Anna Daniels
When dealing with fantastical, exaggerated in-movie worlds like the video game universe of Jumanji: The Next Level, it’s crucial to keep things grounded and relatable for the audience. Brzeski described that as “the trick to any good production design,” and revealed that there was a lot that went into striking the perfect balance with the film.
“You have to keep it real enough that people understand what’s in the space as being real so that maybe they’re a little confused by what’s going on, but they know [characters] could die. And almost any of these kinds of movies, they set up the parameters that people can be killed,” explained Brzeski, adding that problems arise when characters are too difficult to kill or “there’s no jeopardy” at hand in the in-film world.
“We tried very much to make it look as real as possible. I went way out of my way on this one especially. I have a great decorator, Danielle Berman, and she worked very hard to make our set pieces in Jumanji to be just like real, real — so you felt like there was jeopardy, that you really could drown, you could really be killed,” he continued. “That’s my whole thing of production design: the more real it looks, the more a willing suspension of belief goes away […] so you could actually pull somebody into a project.”
By the looks of it — with glowing reviews and big box office bucks behind it – Jumanji: The Next Level succeeded in its every endeavor, undoubtedly due in part to the decisions Brzeski and co. made behind the scenes.
Written by: Looper
