Midway through shooting the massive, futuristic “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola knew it wasn’t working. In the production notes, he recounts how the art department (led by production designer Beth Mickle) wasn’t in sync with his abstract vision wrapped around the deteriorating New Rome and the utopian Megalopolis . The concept of conveying “woven material or tapestry” just wasn’t getting through.
So Coppola started communicating his bold visual ideas to concept designer Dean Sherriff through stick-figure sketches. Before the 2022 holidays, he demanded that the art department trim its leadership to perform more efficiently out of budgetary necessity. They refused and quit in protest.
Meanwhile, the VFX team was disbanded as well. Enter production designer Bradley Rubin (“The Mandalorian,” “A Star Is Born”) after the New Year’s break. He was tasked with completing the film in collaboration with a whole new VFX team (production supervised by Coppola’s nephew, Jesse James Chisholm , a Marvel vet).
Yet he quickly adapted to the theatricality of it all (movable sets, no ceilings, being flexible) and the use of metaphors such as controlling time as states of mind. “Francis had all of these deep multi-layers going into all of this, outside of just being visually striking as an image,” Rubin told IndieWire. A perfect example is the scene shot in the LED volume at Prysm LED Stages , where architect Cesar (Adam Driver) and his girlfriend, Julia (Nathali.