Please feel free to cut/paste and share this on my behalf in the talkback if you feel it would help clarify. I wanted to address a few inaccurate "rumors" about the designs of the Ring, the Lantern, and conceptual artwork that some fans may think I may have left out of my book, "Constructing Green Lantern: From Page to Screen." I understand there's a lot of cynicism out there today, but the fact is that I did not withhold or leave out any relevant information about the film's design process. All the artwork and designs that were ever seriously considered for the film, and how they came to be, are represented in the book. In fact, there were almost no editorial restrictions placed on the contents. My major restriction was that I only had 208 pages to fill. Had I been given more pages, I could have included more artwork, but rest assure most of it would have been irrelevant to the film we were making.
What may not be widely known, and I did not want to spend valuable page space discussing this in the book, is that over a year before shooting began, prior to director Martin Campbell, production designer Grant Major, and costume designer Ngila Dickson, there was another director and design team attached to the movie. Once Campbell was hired to direct the picture, he and the producers assembled a new creative team to design the look of the film. Therefore, the majority of the artwork and designs that had been created for the previous incarnation of the film were no longer relevant and were shelved. Somehow, a few of these illustrations made it into the behind-the-scenes special features on the blu-ray, but they pre-date Campbell, Major, and Dickson. Due to limited page space, the decision was made not to include in the book any artwork that was not influential in the making of the film. Anything and everything that was ever seriously considered as an alternate design is represented in the book.
As I mentioned in the book, the Ring and Lantern designs were revisited and redesigned once the look of Oa was established. The concept artwork for the new designs of the Lantern by Fabian Lacey are in the book. Same with the Ring, artwork by Joe Hiura. Aside from very minor tweaking to the GL Ring, there were only two design directions for the Ring that were ever seriously considered by Campbell, Major, and the filmmakers. Those are in the book, along with the story behind it. Due to scheduling, the Yellow Power Ring was created during post-production by Joe Hiura, after we had wrapped principal photography. That ring only ever had one design direction, because the decision was made to base it off the final GL Ring design. This was also mentioned in the book. In fact, I fought to get those Yellow Ring image files to the publisher in time so that it would make it into the book, which was headed to print that very week. You can like it or hate it, but the truth is that the book is incredibly comprehensive and honest, and every designer, illustrator, and artist who worked on the film is represented, and can attest to its accuracy. In brightest day, in blackest night...
Ozzy
angry
