«Free Guy» production designer Ethan Tobman on the film’s easter eggs and building other key sets.
“Free Guy,” in theaters Aug.13, revolves around a world within a world — the video game Free City. Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, a background character in the game drawn into the action by Jodie Comer’s Molotov Girl, who is trying to keep Free City from being destroyed by its creator (Taika Waititi). Once Molotov Girl gets Guy to put on special glasses that allow him to see the game, the action takes off. Production designer Ethan Tobman (“Black Is King,” “Beautiful Boy”) steps into his biggest project to date, working alongside director Shawn Levy to bring the video game to life. Levy and Tobman collaborated closely, the director says. “We needed to create a video game that doesn’t exist, that has its inspirations, but has an entirely singular aesthetic, and an aesthetic that is immediately and consistently different than the way we portray the real world.” He adds, “Ethan and I laid out a visual bible that laid out the rules of the world,” Levy says. “Colors, lenses, composition and the style of the camera movement — everything had its place, and everything had to abide by that aesthetic.” Below, Tobman breaks down the world of Free City. “Life outside the video game is murky and dirty. There’s frame obfuscation, soft focus, and there is a lot of gray and it rains all the time. Things are messy and annoying. Inside the game, things are clean, symmetrical and saturated. The frames are clean, and everything is in focus. “We had an incredible time burying Easter eggs throughout Free City. We were constantly poking fun at the idea that people are trapped. There’s the travel agency that offers flights to nowhere, somewhere, anywhere or everywhere. All the stores have signs that say ‘Sale tomorrow.’ When you go to the ATM, the balance is designed to be always just below whatever it is that you want to afford.
