Creating the World of 'Nosferatu' (The Big Picture)

Summary

All Of It with Alison Stewart: Creating the World of 'Nosferatu' (The Big Picture)
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Craig Lathrop, Production Designer
Release Date: February 5, 2025

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Introduction

In the February 5, 2025 episode of All Of It, hosted by Alison Stewart, the spotlight is on the intricate world-building behind Robert Eggers' latest film, "Nosferatu." As part of the "The Big Picture" series, this episode delves deep into the meticulous craftsmanship that brings 19th-century German and Transylvanian settings to life on screen. The guest, Craig Lathrop, an Oscar-nominated production designer, shares his journey and insights into creating the hauntingly authentic environment of "Nosferatu."

Collaboration with Robert Eggers

Craig Lathrop's collaboration with Robert Eggers dates back to Eggers' first feature film, "The Witch." Their partnership is rooted in a shared commitment to historical authenticity and a cohesive artistic vision.

[01:38] Craig Lathrop: "I think we're on the same wavelength in terms of his approach to doing these films is to be as authentic as you possibly can be."

Lathrop recounts their initial meeting, characterized by a mutual exchange of visual inspirations that set the foundation for their collaborative synergy.

[02:17] Craig Lathrop: "We're on the same wavelength... doing these films is to be as authentic as you possibly can be."

Research and Design Process

The foundation of "Nosferatu's" visual storytelling lies in extensive research. Lathrop emphasizes the importance of grounding the film in historical accuracy while weaving elements of folklore and horror.

Artistic Influences

Lathrop draws inspiration from the Romanticism art movement, particularly the works of Caspar David Friedrich. This influence is evident in the film's palette and atmospheric design.

[05:02] Craig Lathrop: "The Romanticism, art movement... trying to push it a little bit more towards the romantic."

Architectural Authenticity

Set in a fictional Hanseatic League town, the architectural design reflects the brick Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles prevalent in 1838 Baltic German trade towns. Lathrop meticulously recreates the authentic brick structures, avoiding modern touristy elements to maintain the film's gritty and decayed aesthetic.

[06:10] Craig Lathrop: "There was a lot of brick Gothic, a lot of brick Renaissance and even Baroque... trying to make sure that we got that look."

Bringing Orlok’s Castle to Life

One of the standout elements of "Nosferatu" is Count Orlok's Castle, a character in itself. Lathrop draws inspiration from Corvin Castle in Romania, incorporating its distinctive columns and decaying grandeur.

[10:09] Craig Lathrop: "There was one castle in particular, Corvin Castle in Romania, that I really loved... But I needed decay. I needed, you know, that's what I was looking for."

The castle's maze-like corridors create a disorienting atmosphere, enhancing the character's ominous presence.

Depiction of Transylvanian Villages

The film's portrayal of a Transylvanian village grapples with the locals' fear and suspicion. Through on-site research in Romania and consultations with linguists, Lathrop ensures that the village's architecture and social dynamics are portrayed with authenticity.

[12:26] Craig Lathrop: "We were able to look at these... the architecture and these spaces and the carving and all of that."

Von Franz’s Workspace

Von Franz, portrayed by Willem Dafoe, embodies the quintessential mad scientist. His workspace, a blend of living area and office, reflects his obsession with the occult and alchemy. Lathrop details the layered design process that resulted in a cluttered, eerie environment.

[14:23] Craig Lathrop: "We just kept on adding more and more... we needed it to feel as mad as he is."

Innovative Set Elements

The Use of Real and Simulated Rats

A striking feature of "Nosferatu" is the depiction of thousands of rats, integral to the film's horror elements. Lathrop discusses the challenges and creative solutions in portraying such a vast population of rats.

[07:59] Craig Lathrop: "We used real rats on the set, thousands of them... the animal handlers were amazing."

To enhance the realism, Lathrop developed rat mats—crafted from realistic toy rats—for background scenes, supplemented by visual effects for deeper layers.

[08:24] Craig Lathrop: "We had 5,000 rats about right next to the camera... in that chapel, there would have been 100,000 rats."

Color Palette Choices

The film's distinct color scheme—harsh reds and icy blues—was a deliberate artistic choice to evoke specific emotional responses and enhance the film's aesthetic.

[09:24] Craig Lathrop: "The palette was very much in our control... we were trying to limit the palette and make sure that it fit with everything that we're doing."

Overcoming Challenges

Building expansive sets, such as five blocks of streets, was one of the most significant undertakings for Lathrop. Balancing historical accuracy with the film's narrative demands required meticulous attention to detail and innovative design solutions.

[15:51] Craig Lathrop: "We were able to create the world that Rob had envisioned and that it's cohesive and that helps the story."

Notable Achievements

Lathrop expresses pride in the cohesive and immersive world crafted for "Nosferatu," highlighting the monastery's intricate frescoes as a standout achievement.

[16:42] Craig Lathrop: "The monastery... every inch of the place is a fresco... we did it with a combination of... printed onto... and then painted over and added gold leaf."

Conclusion

Craig Lathrop's contribution to "Nosferatu" exemplifies the profound impact of thoughtful production design in storytelling. His dedication to authenticity, combined with creative ingenuity, has not only earned him an Oscar nomination but also elevated Robert Eggers' vision into a palpable reality. This episode of All Of It offers listeners an in-depth look at the artistry behind the scenes, celebrating the collaborative spirit that defines New York City's vibrant cultural landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• Collaboration Synergy

  [01:38] Craig Lathrop: "I think we're on the same wavelength in terms of his approach to doing these films is to be as authentic as you possibly can be."

• Artistic Inspiration

  [05:02] Craig Lathrop: "The Romanticism, art movement... trying to push it a little bit more towards the romantic."

• Architectural Authenticity

  [06:10] Craig Lathrop: "There was a lot of brick Gothic, a lot of brick Renaissance and even Baroque... trying to make sure that we got that look."

• Realistic Rat Depiction

  [07:59] Craig Lathrop: "We used real rats on the set, thousands of them... the animal handlers were amazing."

• Pride in World-Building

  [15:51] Craig Lathrop: "We were able to create the world that Rob had envisioned and that it's cohesive and that helps the story."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of the podcast episode, providing an engaging overview of Craig Lathrop's role in bringing "Nosferatu" to life. From collaborative dynamics and research methodologies to innovative set designs and overcoming production challenges, listeners gain valuable insights into the art of production design within the context of contemporary filmmaking.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

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[Craig Lathrop]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[C]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Our series the Big Picture is when we speak with Oscar nominees who worked behind the camera to make the best movies of the year. Today we are focusing on the look of Nosferatu. Director Robert Eggers is known for his films that combine historical accuracy with the stories of folklore, myth and horror. But to pull it off, he needs a great team to help him achieve his mission. In a moment, we'll speak with costume designer Linda Muir. But up first, we're talking to production designer Craig lathrop to bring 19th century German and Transylvania to life. Craig designed winding European streets, a rural village, and even a decaying castle home to the bloodthirsty vampire Count Orlok. Craig has been collaborating with Eggers since his first feature film, the Witch, and he is now Oscar nominated for his work on Nosferatu. Craig, thanks for coming to the show.

[Craig Lathrop]

Thank you so much.

[C]

You've been working with Robert Eggers since his first film, the Witch. How did you two first connect?

[Craig Lathrop]

Honestly, it was an interview. So just straight up an interview. But the interesting thing was I remember I got that script and I was interested in it and I did a quite a bit of research before I went into the interview. And I probably came into this interview with way too many images, like it was ridiculous. But we started talking and I pulled out these. I wasn't sure if I should, but I pulled out all these images and he reached into his case and pulled out almost the same images. And I thought, okay, this is gonna work.

[C]

Why do you think you are good collaborators with Eggers?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, first off, he's amazing, so I can't answer for him talking about me, but I think we're on the same wavelength in terms of his approach to doing these films is to be as authentic as you possibly can be. I know that's an impossible task, but that's where we start. And so doing a lot of research in the material world in these different eras is. Is the beginning of the journey of designing everything. But that's very important to him. And what does that mean for your.

[C]

Job is somebody who's so into historical accuracy?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, that means that I'M that I'm trying to keep up with all the research is what that means. You know, we're just trying to. Everything that's the material world. So, you know, I'm in. I'm. My department is the art department. Property, set decoration, props. So with the exception of costumes, rest of the world building that we're doing is what I'm responsible for. So that's what we're researching and trying to figure out. And the main thing is that we're trying to figure out the base. Right. The idea is that you're going to do all this research so you know what the world looks like. And at that point you're going to actually then start to design the sets so that they have the right beats, that you need the emotional beats, and designing the sets for very specific characters and all the regular things that you would do when you're designing a film. But we start off with the world stops at 18:38. So anything before that is good to go, but anything after that is not.

[C]

So where did your research start for this film?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, you know what, this film is an interesting film because Rob told me he wanted to make Nos 4A2 right after we did the Witch. And so the first script I got was in 2015, 2016, somewhere around there. So where did I start? Well, when I started was when all the way back there. And that's what I've been looking at. So, I mean, where did I start? I probably started with paintings. There's no real photographs from 1838. So, you know, was looking at paintings and then started digging into all the rest of it.

[C]

Yeah, we read an Architectural Digest that you looked at a lot of Casper David Friedrich's paintings for inspiration. There's gonna be the big show at the Met, which opens this weekend.

[Craig Lathrop]

Oh, fantastic.

[C]

Yeah. Will you have a chance to check it out while you're in town?

[Craig Lathrop]

You know what? Schedule's very tight.

[C]

Very tight. Okay.

[Craig Lathrop]

We're leaving in the morning to go to la.

[C]

There'll be a lot of time to see it. Why was his work useful for you?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, it's just. It's the. The Romantic is what we were looking at. The Romanticism, art movement. So it's really his. Is it? Probably a much bigger question, but, you know, the idea of the awe and the sublime in the Romantic era and really a lot with nature is the way that they were working. But also that works well into what we were doing as well. We were trying to ground a lot of this in Romanticism. I know that the Original film says it's expressionistic. German expressionistic. We were trying to push it a little bit more towards the romantic. Not romantic as in romantic love, but like a romantic art movement.

[C]

So this is set in a fake German town. What did you notice about the architecture from this period that you named 1838 that you knew you had to get right in the sets?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, it was a Hanseatic league town, which is a Baltic German trade town. And so there's a very specific, that's a very specific architectural style. There's a lot of brick gothic, there's a lot of brick Renaissance and even baroque, but there's not a lot of stone. I mean, honestly, almost all the buildings in that area are made out of brick from that era with little bit of stone ornament, but that's it. So that was one of them. And just making sure that you got that look, you know, which a lot of us have recognized with the step gables and you know, anyway, trying to make sure that we got that look. And also we ended up building the town. All the streets I built. I've looked at a lot of other towns and cities that may have a couple of buildings that are fantastic and are very interesting and would have worked for us, but there were no streetscapes. And then even on top of that, most of these towns, you're talking about a tourist area which is sort of spit shined in this nice Starbucks on the corner. You know, it's just not what we needed. We needed a little bit more dirt and grit and a place to go as we went from the bustling city in the beginning to the plague ridden city later in the film.

[C]

So that was all built for your film?

[Craig Lathrop]

Yeah, we built all of that.

[C]

Wow.

[Craig Lathrop]

Yeah.

[C]

My guest is production designer Craig Lathrop. He is Oscar nominated for his work on the film Nosferatu. All right, let's talk about the plague ridden city. Robert came, sat right there and told me, yes, they used real rats on.

[Craig Lathrop]

The set, thousands of them.

[C]

What was it like to watch all the rats running everywhere?

[Craig Lathrop]

It was good, actually. I mean, I know that they're, you know, I hate to say this, but they were a little smelly once you get a lot of them together. Yeah, but. But they were really great. You know what? The, the animal handlers were amazing. I didn't realize how well you could train rats, for instance.

[C]

They're smart.

[Craig Lathrop]

They're smart. They are smart. And you know, and we had the rats that we had that were live, were foreground and so in the background, I Actually built these, like, half meter square. We were calling them rat mats, where I had. I took a bunch of toy rats, very realistic toy rats, and I. And I put them together like they were climbing all over each other and made a mold and flocked it and all of that, so that we'd have a base layer to put out there. And then the heavy for the deep background was visual effects as they animated rats. But there was 5,000 rats about right next to the camera. I mean, in that chapel, there would have been 100,000 rats.

[C]

So, wow, we've got a letter here, text here that says, hold on. The coloring of the film struck me and enhanced the beauty of film. The harsh reds and the icy blues. Was that an artistic decision or part of the production process?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, it was. Everything that we did was certainly a choice. I mean, we had the luxury of building everything. So, you know, the palette was very much in our control. And we definitely wanted, for the most part, a limited palette, with maybe the great exception being the Harding's house. Just one second. Sorry about that. So, yeah, I mean, we were trying to limit the palette and make sure that it fit with everything that we're doing. I can't remember. I hope that answered the question.

[C]

That was a good answer. Let's talk about Orlok's Castle. What did you notice from your research into other castles that you definitely wanted to include in Orlok's Castle?

[Craig Lathrop]

Well, you know, there was one castle in particular, Corvin Castle in Romania, that I really loved. And I nicked the columns pretty much straight up. Different materials, but the shape was the same. And then there was a lot of other little. I mean, there was so many different details all through there from the. From the locks and the blacksmiths that I had to build the locks for us so that we could have them to just the shape of certain corridors and certain different castles. But I'd say more than the things that I took, because we did look at a lot of castles, and originally I was looking at them hoping that we'd find a location. But they were all beautiful. There was two flavors. Either they were a complete ruin and walls were down and there was nothing left of them, really, or they'd been beautifully renovated and they were whitewashed and they were pristine and ready for the throngs of tourists to come through and see these beautiful spaces. And they are beautiful. They're spectacular, but they were not Orlok's castle. I needed decay. I needed, you know, that's what I was looking for.

[C]

The castle also had a maze like, feeling to it. How did you want to create that feeling?

[Craig Lathrop]

How did I want to create it? Well, we created. The mazes were mainly in the hallway. So, you know, I didn't have a. Didn't have as many straight lines as a couple of straight lines. I'm not quite sure how to say how I. I wanted to create it. I just. I knew that we wanted to create it, so we were creating a maze. So that was. You didn't. You wanted it to be disorienting. You wanted it to feel like the character feels where you're not quite sure where you are. And so that was. That was part of it.

[C]

During the film, we come to a trans. A village in Transylvania where people, like, they're very frightened about what's going on in that castle. What were you able to learn about Transylvanian villages? What they might have looked like, how the people might have responded to someone new coming in?

[Craig Lathrop]

Yeah, that's a much bigger question than you realize. There's a lot that we learned. But I will say it was interesting. When we were in Romania and we were scouting some castles, we scouted Corvin Castle, as I mentioned before. But we also had the opportunity to go to two different outdoor museums. And I'm terribly sorry, but I can't remember their names. But these are great. These are places where they've. They've literally moved a bunch of buildings from around Romania from different eras. And so we were able to look at these. These. These. The architecture and these spaces and the carving and. And all of that. And then we had some consultants that were helping us in terms of what was going on and what the different fabrics mean, the textiles that we were. That we brought over. And then once we get into Dacian, which is the whole language that would have been from way before that, that's a whole nother. A whole nother level of everything that we were trying to figure out. It's a dead language, and there's nothing that we know of the written language. But we had a linguist to help us with what they believe the language would have sounded. And then we were tasked with coming up with a written language for it. And there's very little bits of it that are available. And so that's what we did. So the contract that you see, that would be our version of Dacian.

[C]

Von Franz is played by Willem Dafoe, and he's sort of the Van Helsing character. And we get to see his office.

[Craig Lathrop]

Yes. His living space, office, workspace. It's all one. It's like, when I lived in New York, it was my studio apartment.

[C]

Tell me about creating that space. A little bit about what you needed to have so that people could understand who this mad scientist was.

[Craig Lathrop]

You know, it's funny, I think it was Kirsting. I'm trying to think of the artist. That was my first inspiration on that. I knew I wanted it to be in an attic just so the walls weren't, like, clean lines. Once again, it was a little. Everything's a little bit twisted and crooked in there. And I knew that he was into the occult. So we did a lot of research of items and what it would look like to have, you know, all of his research that he'd be doing for the occult and also alchemy. So it's. We just kept on adding more and more. I mean, we found there was a. Oh, I wish. I'm terribly sorry. I can't remember names today. But I. There was a. A lovely group that we found that was connected to a chemical company to be strangely. Which was a museum. And they actually made a lot of the alchemy tools and beakers for us. Cool. We were able to get that. So it was great. They were a great resource. But we just kept layering it in and further and further because we needed it to feel as mad as he is.

[C]

Yeah. As. More and more and more. Like, every time you take down a beaker, there might be something else behind it.

[Alison Stewart]

Every time.

[C]

You know.

[Craig Lathrop]

That's right.

[C]

When you think back on Nosferatu, is there something that you're particularly proud of or. That was really hard to figure out, that you figured it out.

[Craig Lathrop]

You know, I'm proud of. I'm proud of quite a bit of the film. I'm very proud of this film in general. I'm. The streets that we did were probably our biggest sets for the film and probably my biggest sets ever. Just because we did five blocks. So that's a lot. There's a lot of detail that goes into that. But really, I would say. And this is. I'm not trying to cop out, it's really that I feel that we were able to create the world, you know, build the world that Rob had envisioned and that it's cohesive and that helps the story. To tell the story. I just. Hopefully it all works for everybody. That it feels like you're actually in these places. That's what I'm most proud of.

[C]

So not the rat mats.

[Craig Lathrop]

Not the rat mats. Although I do like the monastery as well.

[C]

Oh, tell me. Yeah, tell me about that.

[Craig Lathrop]

Oh, the monastery we did. So we. The monastery that's in there. So when I first saw images of these beautiful monasteries in Romania, I felt like this. We just had to do that because originally some of the early research we did, we had some wooden, A wooden monastery. But I saw these and I just thought, you know, they're all like, in the true sense of the word, they're awesome. They're all inspiring. And it just felt like to me, that's what Hutter should feel as he's being dragged into here. And so I wasn't sure how I was going to do it because it's a lot to paint and it's a lot to ask somebody. You know, every inch of the place is a fresco. But we, we did it with a combination of. There was a company I found in Italy that could, that had a product, that very thin, pliable product that they could print onto. And we started with that and then painted over it and added gold leaf, et cetera, et cetera. But I just, I actually love the images of it. And the interesting thing is when I started, when I talked Rob into going in this direction, I wasn't sure how we were going to do it, but I knew that we should.

[C]

Okay, look for the monasteries. My guest has been Craig Lathrop. He is the Oscar nominated for his work on Nasratu. He is the production designer. It is lovely to meet you.

[Craig Lathrop]

Thank you. It's lovely to meet you.

[Alison Stewart]

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