Although “Wicked” exists in a fantastical world, Nathan Crowley wanted to make every set as real as possible. The production designer, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2021 for “Tenet,” prefers a practical approach — an idea he took to an extreme when creating the magical world of Oz.
“I’m not interested in standing in front of a blue screen with a digital design,” Crowley says, speaking over Zoom from London’s Pinewood Studios, where he is prepping “Avengers: Doomsday.” “I want to make things. I knew doing it all practically was going to be a big, big task. But that being said, I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it.”
Crowley previously designed sets for “The Greatest Showman” and “Wonka,” although his background is more in action and sci-fi than musicals. But he says he enjoys the “world-building fantasy” of the genre and likes the challenge of working with filmmakers to create sets that are optimized for choreography and large musical numbers. While Crowley watched the stage production of “Wicked” several times in preparation, he took more of his visual inspiration from the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.”
Cynthia Erivo knows who she is and owns it proudly -- as does her ‘Wicked’ character Elphaba
“It’s two totally different formats,” Crowley says. “We are telling this alternative story to ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ and we have to be cinematic. I have to get the audience to fall into the world of Oz and not question it. The stage show is really about story, story, story, rather than design elements. I have to tell you that you’re in Oz, and you must never question it, and you must focus on Galinda and Elphaba and not the set. But you also have to allow the audience to be nostalgic, so I had to put in those memories from the stage show and ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”
Crowley and his team had five months to prep the film, which shot its two parts at the same time. All of the sets, many of which involved massive backlot builds, were constructed simultaneously using nearly 1,000 construction workers. There were separate backlots for Munchkinland, Shiz University and Emerald City, as well as numerous interior set builds on soundstages. As the film opens on Munchkinland, the camera follows perfect rows of colorful tulips. Those could have been inserted digitally, but instead Crowley enlisted Mark Eves, a farmer in Norfolk, Va., to plant 9 million tulip bulbs.
“I planted 500 acres of corn for ‘Interstellar,’” Crowley says. “So I knew we could do it because I’ve done it before. And before VFX, that’s what you’d go and do. So why wouldn’t you do it for real if you could?”
Shiz University was the most complicated set, in part because it was built against a water tank that was deep enough to wade in. In the film, students and visitors arrive to the school by boat, evoking the canals of Venice. The look of the university is an amalgam of Italian, Moorish and American architectural styles, with a blending of materials such as plaster, cooper and wood.
“It’s a mixing of every culture,” Crowley says. “Architects would hate me. It’s comforting, and it had to feel beautiful. The water did a lot of the work. It became very complex. By the time you hit the courtyard, which is up the stairs from the water entrance, you’re 12 or 13 feet up before you can start building the actual university. It ended up going 55 feet high with a wind-resistant structure.”
We are telling this alternative story to “The Wizard of Oz,” and we have to be cinematic. I have to get the audience to fall into the world of Oz and not question it. ... You must focus on Galinda and Elphaba and not the set. But you also have to allow the audience to be nostalgic, so I had to put in those memories from the stage show and “The Wizard of Oz.”
— Nathan Crowley
Inside Shiz, viewers get to glimpse the dorm rooms, several classrooms and a very whimsical library. It was important to Crowley that everything was a detailed as possible. The dorm room shared by Elphaba and Galinda has curved walls with romantic windows, and hand-painted flowers adorn the woodwork and cabinets throughout the school. The library set, used to introduce Fiyero in “Dancing Through Life,” exemplifies Crowley’s practical approach. The production designer collaborated with special effects supervisor Paul Corbould to design and construct three circular, motorized bookcases with internal ladders that could spin while the actors danced inside.
“It was very tough to figure out a dance number with them,” Crowley says. “But for me, it was about the introduction of Fiyero. He has to be the coolest guy in town, so the fact that he gets the coolest automated set was important. It was actually one of the first sets we built, but we didn’t shoot it until midschedule, so it was sitting there getting tested and getting worked on and getting practiced on for weeks.”
Another complicated set was Emerald City, an expansive backlot build that stood 52 feet high and used CGI extension to complete its sparkling grandeur. For Crowley, it was one of the most difficult to design, largely because filmgoing audiences are so familiar with its silhouette.
“You always see it from afar, and I wanted to bridge the line between the distance shot and then moving into it,” he notes. “I wanted to finally connect the audience from the 1939 film, which had [the city] as a painted backdrop. It had to be the most incredible place you could ever go to. It’s like what the White City [World’s Fair] must have been in Chicago, this dream. Shiz is founded in our reality; Munchkinland is slightly less but it’s something you’re familiar with, but Emerald City had to be something new.”
Inside Emerald City, one of the most impressive details is the Wizard’s puppeteered mechanical head, which he uses to speak to his subjects from behind the curtain. The team constructed a working head for the Wizard’s throne room that was entirely practical.
“I’m most proud of the Wizard and the Emerald City Express train,” Crowley says. “I loved being on set and seeing this giant head open and talk to you. All of the movement was done by one puppeteer, and there were hydraulics controlled by special effects because it had to be able to tilt. It was so much fun. [This film] was really about the joy of making stuff.”
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