The lazy days between Christmas and New Yr are normally a time for video games, nevertheless it does really feel like the right stretch to carry house, because it have been, for “Squid Recreation” Season 2. Netflix’s pastel neon promotional blitz and model partnerships for Hwang Dong-hyuk’s sequence have been at the least as robust because the unfeeling incentives of capitalism to make a sequel. To the credit score of director Hwang and his total manufacturing workforce, they deal with the continuation of the present head-on. “Squid Recreation” Season 2 has a broader and darker environment that matches our expanded view of the programs that make the video games run.
Manufacturing designer Chae Kyoung-sun had type of the final word tv problem; she and her workforce wanted to construct out a world that’s intensely acquainted but additionally totally different and stunning sufficient that even Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) feels caught within the shiny, pastel maze of the Squid Recreation compound when he knowingly takes up the mantle of Participant 456 to deliver the video games down from the within, as soon as and for all.
Collaborating with costume designer Jo Sang-gyeong, Chae’s use of shade in creating the “Squid Recreation” units is a large a part of what gave the sequence such a particular tackle the South Korean method for a Battle Royale hellscape. No matter any new work, it’s nice to see the unique manufacturing workforce get some extra credit score for the designs which have launched all the things from sneakers and cellphone covers to a whole-ass actuality sequence.
Chae takes the chance of Season 2, nevertheless, to mature the sequence’ little one nursery in The Dangerous Place aesthetic to showcase the Masked Guards working the video games on the behest of the Entrance Man (Lee Byung-hun) and finds methods for the video games to bleed into Gi-hun’s life in Seoul, too. IndieWire reached out to the Emmy-award-winning manufacturing designer to ask her how the manufacturing design continues to offer the sequence actual chunk and darkness, the glossier and extra harmless it seems.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
IndieWire: I’d like to ask about increasing the sport world into the masked guards’ quarters. How did you make these areas really feel totally different and extra sinister whereas protecting that acquainted “Squid Recreation” look?
Chae Kyoung-sun: One of many new key options of Season 2 is the hierarchy inside the Pink Guards. In Season 1, we solely confirmed the dormitory for Masked Staff. However for Season 2, we launched new areas for Pink Guards, such because the Masked Troopers’ dormitory, their weapons storage, and the Masked Managers’ dormitory. I needed to point out the variations in hierarchy inside the Pink Guards’ world, as Pink Guards are divided into such totally different ranks. The areas for Masked Troopers (who’re increased in rank than Masked Staff) are bigger in measurement and include a bathe room.
Additionally, I spent a variety of time excited about the colours for the Masked Troopers’ house. The explanation for utilizing orange was to emphasise its extra adverse connotations and its symbolic that means. I felt that deep orange is much more pushed by need and ambition than pink, symbolizing a robust urge to assert and conquer.
There may be additionally a closing staircase main as much as the Management Room. This house serves as the trail to the Masked Managers’ dormitory and in addition because the setting for the gamers’ revolt towards the Entrance Man. For this house, purple was used. Purple carries many symbolic meanings, however I selected it as the colour of final energy and positioned it on the path resulting in the height of the maze staircase.
Increasing the present’s iconic staircase in order that it labored for a gun battle in Episode 7 looks like a very fascinating problem. Was something added or modified in order that the firefight between gamers and guards would work?
The firefight on the staircase marks the start of a vital occasion. It’s the purpose the place rigidity reaches its peak, the assembly between Gi-hun and the Entrance Man takes place, and it units the stage for shifts and twists within the subsequent sport and story.
In Season 1, we targeted on creating a way of vertical depth with steady connections. This time, we designed the maze staircase to unfold horizontally, imagining wider layers whereas planning the actions for the shootout scenes. I needed to include the endlessly repetitive construction of Korean residences. Through the use of the corridor-style structure of Korean residences as the idea for the bridge pathways, I needed so as to add extra selection to the motion scenes between Pink Guards and rebels and showcase the final word design of the maze staircase.
Talking of mazes, I’d like to ask in regards to the lodge within the early episodes that Gi-hun is hiding out in; how do the design selections assist us perceive the price of surviving the video games for him?
Whereas I used to be studying the script, I believed the identify Pink Motel had significance. It felt as if the Pink Guards and their shade pink stored overwhelming Gi-hun. That’s the reason I selected pink for the couch that Recruiter sits on and painted the Pink Motel doorways in pink. I needed them to sign Gi-hun’s destiny and suggest the start of the Squid Recreation.
In Season 2, many characters face vital selections, together with Gi-hun. The branching hall construction was designed to visually symbolize the idea of “selections” — the alternatives that characters who come to the Pink Motel face. It’s the place the survivor Gi-hun lives, nevertheless it additionally looks like a spot caught prior to now, like time has stopped.
Once you enter Gi-hun’s room by the hall, you see an empty and hole house outfitted with solely the naked necessities. Utilizing partition partitions, we pushed him additional right into a nook, inserting a mirror and CCTV monitor display screen dealing with one another, creating the impression that Gi-hun may even be monitoring himself. By clustering crucial parts for an individual — just like the sleeping space — alongside surveillance parts in an area that isn’t even that cramped, we aimed to replicate Gi-hun’s psychological state, the place he can by no means really really feel comfy.
Additionally, the palm tree photos on the lavatory window present his eager for his household in L.A. Within the capturing vary, there are indicators of his follow and focus: bullet marks and hand-drawn targets. Useless crops, calendars, clocks, mud, and cobwebs replicate how time stopped for Gi-hun after surviving the video games.
I questioned what it will be like if, for somebody dwelling in a nightmare so sensible, actuality itself appeared hazy and dreamlike. That’s why I added particulars like mud settled on the within of frames Gi-hun seems in, akin to toilet mirrors and motel home windows, or water stains left behind. I needed to create a stark distinction between the vivid colours filling the gaming zone and Gi-hun’s blurry, murky actuality.
I’d additionally wish to ask in regards to the new video games in Season 2. What selections have been vital to make in order that these areas felt novel however nonetheless used the identical language because the video games we’ve seen earlier than?
The set for the Pentathlon began from the concept of Sports activities Day, which is one thing all elementary faculty college students stay up for through the faculty 12 months. The main focus will not be on attacking or competing towards others however quite on workforce concord and unity. The set was designed to resemble an elementary faculty, with backgrounds composed of crayon clouds like youngsters’s drawings. Bulletin boards, schedules, and doodles that you just may discover in a classroom have been recreated.
The intention was for the individuals within the sport area to briefly return to their childhood as they reminisced about their youth. Nonetheless, on this setting, the individuals who stake their lives on the sport seem determined, and in the event that they fail, their blood splatters throughout the grime floor and the fantastically painted rainbow-colored observe. Objects that evoke nostalgia for the world of childhood are vital parts in “Squid Recreation.”
The Pentathlon can also be designed with parts that align with the playground from the second sport in Season 1, Dalgona. With a sky background that includes clouds that appear to be drawn in crayon by youngsters and a playground ground completed with packed grime, Gi-hun feels confused as quickly as he enters the world, not sure whether or not it’s the similar playground setting or not.
The set that I personally really feel most connected to in Season 2 is the Mingle sport area. I needed to create an area the place all individuals may really play the sport, and run round fearfully like items on a chessboard.
With the Entrance Man because the host for Season 2, we aimed to create a sport area that displays his recollections and creativeness. Imagining an area that the Entrance Man, who misplaced his household, might need needed to go to together with his spouse and little one, I integrated the symbolic picture of a carousel from an amusement park into the setting. It was a brand new problem, and though it seems like a pageant, I needed to current a world that’s each fantastically and eerily spinning, like a pageant of demise.
Had been the returning units simple to reconstruct, or was there something tough about recreating issues just like the dorm room and Pink Mild/Inexperienced Mild? Something that you just received the prospect to do otherwise the second time round?
Areas that appeared in Season 1 have now change into iconic areas of “Squid Recreation.” I by no means thought we’d need to recreate them precisely as they have been!
We targeted on rediscovering the blueprints, the colour numbers we used again then, and the ending supplies we labored on with the set workforce. One of many enhancements we made based mostly on the challenges throughout Season 1 was to make the [dorm] mattresses lighter since they have been too heavy earlier than, and we additionally made it simpler to connect the mattress covers.
When it comes to scale, we have been in a position to develop the dorm’s peak and width by about 330 sq. meters. We paid a variety of consideration to the flooring to create the O and X markings, and we performed quite a few exams with the director of images to excellent the lighting tones for the O and X.
It will be fascinating to observe Season 2 whereas imagining what the dormitory will appear like by the tip of the season. I hope viewers take pleasure in Season 2 and that it sparks many ideas and discussions. Moreover, please stay up for the brand new units in Season 3!
“Squid Recreation” Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.