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Jocasta Braithe

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OH that gate is gorgeous!
 
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Looks like there's a possibility Rob Goodwin will be assisting the head costume designer. Mostly does leatherwork, worked on Into the Woods, Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast, and both the Maleficent movies.

This actually gives me a lot more confidence in the costume department, if true.
 

Eliza Al'Shaw

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Fingers crossed it is!!
 
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The crew membership list has exploded into quite a huge number of people (as expected), so I probably won't post a granular look at most of them (unless y'all are curious!). A couple of things of note:

Joe Sawyer appears to be at least one of the editors, and he worked on Solo: A Star Wars Story which is impressive (imo). The only reason why that film was enjoyable was 80% editing (which, tbh, is true of even the original trilogy, thank you Marcia Lou Griffin). He's also worked on Outlander, which did have some interesting edits I appreciated. Whether or not he's responsible for them, though, [shrug].

On costuming, they've pulled from Chronicles of Narnia again with Gypsy Taylor who has also done some interesting work with human-sized puppets, leaving me wondering if maybe her experience with that is part of what made her a good choice. Someone who worked on the armory for Game of Thrones is involved now (Lex Wood); they've also down background extras for Snow White and the Huntsman and is a part of the Disney world now through Dumbo and The Little Mermaid. There's also a credited costume concept artist now, and his work does excite me: Warren Holder did Mulan, Maleficent, Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians, all of which had very exciting silhouettes. There's also another leatherworker credited now, Jake Collier. He has done a lot of stuff-- including Xena, Wonder Woman, the upcoming Cinderella musical, and Thor: The Dark World. The stuff he's worked on is some of the best leatherwork seen on television, so this is good news!

I'm seeing a lot of overlap in the costuming department, with some serious high-budget stuff (Fantastic Beasts, etc), so it looks like they're pulling in some of the best people in the fantasy costuming world. This is awesome.

There's three dialect coaches credited, which to me is a good sign. Hopefully that means we're going to hear a wide variety of accents on the show, even in the first season.

Looking at storyboard artists .... good people that have all done good work, but most of their notable films have been, well, of a certain type. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Judge Dredd, Alien v. Predator, Underworld, Maze Runner were some of the standout work, and it leaves me slightly underwhelmed. Storyboarders are the people who translate the script into a visual medium for the very first time, so their artistic impression can leave an indelible mark. They do it under the direction of directors/producers/showrunners, granted, but still. With that kind of background, I think we'll get an industry standard "action movie" feel to the pacing/shots/narrative flow. Which is fine.

Since the last time I've posted, set designer was also announced! Ondrej Nekvasil! Cast and crew have all noted that the set design on Wheel of Time is some of the best they've ever seen, and r/DailyTrolloc was able to capture some pictures that got his entire reddit taken down and user account terminated so I guess I won't repost them, but I saw them before they were taken down from reddit and golly they were amazing. We got one street shot of Tar Valon and what I think might be the inside of a Two Rivers house (or perhaps inn). It looked incredible. Ondrej has also worked on The Illusionist (I wanted to live inside that set when I saw that movie back in the day), Snowpiercer (the set in that is practically a character), and Krypton (which had some some incredible and unique set pieces).

So that's the highlights from the credited crew so far.
 
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Been a while since I've added to this thread, but Rafe dropped huge news today: David Buckley has been replaced as composer by Lorne Balfe.

My person opinion: I am hugely relieved. I think Balfe is a much more capable composer than Buckley. He's done music for His Dark Materials and The Crown, which is so much more appropriate for WoT than anything Buckley had.
 
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I know of a couple directors for season 2 (unconfirmed, but reliably reported, so here's what I know of them so far:

David Lowery: He directed The Green Knight with Dev Patel, which is definitely a YMMV film but is undeniably gorgeous. I think inside the context of a big-budget show like Wheel of Time he's really going to have the chance to shine. Less experimental than Green Knight allowed him to be, but we'll still get to see some fun stylistic things and a heavily narrative POV (probably). I think I'd describe his film style as "literary" from what I've seen and I'd like a few episodes of season 2 to have some gravitas, so this is exciting.

Sanaa Hamri: she's from Morocco, where they've been filming, and she's internationally famous as a music video director-- Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, B.I.G., Prince, Kravitz, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige ... if you've been somebody in R&B, you've worked with her. After watching all of them, I can tell she's been influential in the development of the music video as an art form, which is nothing to shake a stick at. In TV she's done Glee, Elementary, Empire, American Horror Story, 90210, so I am guessing she's been pulled in for some high-drama interpersonal relationship scripts. I think her episodes will be fun.

Maja Vrvilo: she's been working in genre television for a while, including Picard and Discovery, which as a Trekkie is great news and I thought her episodes were awesome so this is another yay! for me. She's also done a lot of procedural/whodunit-style shows, and even her episodes on Star Trek had a heavy mystery component so I'm wondering if her strengths there are why she was chosen. Other recognizable (to me) shows she's done are Elementary, Preacher, Gotham, and Hawaii Five-0. I like that her experience is a mix between online streaming and the broadcast networks primetime. Means she's comfortable with serial story-telling with its pretty expected beats as well as the unconventional stuff you can do without those limitations.

So far in Wheel of Time the only director I can complain about is Ciaran Donnelly. While the Blood Snow opener was fantastic, and most of what happened in episode 8 was clearly because of last-minute script changes and covid laws (the women all standing alone by themselves, 6 feet apart from each other? Yeah. This pandemic suuuucks)... Ciaran was chosen, in my opinion, because he's a very good action director which they needed for 7 and 8. Blood Snow is a testament to his skill there. But then ... covid restrictions happened and there couldn't be any fighting. They had to toss out all their hand-to-hand stuff, all the swordwork Daniel Henney was going to get to do, all the trolloc fighting at the Gap and replace it with CGI and [keyboard smash] I ... don't think he excelled. Every time I rewatch 8 and I get to "We are no one's but our own" I just want to DIE from CRINGING. When Salli directed Zoe up against Sophie in 6, Zoe was brilliant. She was exactly Nynaeve to a T and I love it. She is [chef's kiss]. But the same actress in a similar situation in 8 was like all somber and low-toned and solemnly intoned "We are no one's but our own" and [gagging noises].

No I don't have strong opinions about this lol
 
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