Meet the robots of the (not too distant) future
How the first-time filmmaker behind new sci-fi ARCHIVE created three robots from scratch
THERE ARE THREE robots in new indie sci-fi Archive. Set in 2038, it sees engineer George (played by Theo James) work alone in his Japanese lab as he desperately attempts to recreate his late wife through artificial intelligence. Debut director Gavin Rothery, who previously collaborated with his friend Duncan Jones, says he wanted to expand on his work as concept designer on cult 2009 sci-fi Moon.
“I wanted to do my own visual evolution from GERTY [the AI assistant in the film],” he says.
THE PROTOTYPE: J1
George’s first robot, J1, is a big, chunky thing. The design, Rothery explains, comes from the character and his obsessions. “I was always keen that J1 looked quite primitive,” Rothery says. “The idea is that George is only concentrating on the brains. He’s not really bothered about the bodies. So he doesn’t bother finishing J1. As soon as he’s got what he needs for the development of the robotic brain, he just gets onto the next one. Wherever possible, Rothery was keen to use practical effects over CGI — partly due to the film’s modest budget, and partly due to Rothery’s love of past cinematic droids. “It’s always the robots with performers inside that I really love. Look at the personalities of R2-D2 and C-3PO! I haven’t seen a CG robot that made me feel like that.” J1’s primitive plodding was performed by Chris Schubert, the art director of the robot build team, who would watch an ipad inside the suit, connected to a camera, in order to see.
THE UPGRADE: J2
If J1 is the nonverbal infant child, J2 is the stroppy teenager— whose more developed AI leads her to jealousy when a more advanced version is built. “When I wrote the first pass of the script, I wrote them as little girls instead of robots: a widower dad, with two young girls, and a new stepmom coming into the house. That was kind of the frame, the hook that I put around it.” Both J1 and J2 were built by a team utilising “three filament-based 3D printers running 24/7”. Made of plastic and fibreglass, Rothery pays tribute to J2’s performer, ex-cirque Du Soleil dancer Timea Maday Kinga, for her commitment. “Every time I talk to her now, I always begin with a big apology. It’s hard to wear that suit. It was super-restrictive to move in it. Everything was held together with cable ties.”
THE ADVANCED MODEL: J3
While J1 and J2 shuffle around in the background, George works on his main project: a human-like android that carries the archived memories of his dead wife. J3 looks advanced, but the effect was achieved with a relatively simple mix of make-up, prosthetics and visual effects. As Rothery explains, the actor, Stacy Martin, was “in full costume” on her upper body, with “green trousers, standing on an apple box” so that her legs could be edited out in postproduction. Martin spent “four-and-a-half hours in make-up, and another two-and-a-half at the end of the day,” which was, Rothery admits, “a bit of a nightmare [for her]. But at the end of the day, she’s feeding that into the performance. When you see J3 looking frustrated, that’s Stacy using the make-up chair energy.”
J3 is the most human-like of the robots, but there are still design choices being made. The lines on her face, for example, suggest the mechanical structure underneath. “The idea was, it’s just not quite finished,” says Rothery. “Those are almost like witness marks. If you look at the bottom of any plastic moulded dustbin, there’s always these little artefacts that betray the manufacturing process.” From Honda to dustbins: the references run deep here.
ARCHIVE IS IN CINEMAS FROM 15 JANUARY AND ON DIGITAL FROM 18 JANUARY