Adam Horne
This next question is from CylonSloth [u/CylonSloth], they say, "As far as the miniatures and feature adaptations go, can we assume that these miniatures and Isaac's art will be the basis of how characters will be represented if Stormlight were to receive a cinematic adaptation in the future, or will casting change depend on the art director, casting director, of said future adaptation?"
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, this is gonna be a dance between the two. Having our own concept art that is this rigorous, it increases the chances that our visions for the characters will end up on the screen, right? That's just, absolutely the case. But at the same time, art directors put their own stamp on things. It depends on who the art director is, what our involvement as a company is, whether it's television or feature film, 'cause feature film has to adapt more and the visual language also tends to change a little bit more because of that, than television necessarily has to. Some television adapts more than others, so I would say that it's up in the air but this certainly helps.
I can't say too much, but when we were taking some meetings, this concept art was shared with people who are interested in some of our properties, saying, "This is how we imagine it." and things like that. It's tricky when you get to fantasy properties, and fantastical ethnicities, right? And we've had conversations about this. Like, there's a decent chance that we will cast all of, or a large chunk of Alethi as Asian-American. Which means the skin tone might be a little lighter on a lot of people than they would be in the concept art. Because, depending on various things like that. We ask the fans to be understanding of things like that, and we might -- there's certain things where we're like, "We will allow some of the characters, like you know, like we've talked about on the borders, to blend ethnicities a little bit more to get us a little bit more variety in our casting decisions. That shouldn't be interpreted as me saying, "We are going to cast Kaladin as a white dude." We will not. No -- anyone that we've worked with, that we've even entered into discussions, knows that I have been very strict with Kaladin, Jasnah, Dalinar. They have to be either Asian-American, or, as long as they're all the same, we might go Indian. We might go Middle Eastern, but I want them all to be the same [in] our world ethnicity, in order to represent that this is a culture on Roshar. It's really hard to define those things without having partners yet that we're doing them yet. And it's possible I have to eat my words at some point, or things like that. We're going to do our best to make sure that we get people like this.
Here's an example that isn't even delving into the racial issues, and things like that. I think Hugh Jackman did an amazing Wolverine. I loved his Wolverine. Wolverine is like three feet tall, right? [Other guest laughs] I'm exaggerating, but what is he, like 5' 6" in the comics? And Hugh Jackman is 6' 2" or something. I might be exaggerating those differences but I know when he was cast a lot of people were like, "He's too tall to be Wolverine." And I don't have that problem where I'm like, "Look. Get the person who matches acting the character really well, and then go with that." And we're going to be doing that, right? So, is it going to be? I don't know, we will try to make it like, Kaladin is taller than Szeth. But if we get to the end and we find two actors we really like and Szeth is taller, oh well. That's the sort of thing that we're going to be doing.
I don't think that's 100% your question. I think you're probably talking about costume design and things like that. I would say that us having concept art helps a ton in that area in specific. And I think we're much more likely to get costuming like we want it by having this.
Isaac Stewart
I imagine a process will be, and this is part of the reason we wanted to push to do this so we had this in our pocket for when we need it. I imagine that if we, depending on how much control we have, these designs would be given to an art department and a production designer. As a basis, they would have it. They would look at it, and it would become a sort of basis for concept art that then they would start riffing off of. And they would come up with things that they think about the world and they think about something we hadn't thought of before, and add that in. And we're going to be okay with that as long as it makes sense.
Brandon Sanderson
Yep. We will be as respectful to the source material as we can, while knowing that we're creating something in a new genre. That requires some adaptation.
Isaac Stewart
I mean, for example if Adolin's armor was green, and we had to use green screens, they're gonna say, "You know what? You need to change his armor color." And that might have repercussions later. Just, different things show better in movie shots than they might in a comic book or something like this.
Brandon Sanderson
Yep. For the same reason that Iron Man's armor evokes the iron armor from the comics, but if you compare them side-by-side they don't actually look all that much alike. We're gonna be making changes like that. I'd be absolutely sure. But, having this concept art will help. And it certainly has helped. Like I said, any time we've done a Stormlight conversation, 'cause we continually have lots of them. People come in, we say, "Here are our canon interpretations of what the characters look like. Your job will be to match actors to these, at least in this same sort of genre and style." And they're like, "Okay, we get it." And that's just been super helpful.
