Category: BP Media

Babylon Production Design Featurette

For Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” the extravagant new epic set in silent-era Hollywood, a staggering 120 locations were used. They included a dusty, undeveloped Wilshire Blvd.; mansions and castles with all-night parties inside; gorgeous theaters, film stages, and studio back lots; and a war-movie battlefield. Many of these can be glimpsed in the exclusive video featurette (above), which highlights the massive ambition and scope of production designer Florencia Martin (“Licorice Pizza,” “Blonde”).

She recalls the experience, as echoed by “Babylon” star Diego Cala, as being akin to building a sandbox for the film’s actors – including Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt – to play in.

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• x015 Production Design (screencaps).

PS. The video can also be found at BP Media.

F1 team bosses meet Brad Pitt as film project takes off

The film will be directed by Joseph Kosinski, who was responsible for Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, Only the Brave and the recent hit Top Gun: Maverick.

Like the last named film the F1 project will be produced by Bruckheimer, whose lengthy CV includes the original Top Gun, NASCAR movie Days of Thunder and the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

With a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, who also wrote Top Gun: Maverick, the story revolves around a veteran driver who mentors an up-and-coming youngster.

Lewis Hamilton is closely connected with the project as a producer, and his manager Penni Thow is also involved. Apple Screen is underwriting the project.

All team bosses were invited to the F1 hospitality building in Austin today to meet Pitt, Bruckheimer and Kosinski, with Stefano Domenicali among those also present.

Essentially the gathering was an opportunity for the Hollywood guys to give the teams an idea of what they plan to do.

The meeting focused on a demonstration of the technology used in Top Gun: Maverick, and specifically how CGI was successfully combined with real action footage.

The teams will have individual meetings with the film people over the remainder of the Austin weekend. It’s not yet clear whether they will be asked to supply current or near current cars for use in the production.

Kosinski stressed recently that shooting real cars in action will be a key part of the production.

Although details are still being discussed, F1 is expected to offer full co-operation, including sanctioning filming on race weekends.

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Billboard

Hidden amid the grounds of a sprawling Provence estate, a historic recording space is reborn — and its co-founders want to make it a “sanctuary for artists to come in and do their thing” again.

I think we need a bigger table,” says Brad Pitt with a proud grin. It’s a rare rainy day in Provence, France, and for the first time, the superstar is about to sit down to a family-style lunch at the newly rebuilt Miraval Studios. An elevated-rustic assortment of tarts, salads, fresh cheese and bread spread out before him. He just needs to find a chair.

Tucked away within Château Miraval’s 2,200 acres — grounds so vast and lush that getting lost driving through them would be easy, but not so bad — Miraval Studios is as private and exquisite a place as any music (or music history) buff could imagine. And yet, it has sat dormant for nearly two decades.

Today, Pitt relays how eager he has been to reopen the space since he started spending time at the property in 2008. (He and ex-wife Angelina Jolie later purchased it for a reported $60 million in 2012.) All it took was being introduced to renowned French producer-engineer Damien Quintard, whom Pitt calls a “wunderkind,” to finally make his dream of creating the ultimate artist escape a reality. Come this month, just over a year since the two first met, Miraval Studios will formally reopen.

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• x030 Billboard Photoshoot.

Vogue

Brad Pitt has not read the beauty tutorial memo. We’re 25 minutes into a world’s first interview with the actor, producer, philanthropist, wine producer, and newly minted skin care brand founder at Château Miraval, the sprawling property and vineyard in the South of France that Pitt bought with Angelina Jolie in 2012, and after a few quick-fire questions we arrive at the inevitable part of any skin care founder interview: “What’s your regimen?” I ask, with a certain amount of trepidation. “Can we have a product demonstration?”

Pitt balks, smiling. “I’m not doing that!”

“Maybe just talk about how your routine has evolved, then? Just don’t make it too QVC,” I suggest to the Academy Award–winning actor, hoping he might warm to the idea of applying face creams while being filmed.

“I wouldn’t know how to do that, unless it was a comedy,” Pitt says, laughing. “Actually, Sandy [Sandra Bullock] and I did once try to develop a whole idea of a husband-and-wife team who were QVC’s most successful salespeople, but we’re getting a divorce, we hate each other, and we’re taking it out on air as we sell things. That’s as far as we got.”

Read more. Be sure to check out the funny video.