at its core is really it's it's meant to be tribal but it's also meant to be sci-fi so that the the combining of those two things are really the two things we were trying to go for and then trying to look within the tribal African cultures and try to find something that that that spoke to feeling African but also could translate into a science fiction world there's a lot of really amazing visuals from from African cultures that haven't been explored too much in film specifically and I think using that that palette to like just tap into was what was really amazing I think you know one of things you touched on was making the world feel real I think that's that's one of the first things we're trying to do just because there's a lot of sci-fi notions in this movie that if they're not grounded enough it's gonna not gonna feel real enough for people to take it seriously another thing that was really exciting for us I think is try to make the culture of that world feel as real as possible through the the Regal nosov T'Challa and and the and it's sort of the black panther throne I think all those things mixed together makes for like a really interesting design starting point and hopefully me we fulfilled what people are looking for now you talked about T'Challa obviously the main character we saw him in civil war and we've seen this new kind of streamlined costume for Black Panther with new abilities what does that process like you know just designing Black Panther and what did you want to bring new to the table for this movie you know one of the cool things about characters once they've already appeared an MCU movie we have places to move from right so I did the design work for for Black Panther and Civil War and I was really trying to bring in a lot of woven African design themes to make it feel like not only are there African tribal markings and sort of inscriptions and Wakanda language worked into the costume but the whole suit was meant to feel like it was woven together it created a sort of layered silhouette and a little bit sort of bulkier when Ryan Coogler started on the film he really wanted to to streamline that that wasn't one of the things he was really interested in is making it sort of this unified singular skin it almost felt like I think the second skin for it to jalwa and part of that was because it was gonna be nanotech it was gonna be so high-tech that if it felt layered and like you could see a construction method it wouldn't really make sense so in essence what Ryan really brought to it was the idea of upping the technology of the suit so it was it was a higher tech sort of suit than we really have seen on-screen in the MCU so far as well as he had some very specific ideas about the helmet and the mask the first was to make it not a helmet to actually integrate the mask with the suit so it felt like one unified thing and he also he liked the idea in the more recent run of the comics they were designed by brand still freeze there are a few themes from that mask that he really wanted to bring to it he wanted the the ears sort of swept back so it felt like more like an aggressive stance like a growling panther he wanted exposed to tell his eyes at certain points in the movie so the nanotech could retract and then you could see the actual expression on Chadwicks face and in the Brian steel freeze design of the face there's this interesting mix of a panther and a man's face where it's sometimes depending on how the light catches it they can either look more like a panther like a man I think exposing the eyes and then also bringing more of an actual Panther face to the mask creates a more African inspired tribal look to the mask it feels more like it's meaning to represent a panther whereas I think the Civil War design was really trying to lean into the Jack Kirby sort of comic look it's more saying that's reference the comic character and the new design feels like it's creating it like more of a Panther Idol in some way what were some of the big inspirations I know you talked about Kirby and steal fries were there any other kind of runs in the comics that you kind of looked at for whether it was Wakanda or Black Panther or the character even other characters in the movies for Panther the summer I was really the still freeze are specifically with the kinetic technology of absorbing energy to be able to deliver a blow with it and that purple glow really added a cool design theme to them that works so well and then the film I think those are sort of the two touchdowns was Kirby it and still freeze when we got into doing Kim longer we were looking a lot of the comic references sort of just touch tones and then trying to find ways of doing the same sorts of things but bringing him into more of a in his first appearances in the movie to more of a tactical world where he feels like his sort of Special Forces background is evident and then he picks up that tribal mask which feels a lot like the mascots in the comics Ryan was really interested in pushing ideas that would look back at those those cool comic book roots and try and find ways of of transitioning them into more real things even like the dreadlocks and the kamagra has in the comics like I think they got turned into like a really cool interesting hairstyle for Michael B Jordan which is just really fun to see Ryan Coogler obviously you know he's a comic book reader he's a comic book geek and he clearly he collaborated a lot with you was was there a lot of kind of back and forth between you guys I know this is really a collaborative effort and you guys create these key frames these great you know superhero designs and whatnot um how was it working with him overall Ryan's amazing he's a really generous like great filmmaker to work for brings a lot of fantastic ideas he's really willing to listen and like if you have a pitch he'll he'll want to hear it and they'll consider it and he'll either go with it or he won't but you know just just being having somebody that's there that listens to what you're saying is awesome and so many of the really great ideas leads to you know for our part of the process and the visuals came straight from him is there any character that you personally enjoyed working on the most design-wise that you know maybe people might not expect because I you're the head of Marvel you know development here was there what about for you one of things I'm happy that I got in there was this idea of having scarification on his body and we found a way to sort of integrate that into the kill monger Panther shoot so that it has these bundles of fabric that are meant to represent the scarification on him any of the characters are so amazing to see I mean in terms of my favorites that how they transitioned I I love the they look for Panther I love the new look I love the look of the for kill monger but a coy way is probably my favorite action she's amazing Anthony Francisco actually did the design work on a quarry and Nakia and clay just so great I mean she's kind of a badass like yep pretty much were there any other just standout parts of this whole process that you enjoyed doing the most the production design on the movie is so amazing there's so many cool and interesting takes on stuff the waterfall scene the Jabari tribe sort of like thrown there's so many cool things to bounce off of and to see all the great ideas they were coming up with like that's probably one of my favorite parts of this was seeing Hanna working with Ryan to come up with a sort of lookbook of different African inspired reference and and seeing what that was how that was sort of playing out in the production design in the sets and then I was trying to keep up with it and terms of doing the hero costumes and how Ruth was able to to create an entire culture you know out of out of thin air really I mean she was finding different looks for the different tribes that feel really like interesting and different so that's what Conda maybe more than any culture within the MCU feels so real and feels very multifaceted and interesting alright Ryan well thanks so much we want to just highlight this because of all the great work you guys are doing people that are watching today art of Black Panther I know I honestly pre-ordered this for Amazon right now so I don't have it but I'm holding in my hand here but there's just a lot of great stuff in here showing the concept design that you guys have worked on and just how you evolved this to what we got to see so thanks so much Ryan this appreciate it oh cool thanks you