Interviews and News Articles

[TheMountain]

"But as time has passed, I’ve come to learn that we’re actually quite similar. Playing her has been quite therapeutic for me too, because of the way she is just so in charge of her emotions."

 

...in charge of her emotions? What?

Edited November 14, 2021 by TheMountain

[Deadsy]

1 hour ago, TheMountain said:

Such great questions ? lol

 

The main thing I got from it is that she doesn't really know anything about the books, and Rafe pretty much let her do her own thing with the costumes based on her own interpretations of the characters and organizations (not RJ's)...

 

 

What gave you this idea? I mean, what she said about Cairhien is pretty spot on. It's influenced by France and Japan, which is exactly what she mentioned when talking about Cairhienin clothing.

I basically got the opposite impression.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Deadsy

[TheMountain]

Paraphrasing: She hadn't read the books, had trouble making sense of it, and she included nods to the book when required by Rafe, but for the most part Rafe let her do her own thing.

 

She then spent a lot of time talking about her impressions of the characters and then her thought process for designing their costumes, but with not a single mention of the descriptions in the books that were already there. 

Edited November 14, 2021 by TheMountain

[DaddyFinn]

@11:00

Season 2 filming is halfway done. Since Rafe has said that each season takes about 18 months to finish completely, S2 should release in early/spring 2023.

 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/collider.com/wheel-of-time-rafe-judkins-interview-amazon/amp/

 

Quote

A little bit of a shift that we have from the book series is that we have put more focus on Moiraine, who's played by Rosamund Pike, as a character that is not only just your traditional guide that takes our characters and leads them out into the world, but we've tried to give her more of an emotional journey and seeing these little glimpses inside what's really happening for her as she's taking them on this journey. That happens throughout the season and you get an episode... I think this is a spoiler but that's okay, there's one episode along the way that's told entirely from her perspective.

 

[AusLeviathan]

32 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Since Rafe has said that each season takes about 18 months to finish completely, S2 should release in early/spring 2023.

I doubt they take that long to release it, LOTR will be released  by the end of October so I could see them releasing WOT season 2 a few weeks after that in November again.

 

Filming will likely finish in March 22 which would given them 8 months to finish the post production stuff in time for November, about what I'd expect really.

[DaddyFinn]

29 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

I doubt they take that long to release it, LOTR will be released  by the end of October so I could see them releasing WOT season 2 a few weeks after that in November again.

 

Filming will likely finish in March 22 which would given them 8 months to finish the post production stuff in time for November, about what I'd expect really.

That's what I hope 

[Agitel]

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

I doubt they take that long to release it, LOTR will be released  by the end of October so I could see them releasing WOT season 2 a few weeks after that in November again.

 

Filming will likely finish in March 22 which would given them 8 months to finish the post production stuff in time for November, about what I'd expect really.

 

They may not want them airing at the same time. They want to keep people subscribed, which sometimes means spacing out content, especially if they have overlapping niches.

[AusLeviathan]

5 minutes ago, Agitel said:

They may not want them airing at the same time. They want to keep people subscribed, which sometimes means spacing out content, especially if they have overlapping niches.

Not the same time of course but their big September-October project is LOTR, it would make sense to follow that up weeks later with WOT, they'd be hoping to offer anyone who signed up for LOTR something similar in attempt to keep them from quickly cancelling after it finishes and that would accomplish it.

[king of nowhere]

On 11/14/2021 at 4:29 AM, TheMountain said:

Paraphrasing: She hadn't read the books, had trouble making sense of it, and she included nods to the book when required by Rafe, but for the most part Rafe let her do her own thing.

 

She then spent a lot of time talking about her impressions of the characters and then her thought process for designing their costumes, but with not a single mention of the descriptions in the books that were already there. 

is that a crime?

for all their popularity, 90 million copies sold, for a 14 book saga, this means 10 million people actually read the books. out of a world population of 7 billion, it's 1 person in 700 who actually read those books! You can't expect random people to be familiar with it. you can't expect everyone involved in the show to have read the book. you can't ask a bunch of people to read 14 huge books as a condition to work on a contract for a few years.

the producer is a fan of the books. his main consultants know the books in depth. the main actors have read the books after they got the role. everyone else has not read the books, and is not familiar with them, and for most laymen a saga that big doesn't make sense.

how can you even expect anything else?

[Katherine]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

is that a crime?

for all their popularity, 90 million copies sold, for a 14 book saga, this means 10 million people actually read the books. out of a world population of 7 billion, it's 1 person in 700 who actually read those books! You can't expect random people to be familiar with it. you can't expect everyone involved in the show to have read the book. you can't ask a bunch of people to read 14 huge books as a condition to work on a contract for a few years.

the producer is a fan of the books. his main consultants know the books in depth. the main actors have read the books after they got the role. everyone else has not read the books, and is not familiar with them, and for most laymen a saga that big doesn't make sense.

how can you even expect anything else?

 

Maybe this isn't how it working practically.... I have no idea..... 

 

But is it really so strange to think that people would famialirize themselves with the source material of the project they are working on? 

 

I mean... reading all 14/15 books before starting is crazy..... but maybe just the first book? 

 

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, Katherine said:

I mean... reading all 14/15 books before starting is crazy..... but maybe just the first book? 

But you couldn't just read the first book - Rafe is pulling in things from other books that we don't see in EotW. The White Tower, Ghealdan, prominent roles for the Aes Sedai, Aiel, the list could go on.

 

As a costume designer, you'd have to get pretty deep into the books to pull all of the references necessary. That's why Sarah's involved, to help people understand how the books influence these scripts. 

 

But ultimately, you don't hire a bunch of professionals at the top of their game and tell them to go duplicate someone else's work. You give them the broad strokes and then they bring you a design. And then you discuss what works about it and what doesn't, and then they go back and revise. That process continues until the producers, directors and showrunner decide they like it. 

 

The process was never going to be - "look at the description in the book, now do that."

[Agitel]

There are little things that niggle at my fanatical brain. Like, when discussing why Moiraine wears pants, it was mentioned it'd be absurd for her to spend all this time traveling sidesaddle like on the cover of EotW. And my brain replies "But the EotW picture is not book accurate. 'Skirts divided for riding' is probably mentioned dozens if not hundreds of time over the course of the books, including the first book. Book-Moiraine doesn't ride side-saddle!"

 

Now, there may still be good and practical and aesthetical reasons to have Rosamund Pike wear pants instead of skirts divided for riding. But I wish they acknowledged that instead of pointing to the cover as their source.

 

And I also realize I'm being a bit fanatical and nitpicky, and this isn't something that by itself isn't going to affect the show for me, and seems to be a common issue with adaptations. How many times have I rolled my eyes at the post-episode director commentary on Outlander? Things probably really do go deeper in decision making than surface level comments like this let on. But it's still there in my brain.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Agitel

[king of nowhere]

12 minutes ago, Katherine said:

 

Maybe this isn't how it working practically.... I have no idea..... 

 

But is it really so strange to think that people would famialirize themselves with the source material of the project they are working on? 

 

I mean... reading all 14/15 books before starting is crazy..... but maybe just the first book? 

 

even just reading the first book is a crazy commitment for most people. and the thing is, for a costumist it's both insufficient and unnecessary at the same time.

 

i mean, say you read the books one. where does that leave you in terms of understanding the clothing? you don't. you don't pay that much attention to that kind of stuff if you're reading a book. there's no way someone is going to get all the stuff right after reading the book once. at the same time, you're reading a lot of plot you don't need to distract you. not everyone working on the show would be a fan of fantasy, for some of them reading may be a chore.

it's so much better if they get the condensated memo from people in production.

 

ultimately, we don't need the costumist to be familiar with the history of cahirien and the plot events happening there. we need her to get the description of the style made of straight lines, and work on that.

[Agitel]

5 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

The process was never going to be - "look at the description in the book, now do that."

 

It really is up to Rafe what aesthetic details he is going to closely adhere to and where he's going to provide his team room. It's silly to expect his costume designer and all his staff to have read the books. He and his consultants are no doubt providing details to the designers. Sarah has tomes on culture and looks of cities and the different cultural fashions she's no doubt providing, and I'm sure the designers see that and refer to it, but are obviously be given leeway to bring their own aesthetic takes on the different nations. 

[Katherine]

7 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

even just reading the first book is a crazy commitment for most people. and the thing is, for a costumist it's both insufficient and unnecessary at the same time.

 

i mean, say you read the books one. where does that leave you in terms of understanding the clothing? you don't. you don't pay that much attention to that kind of stuff if you're reading a book. there's no way someone is going to get all the stuff right after reading the book once. at the same time, you're reading a lot of plot you don't need to distract you. not everyone working on the show would be a fan of fantasy, for some of them reading may be a chore.

it's so much better if they get the condensated memo from people in production.

 

ultimately, we don't need the costumist to be familiar with the history of cahirien and the plot events happening there. we need her to get the description of the style made of straight lines, and work on that.

 

LIke I said... I am sure expecting everyone to familarize themselves with the source material is impractical. 

 

I can still feel in my heart that is should be so!  ? 

 

FWIW I like the majority of the costumes so no complaints. 

[SinisterDeath]

24 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

even just reading the first book is a crazy commitment for most people. and the thing is, for a costumist it's both insufficient and unnecessary at the same time.

 

i mean, say you read the books one. where does that leave you in terms of understanding the clothing? you don't. you don't pay that much attention to that kind of stuff if you're reading a book. there's no way someone is going to get all the stuff right after reading the book once. at the same time, you're reading a lot of plot you don't need to distract you. not everyone working on the show would be a fan of fantasy, for some of them reading may be a chore.

it's so much better if they get the condensated memo from people in production.

 

ultimately, we don't need the costumist to be familiar with the history of cahirien and the plot events happening there. we need her to get the description of the style made of straight lines, and work on that.

Back during the first few times Rafe & company did Instagram Q&A's, I was one of the few people asking if the Costume Designer was having a hayday with all of RJ's descriptions over clothing. (Never got a reply)

 

Presumably, it shouldn't have been to terribly difficult to set a few interns loose to pour over the books, copying text about costumes & characters into a wiki like database... but even then, you really only need to do broad strokes & "styles" for characters "Personalities".

[TheMountain]

29 minutes ago, Agitel said:

I'm sure the designers see that and refer to it, but are obviously be given leeway to bring their own aesthetic takes on the different nations. 

 

This is what I'm focused on, not whether she read the whole series. From her own mouth, Rafe basically said for her to do her own thing.

 

[DaddyFinn]

I'm glad I don't remember that much of the clothing styles of different cultures. Aiel wear cadin'sor(they look good in trailers) and Tinkers wear colorful clothes(they are not neon like I imagined but good enough).

[WhiteVeils]

Another interesting interview:

 

[NinjaPowers975]

Based on reading a lot of these interviewers over the last week or so, I get the feeling that Rafe and co actively wanted some members of the production team to not be book fans. In some respects it seems like they were happy to have outsider perspectives on certain things.

 

Overall I'm impressed with most of the costume choices I've seen. I especially like the weird aesthetic of the Whitecloaks. The only big misses for me are Lan (but that's growing on me), the tinkers, the Aes Sedai field/combat costumes--I'm thinking particularly about that shot of the Reds in the field---and the serpent rings.

 

Moiraine's travel outfit looks great. The pants are fine. And I love the way the Aes Sedai really go all in on their Ajah colors. All the footage of the sisters in the tower wearing their formal outfits looks great.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by NinjaPowers975

[TheMountain]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

The process was never going to be - "look at the description in the book, now do that."

Unless, you know, you happen to be Peter Jackson.

[WalterKohl]

8 minutes ago, NinjaPowers975 said:

and the serpent rings.

Yeah...  I was surprised how bulky they where...  in my head they were just snug to the finger, these seem bulkier and like they would be a pain in the backside to wear...  Of course I don't like flashy jewelry, but I guess this is more bling for the show and will make great merch....  ? 

[NinjaPowers975]

6 minutes ago, WalterKohl said:

Yeah...  I was surprised how bulky they where...  in my head they were just snug to the finger, these seem bulkier and like they would be a pain in the backside to wear...  Of course I don't like flashy jewelry, but I guess this is more bling for the show and will make great merch....  ? 

 

Yeah the serpent rings are just ugly IMO.

 

I think they wanted them to be really noticeable on camera. A practical consideration rather than aesthetic. I get it, but I think they took it way too far.

Edited November 15, 2021 by NinjaPowers975

[Elder_Haman]

11 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

Unless, you know, you happen to be Peter Jackson.

No. He hired people who had been doing book art for years as his design team. And he still gave them all kinds of creative license. Go watch the DVD extras.

[WalterKohl]

12 minutes ago, NinjaPowers975 said:

Yeah the serpent rings are just ugly IMO.

Same here, but then I think most "Cool" and "wow" jewelry I see praised is pretty ugly so my opinion is not worth much...