Story trumps reality in entertainment design

Scott explains how much time goes into creating realistic futuristic environments

Concept infrastructure artists and frequently architecture predict years technologies,before they’re seen in real life. Take the Minority Report, which foresaw driverless cars, facial recognition and touchscreens. How important is it for these predictions to be as accurate as possible – and to what extent is this the responsibility of the concept artist?

“The amount of research that goes into predicting the future varies depending on time, money and the filmmakers’ interest,” says Scott. “The story drives this: on Minority Report, there was a strong goal to depict a plausible future world, so they consulted with a team of futurists and those predictions were shared with the concept design team. “How closely these predictions are followed during the visual development of a story varies a lot, and if the solutions aren’t entertaining enough the research is usually abandoned for whatever is regarded as the ‘bad-ass-du-jour’ direction. This is the big difference in designing for entertainment versus manufacturing. Story always trumps reality, as it should for entertainment projects. Audiences have proven time and again their ability to suspend disbelief when it comes to accepting far-fetched world-design.”