Variety’s ninth annual Artisans Awards celebrates and honors the craftspeople who are essential to the filmmaking process. The tribute evening will take place on Feb. 13 at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara where Jazz Tangcay, Variety senior artisans editor, will moderate a conversation and panel with the honorees.
As audiences returned to the movie-going experience to watch films such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Elvis,” and revel in the phenomenon that is “RRR,” a sense of community returned.
And that’s what the Santa Barbara Intl. Film Festival is about, building community as it celebrates artists and artistry. The Variety Artisans Awards reflects on those whose work shines as they worked with filmmakers to deliver a vision and tell a story through their craft.
Meet this year’s honorees:
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M. M. Keeravaani - Composer - 'RRR'
Image Credit: Courtesy Accolade PR “RRR” is a phenomenon.
Crowds danced along as “Naatu Naatu” played at the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, going crazy for the song. It had to be seen to be believed. Keeravaani composed the music for the song, with lyrics by Chandrabose. “Naatu Naatu” means “Dance Dance” and that’s what it has done. It’s a song that can make people around the world dance and sing for joy. Performed in the Telugu language, “Naatu Naatu” proves music has no boundaries. The lyrics transcend language and swept up wins at the Critics Choice and Golden Globes awards, triumphing over the biggest names in pop music today.
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Frank Kruse -Sound Supervisor - 'All Quiet On The Western Front'
It took a sonic village comprising of sound supervisor/sound designer Frank Kruse, co-sound designer Markus Stemler and re-recording mixer Lars Ginzel to bring an immersive feel to “All Quiet on the West that makes the World War I drama even more harrowing and gritty as Edward Berger’s adaptation follows Paul. Both production sound and created sonics became the soundscape since original sounds from the era didn’t really exist. However, period-correct bellicose and noisy wardrobe — metal helmets, spiked boots — provided a trove of sounds for the team.
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Son Lux - Original Score - ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’
Image Credit: Cara Robbins Son Lux, the experimental band comprising of Rafiq Bhatia, Ian Chang and Ryan Lott, created wall-to-wall music for the multiverse comedy-drama “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” With 49 tracks as score, the score varies from back-to-back fights to tender moments between the piano theme that anchors Evelyn/Joy’s relationship.
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Catherine Martin - Producer, Costume Designer, Production Designer - ‘Elvis’
Image Credit: Hugh Stewart Four-time Oscar winner Martin is a rarity.
She straddles production design and costume design. She is a creative collaborator and producer alongside her husband, Baz Luhrmann, director-writer of “Elvis.” Luhrmann’s story spans decades following a young Elvis Presley on Beale Street and throughout Memphis to the showrooms of Las Vegas. Martin crafted an array of outfits for Austin Butler’s Elvis and the entourage of characters. Loose jackets were key so the actor could roll his shoulders and shake those hips.
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Florencia Martin - Production Designer - 'Babylon'
Image Credit: Courtesy of Shelter PR Martin did double duty this year as a production designer on Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde” and Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.” In both, the City of Angels is a character. “Babylon” required Martin to build more than 150 sets as it traces Hollywood’s transition from silent-era films to talkies in the 1920s. Back then, Los Angeles was an ever-changing landscape with barren land. Location scouting took Martin to northern Ventura County and the towns of Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula. Dirt fields and mountains meant Martin had a blank canvas to build the city from the ground up including Cinescope studios.
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Claudio Miranda - Cinematographer - 'Top Gun: Maverick'
“Top Gun: Maverick” audiences felt the g-force as Tom Cruise’s character takes off in an F/A-18 Super Hornet thanks to cinematographer Miranda who mounted six true cinema-quality cameras into a fighter plane. For the film’s opening sequence, Miranda spent months working closely with pilots, technical experts, military brass and actors going through full Navy aviator training captured real fighters taking off from the USS Abraham Lincoln, shot pre-pandemic in August 2018 during a training exercise for the F-35C Lightning II.
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Adrien Morot - Hairstyling/Makeup - ‘The Whale’
Director Darren Aronofsky called on his longtime collaborator Morot to help tell the story of “The Whale.” Brendan Fraser plays Charlie, a house- bound 600 lb. English teacher who gives lessons virtually with his camera blacked out. Morot relied on 3D printing and LIDAR scans to first capture a scan of Fraser. Once he had that data, it was cleaned up, and printed and a live cast was made for all the facial and body prosthetics. New pieces were applied to Fraser, and as Charlie’s health declined, Morot made different sets of arm and chest pieces that outlined Charlie’s skin color and complexion deteriorating.
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Paul Rogers - Editor -‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’
Image Credit: A24 Rogers has gone from cutting music videos with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” directors Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) to cutting their Oscar-nominated multiverse film starring Michelle Yeoh. An on-set editor, Rogers was handling dailies as they came in and jumping timelines from the hotdog finger universe to cutting hallway fight scenes. Rogers made sure the ambitious ideas of time-hopping at the film’s core, whether it was for a split second or a minute, were grounded and resonated emotionally. Rogers also used stock footage of Yeoh’s red carpet events for the movie star universe.
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Eric Saindon - VFX - ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’
Image Credit: Weta FX Shortly after the first “Avatar” finished, James Cameron and the VFX team at Weta went into discussions about what could be better for its sequel. The team started with a virtual camera and stage set up at Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment production company in Santa Monica.
Among these advances was depth compositing of the live-action characters. Visual-effects supervisor Saindon and the team took existing technology from sporting events, FlyByWire cameras, and put an eyeline system on that. When characters including Spider (Jack Champion) were walking around set, they had a character on set that was in the right location based on the performance capture.