SOURCE: Gold Derby | Daniel Montgomery
January 25, 2021
For “Judas and the Black Messiah” production designer Sam Lisenco and director Shaka King, “a big factor … in the development of the look of the movie was, how can we make this as truthful as possible, but keep in mind the kinds of action movies that make the medicine go down a little easy?” Watch our exclusive video interview with Lisenco above.
“Judas” tells the true story of Chicago Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton(played by Daniel Kaluuya), who was assassinated by the FBI in 1969. But Lisenco and King wanted to create a look reminiscent not just of the history of Chicago in the 1960s, but of thrillers from the period like “The Hot Rocks” and “The Seven-Ups.” “If we started to explore those kinds of genre-normative cues, even subconsciously, we would be able to come up with a language that was much more entertaining while being as historically accurate as possible.”
