November December 2015 FX Mag

PERSPECTIVE
T H E
J O U R N A L
O F
T H E
A R T
D I R E C T O R S
G U I L D
NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2015
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Oscar - worthy, inspiring, important, brilliant,

unforgettable movie! Carey Mulligan deserves
Oscar gold, as does the entire filmmaking team.
Women and girls...you will stand up and be
counted after this amazing movie!
JAN WAHL, KCBS/KRON, SAN FRANCISCO
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

ALICE NORMINGTON, BARBARA HERMAN-SKELDING
For more on this film, go to www.FocusGuilds2015.com
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contents
Its Not Rocket Science
22
Oh, wait, yes it is
The Profession of Violence
34
The Legend of the Kray twins
Beasts of No Nation
46
Jungles and old colonial towns
Steve Jobs
50
A three-act Apple story
A Secret in the Making
58
Is the Secret in Their Eyes
The Pope in Philadelphia
66
Designing a historic moment
Nostalgic Television in a Digital World
72
Gortimer Gibbons Life on Normal Street
by Arthur Max, Production Designer
by Tom Conroy, Production Designer
by Miles Michael, Production Designer
by Guy Hendrix Dyas, Production Designer,

and other members of the STEVE JOBS Art Department
by Nelson Coates, Production Designer
by Production Designer Ren Lagler, speaking with journalist

Sharon Stancavage from Lighting & Sound America magazine
by Kristan Andrews, Production Designer
4 E D I TO R I A L
8 C O N T R I B U TO R S
12 PRESIDENTS LETTER
14 NEWS
80 PRODUCTION DESIGN
82 MEMBERSHIP
8 4 C A L E N DA R
8 6 M I L E S TO N E S
8 8 R E S H O OT S
ON THE COVER:
An early digital concept painting by

Illustrator Jaime Jones of astronaut
Mark Watney (Matt Damon) digging up
a radioisotope thermoelectric generator,
originally used to charge the missions
Mars Ascent Vehicle, for The Martian
(Arthur Max, Production Designer).
PERSPECTIVE | NOV E M B E R/DE C E M B E R 2015
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P ER S P EC T IV E
T H E J O U R N A L O F T H E A RT D I R E C TO R S G U I L D
Novemb er/Dec em ber 2015
PERSPECTIVE ISSN: 1935-4371, No. 62, 2015. Published bimonthly by the

Art Directors Guild, Local 800, IATSE, 11969 Ventura Blvd., Second Floor,
Studio City, CA 91604-2619. Telephone 818 762 9995. Fax 818 762 9997.
Periodicals postage paid at North Hollywood, CA, and at other cities.
Editor
MICHAEL BAUGH
editor.perspective@att.net
Copy Editor
MIKE CHAPMAN
mike@IngleDodd.com
Print Production
INGLE DODD MEDIA
310 207 4410
inquiry@IngleDodd.com
Advertising
310 207 4410
ADG@ingledodd.com
www.IngleDoddMedia.com
Publicity
MURRAY WEISSMAN
Weissman/Markovitz
Communications
818 760 8995
murray@publicity4all.com
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MIMI GRAMATKY, President
JIM WALLIS, Vice President
STEPHEN BERGER, Trustee
CASEY BERNAY, Trustee
JUDY COSGROVE, Secretary

CATE BANGS, Treasurer
MARJO BERNAY, Trustee
PAUL SHEPPECK, Trustee
OANA BOGDAN
KRISTEN DAVIS
PATRICK DEGREVE
JAMES FIORITO
MARCIA HINDS
JOHN IACOVELLI
ADOLFO MARTINEZ
JOHN MOFFITT
RICK NICHOL
DENIS OLSEN
TIM WILCOX
TOM WILKINS
SCOTT ROTH, Executive Director

BILL THOMAS, Associate Executive Director
GENE ALLEN, 1918 2015
Executive Director Emeritus
BE
Subscriptions: $32 of each Art Directors Guild members annual dues is

allocated for a subscription to PERSPECTIVE. Nonmembers may purchase
an annual subscription for $40 (overseas postage will be added for foreign
subscriptions). Single copies are $8 each.
Postmaster: Send address changes to PERSPECTIVE, Art Directors Guild,
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Submissions:
Articles, letters, milestones, bulletin board items, etc., should be emailed to the
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Website: w w w.artdirectors.org
Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed in PERSPECTIVE, including those of officers and staff
of the ADG and editors of this publication, are solely those of the authors
of the material and should not be construed to be in any way the official
position of Local 800 or of the IATSE.
THE ART DIRECTORS GUILD MEMBE RSHIP INC LUDES

PRODUCTION DESIGNERS, ART DIRECTORS,
SCENIC ARTISTS, GRAPHIC ARTISTS, TITLE ARTISTS,
ILLUSTRATORS, MATTE ARTISTS, SET DESIGNERS,
MODEL MAKERS AND DIGITAL ARTISTS
P E R S P E C T I V E | NOVEMBER/D EC EMBER 2015
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I M P E C C A B L Y M A D E .
B E A U T I F U L .
CHRIS NASHAWATY,
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN EVE STEWART, MICHAEL STANDISH
A C I N E M A T I C L A N D M A R K .
PETER DEBRUGE, VARIETY
#TheDanishGirl
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For more on this film, go to www.FocusGuilds2015.com
MOTION PICTURE: 2015 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ARTWORK: 2015 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
12/1/15 10:57 AM
editorial
A HOLLYWOOD TRADITION
by Michael Baugh, Editor
It seems like just yesterday that we all got dressed up in our evening finery (black tie was optional that night, but
many of the celebrants wore tuxedos and long gowns anyway). It wasnt the fanciest hotel in townthe Sheraton
Universaland it wasnt a banquet, just cocktails and limited hors doeuvres, but there was excitement in the air
nonetheless as the Society of Motion Picture and Television Art Directors (it wouldnt be the ADG for another six
years) gathered to celebrate the arts and crafts we all practice. The Society had held fancy gatherings before,
stretching back to the 1930s, but this one was destined to be different from all the others. It was the First Annual
Awards, as weusing grammar incorrectlycalled it then, somehow knowing that the tradition started that evening
would continue.
Production Designer Jim Bissell was the chair of the Awards Committee and, rather than spend money or effort
on above-the-line talent, he also served as host, presenter and master of ceremonies. A five-piece group of
musicians played on the small riser in the middle of the ballroom, and people mingled, enjoying the opportunity to
reconnect in an upscale environment with friends they otherwise only saw walking through the mill or hunched over
a drawing board. The Awards themselves were pretty rudimentary by todays standards: one award for television
(Herman Zimmerman for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), one for feature films (Stuart Craig for The English Patient),
cinematographer Allen Daviau was given the first Cinematic Imagery Award, Gene Allen got a Special Achievement
Award for his long service to the Society, and Bob Boyle was chosen to receive the very first Lifetime Achievement
Award. The whole presentation was over in less than a half an hour, but everyone there could see this was
something that would last.
The following year, the Awards became a banquet, this time at the Bowl on the lower level of the Biltmore Hotel
downtown. People dressed to the nines once more, and Johnny Crawford and his orchestra played the first of his
seventeen straight years with the ceremony. There was still only one feature film category, but television split into
three, echoing the Emmys of that era. Norman Jewison showed up to accept the Cinematic Imagery Award, and
Henry Bumstead became the second Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
The third Awards, with Jim Bissell in charge once more, stepped everything up a notch by moving the event to the
Beverly Hilton Hotel, where it has remained ever since. The room has a stage so, like all good designers should, we
built a set for the event, stylishly designed by Roy Christopher. It was also the first foray into the world of film clips:
film editors Michael Sheridan and Jack Tucker edited clips for the five feature film nominees, and gave birth to a
process that has become ever more complicated year by year.
This January 31 will mark the twentieth time we will gather in our evening clothes to see if we recognize each
other without our normal layer of sawdust and paint overspray. There are now eight television categories and three
for feature films, and every nomineemore than one hundred of themis honored with film clips of their work.
Comedian Owen Benjamin will host the ceremonies for the third time, film columnist and Turner Classic Movies host
Robert Osborne will be given the first William Cameron Menzies Award for championing visual entertainment, and
Patrizia von Brandenstein will receive the Guilds twentieth Lifetime Achievement Award. Most importantly, the Art
Directors Guild Awards have become recognized by the studios and the industry press the same way they recognize
awards given by our friends in the Directors, Writers and Screen Actors Guilds. They are a Hollywood tradition.
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JUDY BECKER
HEATHER LOEFFLER
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
S E T D E C O R AT O R
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contributors
KRISTAN ANDREWS is a California native, and grew up in the cultural metropolis of Fresno until she moved to
the Monterey Peninsula. She studied set design and directing at UCLA and is a graduate of its School of Theater,
Film and Television. Ms. Andrews paid some early dues by hanging out with a few Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys, a
couple of Dragons and a few Hollywood Squares. She then landed upon series like Miracles and Six Feet Under.
Following a brief radical-sabbatical as a raw vegan chef and teacher, she returned to Production Design on the
series Incredible Crew, Gortimer Gibbons Life on Normal Street, Benched, a few pilots, and the feature film Ask
Me Anything. She lives in Los Angeles with her perky blonde 6-year-old daughter who likes to visit Mommys work,
especially the craft services table.
NELSON COATES is the fourth of five children whose university professor parents encouraged him to take piano,
sing, dance and act. Building with Lego was the perfect starting point for his design skills, and he still has three
bright tackle boxes filled with plastic bricks. His parents fostered an early analytical design sense by taking him
window-shopping, asking Which do you like, and why? A pre-med major, he began designing for Equity theaters
during college, somehow finding time to do thirty collegiate and professional shows, including Shakespeare in the
Park where he first met his longtime friend, Morgan Freeman. Though he has been an actor/singer most of his life,
Nelson developed a passion for narrative design, creating spaces that transport viewers to other places. Secret in
Their Eyes marks his first interview where he was told not to take the job.
TOM CONROY studied Production Design at the National Film & Television School in the UK. He works in
both film and television. Amongst the many projects he has designed are Neil Jordans darkly comic but moving
Breakfast on Pluto and Damien ODonnells East Is East. Other films include Intermission, The Roman Spring of
Mrs. Stone and West Is West. In television, Mr. Conroy is probably best known for his work on the four series
of Showtime/Working Titles period drama The Tudors. He has been nominated three times for an Emmy for
Outstanding Art Direction, winning in 2010 for The Tudors. He also picked up three Gemini Awards from Canada
was nominated twice for the Art Directors Guild Award, and was nominated eight straight years by the Irish Film &
Television Academy, winning twice.
GUY HENDRIX DYAS is a graduate of the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. He
worked in Tokyo as an industrial designer for Sony before moving to California to join ILM as a visual effects
Art Director. Dyas gained experience in the Art Department working on a wide range of films as a conceptual
illustrator and Art Director before moving into Production Design in 2002 on his first feature film, X-Men 2 for
Bryan Singer, followed by The Brothers Grimm for director Terry Gilliam. He has also designed Superman Returns
and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He currently splits his time between Europe and the US and some of his work is
displayed at the Design Museum in London and the Wakita Museum of Art in Tokyo. In 2007, he was named by
The Sunday London Times as one of the top ten British artists working behind the camera in Hollywood.
REN LAGLER was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and graduated from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
Along with five Emmy Awards and sixteen nominations, Mr. Lagler has designed the 57th Academy Awards; the
Grammy Awards from 1983 to 1987; the Emmy Awards; and sixteen years of the County Music Awards from
1991 to 2006. He designed specials and television series for Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, George Burns,
Billy Crystal, Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, Tony Orlando and Neil
Diamond, and he was Production Designer for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 1984 Olympics in Los
Angeles, and for seven events for David Wolpers Liberty Weekend in 1986, celebrating the 100th anniversary of
the Statue of Liberty. He Lives in Lake Arrowhead, CA, with his wife, singer/songwriter and author Gloria Loring.
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.
.
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contributors
ARTHUR MAX is a native New Yorker who, after graduating from New York University, worked in the music industry
as a stage lighting designer. He operated a spotlight at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and was Pink Floyds
lighting designer during two world tours. In 1975, he settled in London, completed a bachelor of architecture
degree at the Polytechnic of Central London and later, an MA from the Royal College of Art. He first entered the
film industry as an assistant to Stuart Craig on Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and designed
television commercials for Ridley Scott and David Fincher, going on to collaborate on feature films with them both.
He has been nominated twice for Academy Awards (Gladiator and American Gangster) and six times for the ADG
Award. He is currently working on Alien: Paradise Lost, his twelfth film for Ridley Scott.
Art Director MILES K. MICHAEL was born in Detroit and grew up in nearby Royal Oak, MI. After high school, he
joined the US Air Force to travel and work with aircraft. Tech school in Texas and maintaining nuclear bombers in
North Dakota dont seem like training for the film industry, but he moved to Brooklyn in 2001 and immediately
began working in film and television Art Departments. Seasons on series such as The Apprentice, Ink Master, HGTV
Design Star and 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, all with Production Designer Chris Potter, honed his skills. He tried a
stint in Los Angeles, along with many cross-country motorcycle trips, and now splits his time between New York and
Detroit where he has a shop. He loves the Motor City best, but is always willing to leave for a few months on the
next exotic locationlike Ghana where he was the Art Director on Beasts of No Nation.
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P E R SP E C T I VE | NOVEMBER/D EC EMBER 2015
For
DIS
12/1/15 11:03 AM
THE
G R E AT E S T I D E A
PIXAR HAS EVER HAD.
A stunningly original concept that will not only delight
and entertain worldwide audiences, but also promises to
forever change the way people think about the way people
think, delivering creative fireworks grounded by a
wonderfully relatable family story.
Peter Debruge, VARIETY
For our screening schedule visit us at
DISNEYSTUDIOSAWARDS.COM
B E S T
A R T
D I R E C T I O N
2015 Disney/Pixar
12/1/15 11:03 AM
from the president
WOMEN IN MOVIES
by Mimi Gramatky, Art Directors Guild President
When Lucille Ball accepted her Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Film in 1977, she said that she wished
for a time when awards designated specifically for women would become unnecessary because men and women
would be given equal opportunities, treated and judged equally. Sitting in the audience when Lucy received her
award as a young female Art Director, opportunities for me were few and far between. A friend even told me she
had heard a production manager state that he wouldnt ever want to hire a female Art Director. This year at the
Emmy ceremony, Viola Davis began her Best Actress acceptance speech with The only thing that separates women
of color from anyone else is opportunity. Nearly forty years have passed since Lucys speech and clearly we are far
from achieving the industry she envisioned.
As reported in the study Inequality in 700 Popular Films released August 2015 by the Media, Diversity, & Social
Change Initiative at USCs Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, researcher and founding director
of the initiative, Stacy L. Smith describes the lack of diversity in popular films as an epidemic. The report studied
one hundred of the top-grossing films from 20072014. The numbers are staggering. Women had just 30.2% of
all speaking roles. Only 11% were gender balanced, featuring females in roughly half of the speaking parts. Of the
779 directors during this time, only 28 were women.
In 2014, the top 100 movies were white: 73.1% of all speaking roles were played by white talent; they were straight:
only 19 characters were gay, lesbian or bisexual, none were transgender; and they were young: only 19.9% of
female characters were 40 to 64 years old. The picture that film presents is one that bears little resemblance to our
nations demography, said Dr. Smith. By examining trends over time, it is clear that no progress has been made
either on screen or behind the camera when it comes to representing reality. This report reflects a dismal record of
diversity for not just one group, but for females, people of color and the LGBT community.
What about below-the-line equality, specifically, the Art Directors Guild? In 2014, the ADG initiated 109 members,
29 women and 80 men, thats 26.6% vs. 73.4%, so our statistics are not any better than performers but we are
considerably better than directors. We should not, however, lose sight of Lucys wish. This year, four exceptional
women are being inducted into the ADG Hall of Fame: Carmen Dillon, Patricia Norris, Dorothea Holt Redmond
and Dianne Wager; and Oscar-winning Production Designer Patrizia von Brandenstein will receive the ADG
Lifetime Achievement Award. Previously, these awards have been bestowed predominantly on males. Members
have also elected two females into leadership positions: Marcia Hinds, Chairperson of the Art Directors Council,
and me, Mimi Gramatky, President of the Art Directors Guildboth previously male-occupied positions. Graduate
film schools have enjoyed an increase in female Production Design students, AFIs whole class of Production
Designers this year are women. Our sister guild, the International Cinematographers, just hired Rebecca Rhine as
their National Executive Director, replacing Bruce Doering who is retiring after thirty years. Another sister local, the
Motion Picture Editors Guild, has Cathy Repola as their Western Executive Director. Cathy has also been named
chairperson of the newly formed Womens Committee for the IATSE International. There still may be opportunities
designated specifically for women but we are making progress. My wish is that we are finally at a place where we
may never again hear the words, Whod ever want to hire a female Art Director.
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12:32 AM
PM
news
THE CINEMAGUNDI
A newly designed ADG Award trophy
by Tom Wilkins, Awards Committee Chair
In 1996, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Art Directors held its first awards show. Twenty years later,
we celebrate the success of our event which has taken its rightful place amongst the other top guild award shows.
To mark this milestone, a contest was held to redesign and update the trophy, both in design and in the materials.
Close to fifty designs were submitted by members of the Art Directors Guilds four crafts and reviewed by the
Art Directors Council. The Council has historically had the oversight on the Awards Banquet and the awarding
of trophies. The submissions were narrowed down first to eleven and then to three designs by vote of the
Council in secret balloting sessions. All balloting was conducted and kept anonymous by Jack Taylor and
Debbie Patton.
Above: Illustrator
Fredrik Buchs
rendering of the
new ADG Awards
trophy, called The
Cinemagundi.
14
After the final vote on the three surviving designs, the Council sought to have the old trophy design updated with
an art deco theme, based in part on the final submission that was selected. The Council by majority vote passed
a resolution to have Fredrik Buch, an Illustrator member of the Guild with a background in product design, do an
update of the existing trophy with the idea to emphasis the art deco period which was the dominant design motif
during the birth of our craft. Continued
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news
After much design work by Fred and
others, and under consultation with the
Art Directors Council, led by Council
Chair Marcia Hinds and Tom Wilkins, two
final versions were presented to the ADG
membership to select the winner. This
final design (pictured on page 14) will be
manufactured by R.S. Owens & Company,
Chicago, IL. The process of finding a
manufacturer was difficult but eventually, a
true like-minded artistic partner was found
to trust with this new trophy.
The new trophy for Excellence in
Production Design will be called
The Cinemagundi, named after the
organization founded May 1,1924, in
a room at the rear of a Sunset Boulevard
bistro, [where] some sixty-three fashionably
dressed artisans, led by William Cameron
Menzies and Anton Grot, signed a
document establishing the Cinemagundi
Club, the principal purpose of which was
to let the world at large know the extent
of their contributions. [Jane Barnwell,
Architects of the Screen, 2004]
Above is the
Cinemagundi Clubs
original charter,
still hanging in the
ADG offices.The
organizations name
was derived from the
Salmagundi Club,
founded in New York
City in 1871, one of the
oldest art organizations
in the United States.
www.Salmagundi.org
16
PERSPECTIVE editor Michael Baugh writes

[PERSPECTIVE, October/November 2007]:
It was at its heart a social club and
continued until 1937. The clubhouse, on lower Beachwood Drive still stands. In 1929, the Art Directors League
was formed as a true craft guild to improve wages and working conditions for Art Directors. The Depression
undercut the League almost as soon as it was formed and Art Directors, happy to have any kind of steady work in
those difficult times, abandoned all thought of collective action.
After the passage of the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) in 1935, the Art Directors decided they must
form their own organization before another union attempted to organize them. Fifty-nine Art Directors from all the
major studios, met on May 6, 1937, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and founded the Society of Motion Picture
Art Directors, the organization that still exists today, seventy-eight years and three name changes later, as the Art
Directors Guild.
So we look forward to celebrating the 20th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards this January 31 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, where this new trophy will be presented for the first time. Thank you to all of
our members who submitted their ideas for this design competition.
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Its Not
Rocket
Science
(Oh wait, yes it is)
by Arthur Max, Production Designer
12/1/15 11:08 AM
botany, organic chemistry and rocket technology again

and again. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering
skills and a relentless, dogged refusal to give up, he
steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable
obstacle after the next.
Previous pages: A digital

illustration by Concept
Artist Stephen Burg of
the Ares 3 evacuation
from the surface of
Mars, leaving behind
astronaut Mark Watney
(Matt Damon). Top: A
6-wheeled Mars rover
drawing with details
called out, by Art
Director Oliver Hodge
and draftsperson Sarah
Ginn. Above: A 3D study
of the vehicle, also
modeled by Mr. Hodge
and Ms. Ginn. Right:
A photograph of the
finished 4-wheel rover,
custom-built in Hungary
on the chassis of a highclearance agricultural
vehicle.
People often say that making movies is not rocket

science. For The Martian it was. More science than
fiction, what sets this story apart from many others
about the exploration of outer space is that the entire
plot is predicated on real science. To keep himself alive
until he can be rescued, astronaut Mark Watney (played
by Matt Damon), stranded with only his wits and a few
potatoes, has to rely completely on his knowledge of
In order to survive four years on Mars in a habitat

pod designed to last only a month, until the Ares
3 crew comes back to rescue him, hell have to
grow his own crops (with a little help from the
greens department), and having lost his communications
system because of a powerful storm, he must devise an
improvised means of making contact with NASA ground
control back on Earth by cannibalizing equipment left
on the planet by a previous Mars mission: the 1996
Pathfinder and Sojourner probes. Both action props
were faithfully reproduced by the films propmakers. He
also has to gerry rig his life-support systems to extend
the range of his Mars rover vehicle in order to make
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12/1/15 11:08 AM
Left: Another drawing of

the 6-wheeled rover, this
time without the trailer,
also by Mr. Hodge and
Ms. Ginn. Bottom, left:
The finished vehicle on
Stage 6 at Korda Studios
in Budapest. Right:
The 4-wheeled version,
with trailer, which was
destroyed in the story and
its parts salvaged for the
6-wheeled version.
a 3,200-mile journey across the planet to find a prelanded ascent vehicle meant for the crew of the next
Ares 4 mission which, once modified, can take him back
up into orbit and ultimately, to his rescue.

The parallel stories of the astronaut Watney, his fellow
Ares 3 astronauts, and the NASA Mars mission scientists
on Earth have to strike a balance between science and
fiction that could credibly happen in real life. In his own
words, hell need to science the shit out of this to stay
alive.

Consequently, all the technology used in the film had
to be modeled after rockets, spacesuits and other
space-travel engineering that already existed, or was
in the planning stages for NASA missions to Mars in
the very near future. NASA was consulted on many
technical aspects of the film, and a representative of the
European Space Agency was on the film set throughout
the shoot, but it was still left to the Art Department to

come up with a design that was both realistic and also
forward-looking.
The sets for The Martian began with preliminary concept
designs done in a small conference room at Scott Free
in Los Angeles working with three illustrators: Steve
Burg, Steven Messing and Jaime Jones. The process
then moved to three tiny Art Department offices at
Twickenham Studios in the UK for further development
with Supervising Art Director Marc Homes, set decorator
Celia Bobak, construction manager Ray Barrett,
Art Director Matt Wynneall set up by department
coordinator Felicity Hickson. At the same time, I was
off scouting Mars landscape locations in Jordan and
Namibia by helicopter for four weeks. All of this finally
culminated with a fully crewed department in Budapest,
working with an excellent coalition of Hungarian, Polish
and UK design and construction crews.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
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Top, left: A 3D model of the Mars habitat, drawn by Digital Modeler/Set Designer Gbor Szab. Right: The set on stage nearing completion.
Center: The massive Stage 6 at Korda Studios, now the largest purpose-built soundstage in the world (64,000 square feet with a 66-foot grid,
eclipsing the 007 stage at Pinewood) became the home for an immense Martian landscape, here showing the habitat set under construction.
Above, left: The habitat set was built a second time in Jordan for scenes requiring more space. Right: The finished 48-foot-diameter habitat
in Jordan, dressed with vehicles and blown sand.
26
12/1/15 11:09 AM
There were two fully driveable all-terrain Mars rover vehicles

whose concepts were developed first in Los Angeles by
Illustrator Jaime Jones, and then expanded further in the
UK by Oliver Hodge, Senior Art Director for vehicles with
his team. Custom built for the film in Hungary, one 4-wheel
model was allegedly destroyed by the storm and then
stripped of its batteries to augment the six-wheel version
which also towed an eight-wheel cargo trailer retrofitted to
it with additional batteries, solar panels and life-support
system modules.

The Mars rovers were based on actual high-clearance
agricultural vehicles fitted with all-wheel hydraulic drive
and independent suspension systems. Modifications were
made to the chassis components, upgrades to the engine,
suspension and hydraulic pumps to give the vehicles their
25 mph speed capability on irregular desert ground. The
original drivers compartment was completely removed
and then a custom-designed cab with gull wing doors
was fabricated and fitted over the original chassis. Also,
a half-ton remote-controlled telescopic swing arm lift was
fitted to the rear chassis deck, as were fully practical cable
winches slung under both the front and rear of the vehicles
chassis. They were all fully functional machines and worked
beautifully both on stage and in the Jordanian landscape.
The decision to take the film to Hungary was based
principally on the opportunity to use the very new Korda
Studios Stage 6 which currently is the largest stage in the
world, as large in floor area as the previous record holder,
the 007 James Bond stage at Pinewood, but much higher at
sixty-six feet to the grid. It also has a wider, more orthogonal
proportion than the Bond stage, which enabled the creation
of a huge Mars surface landscape made of four thousand
tons of a mixture of three different-colored sands to match
the Jordanian desert. It was big enough to accommodate
the 40-foot diameter, fully upholstered crew habitat set,
with its additional dormitory pod and fully rotating roof
radiation shade. A complete duplicate of this entire set was
reproduced in Jordan. It also accommodated a 48-foot
diameter set of retractible tripod landing legs for the Mars
Ascent and Descent Vehicles which stood at the other end of
the same stage.

The huge scale of this stage had several other advantages.
It allowed the Mars rover vehicle, forty-five feet long with its
trailer, to drive freely from one end of the stage to the other
at 25 mph and then loop around for another take. It gave
cinematographer Dariusz Wolski enough throw distance to
realistically create a single-source sunlight beam as well
as evenly light the worlds largest green screen to date,
approximately 68,000 square feet of cyclorama. There was
also enough space for the special effects department to
arrange a battery of giant wind machines and blow tons of
dust and vermiculite particles evenly across the set to create
a believable Martian dust storm. There was enough space as
well to blow a complete air lock more than twenty feet in the
air and sixty feet from its original position.
Above, top to bottom: Mark Watney, once he has recovered from the sandstorm
that stranded him, contemplates his future in the habitation pod. The pod itself
is a scientific laboratory, with a large number of resources, but it lacks one of
the most basic elements of long-term survival: a way to grow food. Mineral-rich
soil from the planets surface can create a usable truck garden, when amended
with astronaut manure. Watney, observing his happy potato plants, declares: I
am the greatest botanist on this planet.
27
12/1/15 11:09 AM
Above, top to bottom: In the film, journeys to Mars are

made possible through a large spacecraft known as
the Hermes. Unlike the Apollo program, where each
trip to the moon required a separate spacecraft, the
fictional Ares program uses the Hermes, seen here in a
rendering by Gbor Szab, as a taxi between Earth and
Mars. A production photograph of the flight deck of the
Hermes, a set built on one of the five other stages at
Korda StudiosTHE MARTIAN filled the entire studio.
The main hull corridor set was built with multiple
removable sections to accommodate rigging and wire
work. Center, right: The aft end of the Hermes, showing
the crafts spinning gravity wheel, in a 3D model by
Gbor Szab. Right: The main hull corridor with its
removable panels in place.
28
12/1/15 11:09 AM
nuclear-powered ion plasma propulsion engines,

artificial gravity crew quarters for six astronauts, and
solar-powered life-support and navigation systems.
Initial concept designs evolved further into preliminary
scale drawings for the interiors of the crew flight deck,
main hull corridor, various pressurized air locks and a
rotating gravity wheel.

These sets all had to be physically built, both interior
and exterior, to accommodate stunts, wirework, and
special and visual effects in combination to simulate
zero gravity weightlessness of space. Foam core sketch
models of every set were built for interdepartmental
discussions with Ridley and Dariusz and proved essential
to the process of figuring out the most effective and
efficient way to shoot these sequences, and to what
extent the sets would be built in combination with green
screens. After these models, pre-vis animations were
done for the major scenes of the storm, ascent vehicle
launch and rescue operations to further refine the
elements needed to shoot and light them.
Far left, top to bottom:

A drawing by Concept
Artist Kamen Anev of the
interior of the gym pod,
part of the gravity wheel
of the Hermes spacecraft.
The finished set with
its tubular ladder shaft
connecting to the hub
section at the end of the
hull corridor. The rec
room and gym sets could
rotate through 60-degrees
on a massive steel
gimbal. Below: Kamen
Anevs illustration of the
rec room pod, another
section of the rotating
gravity wheel. Bottom,
left to right: A production
still of the completed rec
room set on stage; and
a reverse view showing
the kitchen end of the
rotating rec room.
The most challenging of all the sets was the 65-foot

diameter gravity wheel with its four individual modules,
each of which accommodated a different function.
The script specified interior scenes within both a crew
recreation room with kitchen and a gym room as
segments of the wheel. Our approach was to link the
flight deck to the main hull corridor set and add with
a partially built hub section at the end of the corridor.
This hub revolved through 180 degrees and seemed to
be joined with the interior of the rec room and gym sets
by matching partial sections of tubular ladder shafts.
Five other stages were used to build and shoot

a variety of other sets: the Hermes, NASAs
interplanetary ship, was conceived as a series of
prefabricated modular elements built on Earth and
then assembled while in orbit to support the films
Mars Ares missions. Its design was developed from
information provided from NASA engineers working
on the actual Orion program which is planned to
launch a manned mission to Mars around 2025. It
incorporated all the latest concepts for space travel:
12/1/15 11:10 AM
Above: A rendered and

lighted study for the
Hermes gravity wheel by
Art Director Matt Wynne,
showing the air lock
hub and module. Above,
clockwise from top left:
A study by Gbor Szab
of the air lock exterior,
exploring how much
needed to be built and
how much could be added
as a set extension. The air
lock set on stage at Korda
Studios, its top section
removed for wire work.
The highly detailed interior
of the air lock set. The air
lock being moved between
stages in Budapest.
30
Both of these sets had fully removable ceiling pieces

which allowed for the wires of the stunt flying rigs to
travel along the entire set, supported from trusses and
tracks suspended above, and for lighting access. The
actors flew on computer-controlled wire rigs and their
movements through the set were timed to meet the hub
ladder shafts, which were also computer-controlled, just
at the moment where actual gravity assisted the actors
move down the moving shafts. Green screens were
hung to camera to suit the action and the sets were
lidar scanned and photometrically sampled in order to
complete the sections where ceilings had been removed.
The rec room and gym sets were designed with
a curved floor and ceiling following the exterior
wheel radius and were also able to rotate through
60-degrees at variable speeds on a massive steel

gimbal. Both interior and exterior visual effects plates
were shot of the rec room and gym as it rotated, with
furniture and props either bolted or Velcroed down.
Actors and camera moves were timed with the set
movement to create a sense of the wheels rotation.
Visual effects plates where also shot to complete the
exterior of the ship digitally and to add exterior views
of the rest of the ship which seemed to be rotating
relative to the interior. Lights rigged on camera cranes
simultaneously swung across from outside of the set
windows and completed the illusion of rotation.

Another stage was devoted to the Mars Ascent Vehicle
exterior and interior cockpit set. The actors flew on
12/1/15 11:10 AM
computer-controlled wire rigs and their movements through

the set were timed to meet the hub ladder shafts, which
were also computer controlled, just at the moment where
actual gravity assisted the actors moves. Green screens were
hung to camera as suited the individual moves and the sets
were again lidar scanned and photometrically sampled in
order to complete the ceiling. The set itself was built on top
of a 20-foot-high steel platform rigged on rubber bellows
to simulate the shaking during launch. The set was then
craned down to a lower platform placed under a 360-degree
circular LED lighting rig to simulate the tumbling movement
of the capsule during its Mars orbit.
There were three separate cylindrical air locks incorporated
into the design of the Hermes spaceship which was achieved
by revamping one set piece three times. This set was finished
both on the interior and the exterior, and was constructed on
its own purpose-built wheeled steel cradle so that it could
be moved from stage to stage in order to make room for
other sets and to be free for extensive revamping, including
changes to surface cladding, equipment modules, lighting,
graphics and set dressing elements.
The door hatches and doors of the main air lock set were
designed to be compatible with elements from other sets
so they could all be recombined to create new sets from
existing pieces, such as spacesuit and equipment rooms
attached to the air locks of the Mars Ascent Vehicles. This is
the same approach used by all international space agencies
so that their space capsules can be docked with each other
for cooperative supply and
rescue missions.
Top: For scenes with the Ares 3 and Ares 4 landers, a set of legs was all that was
constructed, as shown in this model by Assistant Art Director Shira Hockman.
The remaining portion of the ascent/descent vehicle was added digitally. Above:
The lander legs in the Martian landscape set on Stage 6 at Korda Studios. Below:
A working drawing for the lander legs, also drawn by Ms. Hockman.
Shooting in Budapest also

provided another bonus
in the unique multi-storied
Whale conference building
in the city center, which
has a very large curving
geodesic roof enclosing
what previously was a late
19th century customs house
along the Danube and
was then renovated into
a combination shopping
mall and events center.
The buildings largest
space was used to create
a slightly futuristic NASA
Mission Control and
Space Operations Center,
into which were installed
wheeled faux-concrete wall
flats and columns to match
the existing interiors. In
the largest space, a huge
bank of LED display walls
was hung for displaying a
12/1/15 11:10 AM
matrix of digital motion graphics. Color-coded versions

of digital graphic designs were developed by motion
graphics Art Director Felicity Hickson to play back on
over eighty custom-built Mission Control technicians
workstations arrayed on a huge curved and tiered
platform below the screen wall. All the graphics were
specifically story pointed to illustrate various stages of
the ill-fated Mars mission and final rescue. Custom set
dressing and prop graphics were designed and executed
by Neil Floyd.

The near-future look of the films NASA Space Center facility
exterior was created by digitally compositing visual effects
plates shot of the Whale building with the actual Korda
Studios main gate, which is a very new, modern, metal
and glass structure and was dressed as the NASA security
entrance with the actual studio stages in the middle distance
and additional CG buildings looming in the far background.
For the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) sets, I wanted a funkier,
more casual style to contrast with the high-tech precision
of NASAs headquarters. Just outside of Budapest,
the grounds of the 1970s era Hungexpo site provided
a variety of office blocks and warehouse spaces which
were very similar to the actual look of the JPL campus in
Pasadena, CA, where NASA currently designs and builds its
unmanned Mars mission equipment, including the 1996
Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner probes featured in the script.
The warehouse spaces were used to create both a NASA
rover workshop and JPL storage rooms where duplicate
examples of earlier satellite probes and rockets were stored.
NASA would always double all its probes in case any
technical problems arose during their mission, so they could
test out their repairs for them on Earth.
12/1/15 11:10 AM
Left, main image: A

drawing for the final
version of NASA Mission
Control, drawn by Art
Department Assistant
Luke Edwards. Inset: A
location photograph of
the Whale convention
center space in downtown
Budapest. Opposite page,
center: The finished set
featured a huge bank
of LED display walls
with digital motion
graphics. Digital graphic
designs were developed
by motion graphics
Art Director Felicity
Hickson to play back on
over eighty custombuilt Mission Control
technicians workstations.
Bottom: A NASA rover
workshop was built into
a warehouse on the 1970s
era Hungexpo grounds,
with a duplicate vehicle
where technicians
could test out repair
strategies on Earth. This
page, center: Additional
spacecraft, painstakingly
matching the real Mars
Pathfinder and Sojourner
1996 probes, were built by
the films propmakers.
The real challenge of The Martian was to

combine the latest design software with cuttingedge hardware technology, not forgetting
traditional skills, in order to bring this complex
story to life within a very ambitious schedule and
carefully controlled budget. I would like to offer
my personal thanks to all the Art Department,
construction, costume, special effects, locations
and visual effects crews whose dedication
and unending hard work so brilliantly met this
challenge, and created a totally convincing
inspiring future world.

A very special thank you, too, to the real rocket
scientists: NASAs Bert Ulrich, James Green, Bret
Drake, Rob Manning and ESAs Rudi Schmidt, for
all their invaluable support and advice bringing
the highly technical world of The Martian to
realization. ADG
Arthur Max, Production Designer

Marc Homes, Supervising Art Director
Robert Cowper, Mnika Esztn,
Oliver Hodge, Jason Knox-Johnston,
Lszl Rajk, Phil Sims, Stefan
Speth, Matt Wynne, Art Directors
Samy Keilani, Co-Art Director
Huw Arthur, Stand-by Art Director
Felicity Hickson,
Motion Graphics Art Director
Jonathan Houlding,
Art Director: Set Decoration
Shira Hockman, Rhys Ifan,
Will Newton, Annamria Orosz,
Gergely Rieger, Matt Sims,
Assistant Art Directors
Kamen Anev, Lee Oliver,
Concept Artists
Stephen Burg, Jaime Jones,
Steven Messing, Illustrators
Neil Floyd, Graphic Artist

Peter Eszenyi, Sam Hart, David Hicks,
Daniel Hjlund, Mart Romances,
Screen Graphics
Andrea Borland, Sarah Ginn,
Senior Draughtspersons
Petra Balogh, Alex Bowens, Orsolya
Maza, Gergely lmos, Draftspersons
Judit Bozsik, Bence Kalmr,
Alina Papp, Miklos Selmeczy,
Junior Draftspersons
Zita Galntai, Attila Ills,
Dniel Mikls, Model Makers
Gbor Szab,
Digital Modeler/Set Designer
Attila Ferenczi, 3D Modeler
Steve Dring,
Senior Vehicle CAD Modeler
Tracey Wilson, Storyboard Artist
Celia Bobak SDSA, Zoltn Horvth,
Set Decorators
33
12/1/15 11:11 AM
THE PROFESSION
OF VIOLENCE
by Tom Conroy, Production Designer
34
34-43 Conroy-Legend.indd 34
12/1/15 11:20 AM
Restless, movingon the edgethey think their world

is limitlessthe lure of powerand beware of Ronnies
smile. Apparently, Ronnie Kray smiling would be a warning
to the rest of the Firm (as the Krays gang were known)
that he was about to have a psychotic episode. These were
some of the discussions I had with Brian Helgeland about
Legend. I had read the unexpectedly lyrical script in one
go, during a hot sweaty night on a set in Puerto Rico and
was instantly transported to the brutal, cold, but fascinating
1960s London of the Kray twins criminal empire.
Above: Concept Artist

Elo Soodes atmospheric
concept sketch of Market
Street also acted as a
guide for visual effects
extensions. For this scene
where Reggie persuades
Frances to return, a
whole East London street
was painted, treated
and dressed. The Art
Department used the
names of many of their
Jewish friends because East
London shops of the time
had a large percentage of
Jewish owners, dating back
to the 19th century.
35
12/1/15 11:20 AM
Both Ronnie and Reggie are played, with the help of visual
effects, by actor Tom Hardy. Maybe because of where I was at
the time, I had an image of them as sharks, never stopping,
constantly movingalways hungry.
Top: The Blind Beggar pub where Ronnie Kray, enraged at being called a
fat poof, walks in and shoots rival gangster George Cornell in front of
a room of witnesses. Curiously enough, when the police asked around,
no one could remember seeing anything. The part of the Blind Beggar is
played by the Royal Oak on Columbia Road in Shoreditch. Center, left to
right: The Krays lived on Vallance Road in Bethnal Green in Londons East
End in a modest two-up, two-down, as seen here in a presentation sketch
by Ms. Soode. Mr. Conways Photoshop study of the sweetshop where the
Richardsons try to kill Reggie Kray; it was built into the East End street
location shot in Waterloo. Above: Both of the Kray twins are played by
actor Tom Hardy, seen here with one of the left-hand-drive American cars
like the Krays actually drove.
36
The script made no moral judgment on them, but showed

their influence expanding from the East End of London of
the 1950s to the West End of the 1960s and all the way
to the top of the establishment. The narrative presence
of Frances, Reggies short-lived wife, was a triangular
counterpoint to the twins brutal gangster world, but
ironically, she was inevitably seduced by the gloss and
glamour, the surface prosperity of their clubs and lifestyle.
Brian portrays the Krays through the prism of Frances, to
whom they are larger than life. Its a subjective portrayal,
defiantly not a social realist one.
Wherever possible, I tried to show frames within frames, each
laden with period detail, revealing the overlapping worlds
of gangsters, business and politics. It was a time of rapid
transformation in British society and the challenge was to
reveal this through the changing material culture. The world
of the twins had to be simultaneously both attractive and
repulsive, a world of memory and a London urban legend that
is still living, a nightmarish glossy dream. I tried to show that
12/1/15 11:20 AM
graphically, as if its what the Krays saw in the mirror.

The film is also, perhaps, a love letter to the London of
the time.
With the close collaboration of cinematographer Dick
Pope and costume designer Caroline Harris, the Art
Department, set decorator Crispian Sallis and myself
(along with the rest of our wonderful team), built up
layers of details, from the twins first snooker hall to the
glamour of Esmeraldas, their first West End nightclub.
Supervising Art Director Patrick Rolfe had the onerous,
chess-like task of wrangling all the various construction,
dressing and strike schedules over 110 sets in every
corner of traffic-choked London, working closely with
construction manager Dan Crandon and propmaster
Muffin Green.
London is redeveloping at an astounding rate so Pat
Karams location department was challenged to find
intact street locations. The films East End became a
labyrinthine mixture of blackened streets near Waterloo

Station, Stoke Newington and Greenwich, all miles
apart in reality. Everything needed considerable
painting, coverups, and door/window plugs to bring
them back to the polluted gritty streets of the 50s
and 60s. The colours are muted and de-saturated to
especially contrast with the glamour of Clubland. The
Swinging Sixties hadnt quite made it to the East End.
The audience is properly introduced to Ronnie in
Long Grove Psychiatric Hospital, filmed in a disused
institution, which again was made bleak and muted.
This is contrasted with a psychiatrist being intimidated
in his dark, luxurious, veneered West End private
suite, which set decorator Crispian Sallis filled with
fascinating detail.
Top: Mr. Conroys

Photoshop concept
sketch of Richardsons
scrapyard, an imagined
location for the rival
gangs torture chamber,
filmed in a disused bus
garage in East London.
Above, left to right: A
pencil sketch by Mr.
Conroy to show the
plan and dressing. A set
still of the finished and
dressed garage.
A sordid torture chamber was set in a scrapyard,

where the rival Richardson gangs awful violence
is almost incidental, as if it were improvised from
37
12/1/15 11:20 AM
the setting. A multitude of hard, sharp surfaces and

machines, hanging hooks and chains set the menacing
atmosphere.
A complex choreography of assassination attempts
between the gangs is set up, cars and vans colliding
with a breakaway faade of a Greek restaurant
designed to collapse. Then there is a tense attempt at
a parlay, which was filmed in the 1910s Pelliccis Caf,
Bethnal Green, one of the only real Kray hangouts that
were used.
Above: The Pig & Whistle
pub, where the peace
discussion between
the two sides quickly
descends into a bloody
mess, was filmed in
Turners Old Star in
Wapping. Opposite page,
clockwise from top: Mr.
Conroys Photoshop
sketch of Esmeraldas
Barn shows the layout of
the club. A quick color
study in Photoshop
of Esmeraldas bar,
also by Mr. Conroy.
Thanks to the magic
of visual effects, actor
Tom Hardy played
both Reggie and Ronny
Kray. Graphic Designer
Camise Oldfields final
version of Esmeraldas
sign. A pencil sketch of
Esmeraldas Barn, drawn
by Mr. Conroy to work
out construction details.
Ron Kray parades
through Esmeraldas
Barn with a donkey on a
tuxedo.
38
The film has caused many

strong reactions in the UK,
but one of my favourites is
from a woman, a niece of
one of the Firm, who said:
The look of the film felt
like birdsong, just out
there in the city sky.
A brutal gang fight in the Pig & Whistle was set
in a Wapping pubstripped out, repainted and
wallpapered, and with the help of the Guinness archive
in Dublin dressed with the correct beer taps for a
seminal lesson in pouring a pint of Guinness.
Then the twins really move into the West End: an office
in wealthy Kensington, elegant, cool coloured, with
tasteful art, where a rich club owner is introduced to
the Krays and silently intimidated into signing over his
business, Esmeraldas Barn.
This was a nightclub and casino, a place where

aristocrats, artists and gangsters mixed, where the Krays
really got their fingers into the establishment scene.
It was built in a preserved South London dance hall,
with a shimmering, smoky, glittering long bar, lots of
orange-glazed private booths and rich coloured silks
draping everything. Graphic Designer Camise Oldfield
created a whole up-to-date period identity for the club,
which was used everywhere, from the illuminated stage
backdrop, to engravings on the casino chips. Camise
and her assistant, Chloe Taylor, also created many of
the wallpapers that were used through out the sets,
either from fragments that I had collected over the
years or from pattern books that Trevor Howsam Ltd
(20th century props and wallpaper in Lincolnshire) had
wisely hung on to.
The meeting of the Philadelphia mob and the twins,
perhaps then at the zenith of their power, was
conceived of as being in the penthouse of the thenbrand-new London Hilton, built as a set to utilise green
screen and motion control. I wanted to express the
feeling that Reggie, especially, was intoxicated by the
possibilities of power, so he could overlook London,
and the world, in this piece of modernist American
design where everything seems perfect, calm and
measured; but of course, its all just sitting on the edge
of chaosand its a long way down.
VFX set extensions were essential to tell the story,
and concept artist Elo Soode created many
wonderful illustrations (she did them so quickly
too). One seamless example of this was the exterior
of Wandsworth Prison. The real place denied us
permission at the last minute, but I remembered an
old water treatment plant in South London that had a
brutal look, so between visual effects, set dressing and
12/1/15 11:20 AM
12/1/15 11:21 AM
This was contrasted with scenes in the Mayfair House of

aristocratic government minister Lord Boothby, as well
as the country residence of the Prime Minster, Harold
Wilson. Lord Boothby was a bisexual associate of the
openly gay Ronnie Kray. Crispian provided Boothby with
rich velvets, elegant ivory curtains, exotic artefacts from
all over the world and layers of the finest crystal wear.
A fascinating real-life detail was that the brothers
ended up living in modern apartments, one above the
other, in North West London. The built set for Reggie
and Frances apartment was made cooler, calmer,
perhaps with borrowed taste, all mirrored, bronze-tinted
surfaces. Ronnies, however, was a darker, denser,
packed Aladdins cave of gold, chrome, ritual swords
and hidden cameraswith which he blackmailed the
establishment figures that attended his orgies, like Lord
Boothby and Parliament member Tom Driberg.
A high point in the Krays club ownership was the
Hideaway Club, just off Piccadilly.
Reggie shows Frances the exterior on a snowy night,
which was shot in a quieter street in the East End,
with again lots of shop fronts created and dressed,
along with VFX set extensions to show the scale of
the streets. I saw this club interior as silver and black,
a large multilayered space with dark navy and silver
velvets, lots of crystal glasses and silver buckets. The
increasingly disturbed Ronnie hovers on the balcony,
disconnected and distant from the centre of the action.
Top: Elo Soodes Photoshop

concept sketch of the Greek caf,
the scene of an assassination
attempt on the rival gang leaders,
the Richardsons. Extensive
location construction was built
into a disused garage space
with suitable relationship to the
outside road to enable a van to be
driven at high speed into the caf.
The van was set onto tracks and
the entire front of the caf was a
breakaway. Center: Mr. Conroys
quick first rough concept, done
in pencil and digital wash, of
the Hilton hotel suite where the
Philadelphia Mafia meets with the
Krays. Above: A more developed
Hilton sketch by Mr. Conroy
served as a light and color study
of the extensive constructed
set, built with green screen and
motion control into a 1960s office
building.
40
a minimum of construction, a brutal prison

exterior was created. The prison interior was
a mixture of sets built into a remand facility
beneath a disused courthouse.
One of the films larger sets was a market
street in the East End where Ronnie tries
to persuade Frances to return to him. The
location department found a street with
shop fronts that were now lived in; each
single one had to be transformed, with shop
faades, signage and dressings. A colour
magazine article about a photographer
who documented the quotidian shops of
1960s working-class England, that I clipped
fifteen years ago, proved to be invaluable
reference. The trick was to make old props
feel new and new things feel like they were
of the time.
Frances, separated now but feeling trapped and isolated,

cant take the pressures and contradictions anymore and
takes her own life. Reggie visits her body in what was
scripted as a funeral home, but that I suggested should
be a mortuary, to take advantage of an atmospheric
location. He descends, Orpheus like, down the stairs
into a cold terrazzo room, putting back the wedding ring
on her finger...even in death she cant escape him.
The police are closing in, and changes are seen there
too, from the Victorian old Scotland Yard, to the
modern Tintagel House, where the police are piecing
together the jigsaw of the Firms activities.
But its Ronnie who is really broken, and events close
in on the twins. The final threads weave together at a
party in Blonde Carols, Evering Road, North London.
Its now 1967, so sets, costumes and hair all show
how much material culture has changed since we first
met the twins, with much more vibrant and saturated
colours. This also acts as a counterpoint to the sudden
and absolutely brutal violence of the night as Reggie
murders Jack The Hat McVitie, a petty criminal, in an
act that eventually brings the twins down.

P E R S P E C T I VE | NOVEMBER/D EC EMBER 2015
12/1/15 11:21 AM
The film has caused many strong reactions in the UK,

but one of my favourites is from a woman, a niece of
one of the Firm, who said: The look of the film felt like
birdsong, just out there in the city sky.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS FROM
CRISPIAN SALLIS | SET DECORATOR
The world of the Kray twins just leapt off the pages
of Brian Helgelands script, and I was immediately
hooked.
Brian wanted the film to be glamorous but it had to
be real. Well, real plus thirty percent. I feel that for a
set decorator to make a point on camera about status
and wealth and style, and this film needed to make a
point, I pretty much have to ramp up the volume by
around thirty percent. By the time the film is cut and
some of each set youve dressed hasnt quite been
shot or is left on the cutting room floor, you need to
have amplified whats left. Legend required this. The
characters of Reggie and Ronnie, and the real life of
Londons Swinging Sixties demanded it. This was a film
that was going to grab you by the throat, and the sets
had to measure up.
Tom and I started defining the style and finding
the colour palette. Then, while he was looking for
locations with Brian, I was out with my buying team
snapping up everything in sight that had a part to play
in the Krays life. While I did that, I started hunting
down period wallpapers, mostly from my old friend
Trevor Howsam in Boston, Lincolnshire. Trevor even
found spare rolls of the original wallpapers that
matched Violet Krays Vallance Road house, the Krays
family home in Bethnal Green, London.
Ive had the pleasure of working with Tom several
times now and we have a shorthand, largely
developed over many days and nights at the start of
each project. Legend was no different. We had to
get the tone right: too glamorous and we would be
sending it into pastiche, too real and the film wouldnt
have bite. There had to be a style. We worked hard to
get the balance right. And all the time I was checking
in with costume designer Caroline Harris to make sure
the colours and textures we were pursuing matched
and coordinated with hers.
The biggest challenges were the sets for Ronnies and
Reggies flats in Cedra Court, North West London. As
Ronnie lived above Reggie and Frances, Tom built one
fabulous set with subtle changes to the two brothers
apartments and we had to figure out where exactly
to pitch each one. Tom nailed the shape quickly,
then chose the wallpapers from our selection, and
the paint colours to coordinate with them. From the
earliest days, Id show Tom photographs of key pieces
of furniture that would act as springboards for mood

and character. We chose to go with warm ambers and
bronzes for Reggies and cool blues and blacks for
Rons and the furniture stayed true to that with Rons
eclectic, flamboyant tastes leading actor Tom Hardy,
when he first saw the set to exclaim, Awesome, guys,
you can design my man-cave any day!
Sets, such as the hotel suite in the brand-new London
Hilton had to show the signs of the times as well as
the influence of modern American styles coming from
over the Atlantic. Balancing that, a sombre old bus
depot was dressed as a scrap yard turned torture
chamber for the Richardson gangs hideout. Then
colour was everywhere in Blonde Carols Evering
Road basement flat for the party scene at the end of
the movie where Jack The Hat McVitie is stabbed a
million times by Reggie Kray. Tom and I felt, given the
story by this time had moved on to 1967 that, with
Above, top to bottom:

Ms. Soodes study for the
exterior of Wandsworth
Prison also acted as a
guide for visual effects
extensions; it was shot
at an old waterworks
in South London. The
Wandsworth Prison
visiting area as envisioned
in Photoshop by Ms.
Soode was constructed
on location in the same
disused hospital used
for Rons Long Grove.
Boothby was a bisexual
Conservative Party
minister with strong
ties to Ron Kray; Ms.
Soode drew Boothbys
Buckinghamshire
country house which was
decorated and dressed for
the scene.
41
12/1/15 11:21 AM
Top: The Hideaway Club

was the last club the
Krays controlled. This
Photoshop sketch by
Ms. Soode illustrates
detailed dressing and
treatments for street
shops surrounding the
exterior of the club.
Above, left to right:
Mr. Conroys quick
Photoshop colour
study of the Hideaway
exterior became the
basis for Ms. Soodes
Photoshop concept
sketch, following; the
exteriors were filmed in
East Londonit was too
difficult logistically to
film in the West End.
42
Carolines help, we could really venture into the mood

of the times and employ the brightest pinks, oranges
and turquoises all garishly clashing, a world away
from the East End at the beginning of the film.
We aimed to give a look that captured the vibrancy
and dazzle of London in the 1960s, combined with a
dark glossiness, whilst staying true to the period and
authentic to the story.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS FROM
PATRICK ROLFE | SUPERVISING ART DIRECTOR
My first reaction to Toms call was, Another film
about the Krays? Reading Brians script, though,
and hearing Toms vision of the design, I knew this
would be something authentic covering a fascinating
period of British history. The script was very full and the
challenges it presented became evident as the set list
materialised: 112 sets (only about ninety made the cut)

all in nine weeks shooting. This was a job of logistics
as well as design. As ever, filming a period film in a
major city like London meant that the pressure on the
location department was intense. A lot of traditional
East London locations have been developed beyond
recognition, especially since the 2012 Olympics.
The film was set up to be location-based with as
few constructed sets as possible and the latter were
domestic interiors where scale could be cheated and
the progress of time was controllable. With a highspeed turnover of sets, the relationships between
construction and set dressing was more crucial than
ever. Because of the period, there were almost no
walk-ins, and scheduling was key. Several small teams
were spread over a number of sets simultaneously and
trucks were buzzing all over the place; thankfully the
right piece ended up in the right place, most of the
12/1/15 11:21 AM
time. The dress and strike schedule ran into several

pages.
Another area that fell under our remit, and an area
that Brian had a particular interest in, was the cars.
The decision to use American cars was based on fact;
the Krays actually did drive the exact type of cars
depicted in the film. The challenge was to find goodlooking left-hand-drive American vehicles that were of
the period and hadnt been modified or pimped up.
Vehicles coordinator Gary Weekes threw the net far
and wide and through car clubs and private owners
the right vehicles were found, the star being the green
Lincoln Continental. Something that had seemed
difficult at the beginning ended up being easier to find
than some of the UK cars. One in particular, Nipper
Reads car which follows the Krays for most of the film
was a Ford Anglia, almost the exact opposite of the
big colourful American cars. It was small and boxy but
needing to be versatile, we ended up having several
versions of this car, including a chopped-up version
to fit the rather tall cinematographer Dick Pope and
sound man. There was a pool of about fifty vehicles,
which were rotated to create the right amount of
vehicles for each scene. ADG
Tom Conroy, Production Designer

Patrick Rolfe, Supervising Art Director
Gareth Cousins, Marco Restivo, Art Directors
Joanne Ridler, Standby Art Director
Rebecca White, O liver Benson,
Assistant Art Directors
Camise Oldfield, Graphic Designer
Chloe Taylor, Graphic Assistant
Elo Soode, Concept Artist
Crispian Sallis, Set Decorator
Above, top to bottom: Ms.

Soodes concept sketch of
an interior in Old Scotland
Yard. The twins lived in
apartments one above the
other; here is Ms. Soodes
Photoshop visual of the stage
set for Reggies apartment.
A set photograph of the
finished set. Left: The film
captures more than just
the character of the Kray
twins; it reflects the music
and culture of the transition
from big bands to rock &
roll. Here, blue-eyed soul
artist Timi Yuro, played by
Welsh singer Duffy, sings in
Esmeraldas Barn.
12/1/15 11:21 AM
44-45 New Regency-THE REVENANT.indd 44
12/1/15 11:24 AM
F O R Y O U R C O NSI DER AT I O N
IN ALL CATEGORIES
INCLUDING

PRODUCTION DESIGNER
JACK FISK
SET DECORATOR
HAMISH PURDY
44-45 New Regency-THE REVENANT.indd 45
12/1/15 11:24 AM
Bleeker Street Media
46
46-47 Michael-Beasts.indd 46
12/1/15 11:26 AM
BEASTS
OF NO
NATION
by Miles Michael, Production Designer
Beasts of No Nation is a film about child soldiers and civil war set in an unnamed
West African country. Based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala and directed by Cary
Fukunaga, it was shot in the jungles, old British colonial towns and provincial capitals
of Ghana. As the Art Director working with Production Designer Inbal Weinberg, I
spent three months in the intense heat, sun and torrential rain of Western Africa. For
my first time in Africa, it was an extremely challenging and eye-opening experience.
Under normal conditions, making a film is hard work. When you add the challenges
of working on a new continent, its a wonder that we finished the film at all.
Scheduling, language, logistics, prices, materials; everything had to be relearned
and adapted to a new country and culture. It was not an easy time but in the end, Im
glad we went through it. For starters, many materials I was used to working with were
scarce or not available at all. Lumber was milled to our specs on large gas-powered
band saws at the timber yard. Screws were scarcely used; instead, we bought nails by
the pound for our carpenters who relied on hammers and handsaws. Paint was called
emulsion and came in plastic pails and only in basic colors like brown, blue, green
and tan. Corrugated metal sheets were ubiquitous, though we had to look harder for
the used rusted pieces that we preferred.
Labor was cheap, materials
expensive, the opposite of what
were used to in the States.
Trucking and logistics were always
an issue. Finding someone to
show up on time with a truck
that worked was the first step.
Next, there would be a long
conversation about the price and
then maybe the truck would break
down or get a blowout or the liti
wouldnt work. And the driving in
Ghana was some of the hairiest
Ive ever seen. People, dogs,
goats, chickens share the highway
with bush taxis, motorcycles and
buses spewing black smoke. With
so many speeding cars, it was
Main image: This

mural with its antihate message was
commissioned for the
film and painted on
an existing building
in Mangoase, Ghana.
Bottom, left to right:
A stalled government
housing development in
Koforidua, the capital of
Ghanas Eastern Region,
and the films production
headquarters. A local
map is drawn on a wall
in Mangoase. The rebel
Native Defense Force
camp, a set built in
Huhunya, a village about
15 kilometers northeast
of Koforidua.
47
12/1/15 11:26 AM
flat-out scary sometimes and there were a lot of near misses. We always
had drivers.
Finally, everything we purchased was negotiated for. No prices were set.
Haggling over the cost of things added twice the time to every transaction
but had to be done. Clearly being foreigners, we automatically got the
high price. We would then talk our way down to 20%30% of the starting
point. Haggling is a skill and we all got to be pretty adept but it ate up a
lot of time.
We entered Ghana through the capital Accra but the majority of our time
was spent hours away in small, small towns and backcountry: a rebel camp
in the jungle, a water-filled defensive trench, a coastal mission.
Putting together a rebel camp in the middle of the jungle was my first task;
a sprawling encampment with low shelters for soldiers, a priests jungle
camp and a commandants HQ. Production Designer Inbal Weinberg had
extensive photo references from the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone
that we worked from and we hired a group of local cassava farmers for
labor. The locals were familiar with the land and used their machetes to
make simple structures out of branches, vines and grasses that were perfect
for rebels living in the bush. These guys worked with us every day for three
weeks and we became friends despite our initial apprehension. It was
strange for us to be in the African jungle and I dont think any of them had
worked on a movie set before. I remember how surprised they were when
100+ crew, actors and extras showed up to shoot. They all seemed proud
of what they built and it was exciting and a litile sad to watch it burn down
at the end of the shoot.
With one set behind us, my unit moved on to building a network of
trenches. Based on Carys references from WWI and other 20th century
engagements, they needed to be deep and I was afraid they were going
to have to be dug by hand. Doing the work by hand would have given
them a different look but we were short on time and after about a week of
trying, I was lucky to find a backhoe to do most of the work. With shovels
and wheelbarrows, our guys lined the floor with cement and gravel to hold
water. We scorched the surrounding field and a water truck was hired to fill
the trenches with waist-deep water. The set is featured in the trailer and is
one of my favorites. The shot of Agu coming down the ladder into the red
trench and standing in water really looks surreal, hellish and exhausting.
Throughout my time in Ghana, I was impressed by how hard people
worked and how strong everyone was. Everything was carried by hand
ormore oftenon someones head. Cement, logs, lumber, stones,
generators; people would carry almost anything on top of their heads with
only flip-flops on their feet. From old men carrying firewood home at the
end of the day to women carrying five gallons of water on their heads
with babies strapped to their backs; it was really humbling, inspiring and
illuminating.
Infections, dehydration, mud, sickness, snakes, malaria; no one on
our crew had an easy time over there. Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime
experience and Im thankful to Cary Fukunaga and Inbal Weinberg for
bringing me along for the ride. ADG
Inbal Weinberg, Production Designer
Miles Michael, Supervising Art Director
Katie Hickman, Set Decorator
12/1/15 11:27 AM
Opposite page, top to bottom: A hillside church in Pankro.

Schoolroom, Mangoase. Another schoolroom in Huhunya.
The old colonial rail line near Mangoase. This page, clockwise
from top left: Sunset scouting at Elmina. The old colonial rail
station at Nkawkaw, about an hour and a half northwest of the
production headquarters. Mr. Francis working on the trenches
set in full-on rainy season at a location near Koforidua. Art Dept
poses for a crew photograph at the NDF Camp set in Huhunya.
The Art Department shop and storage space in Koforidua. A state
health mural in Mangoase. Scouting the market in Nkurakan,
a village close to Koforidua. Inset: A political banner for the
Convention Peoples Party, painted on a wall in Mangoase.
49
12/1/15 11:27 AM
Aaron Sorkin adapted Walter Isaacsons biography Steve Jobs

as a literal and figurative view backstage, looking beyond
the polished performance and shiny products within view of
the audience, and into the raw and chaotic life of the famous
innovator. The story teaches us how a powerful idea can change
the world. The story of Steve Jobs resonates with many of us
who love design and innovation, and we also learn that some of
the greatest change we can make is within ourselves.
The movie is split into three acts, each focusing on a separate
product launch that happen to coincide with pivotal moments
that define Steves life: the Macintosh launch in 1984, the
NeXTcube launch in 1988 and the iMac launch in 1998.
Although each of these acts play in separate times and venues,
the stage as backdrop and reflection provides a binding visual
motif. The 189 pages of Sorkin dialogue allow other characters
to thoroughly reveal their perspective on Steve, while the sets,
with their numerous reflections, allow the man to perceive
himself, eventually in a truthful light.
50
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12/1/15 11:29 AM
STEVE
JOBS
by Guy Hendrix Dyas,
Production Designer,
and other members of the
STEVE JOBS Art Department
Universal Pictures
Main image: An overview of stage setting for the Macintosh

launch for Act 1, filmed at Flint Center for the Performing
Arts in Cupertino, CA. Above: The VIP set in the Flint Center
where Apples sponsors and board members could wait prior
to the 1984 presentation on stage. Inset: Detail of set decorator
Gene Serdenas dressing for the Flint Center VIP room. Design
choices of shapes for the film were usually simplified into
circles, rectangles and squares to reflect the simplicity of the
product language of Apple at the same time period.
51
12/1/15 11:29 AM
ACT 1, FLINT CENTER CUPERTINO, CA

by Susie Alegria, Assistant Art Director
Top: Steve Jobs final

Flint Center dressing
room set with super
graphic stripes that help
define the early 1980s
era. Inset: The selected
dressing room during a
location scout.
52
The Flint Center, located on the De Anza College campus

in Cupertino, just south of San Francisco, was the actual
location of the 1984 Macintosh launch. Built in 1967
as a performing arts center for the small community
college, it has a somewhat stark, institutional feel. The
bland white walls of the backstage corridors presented
very little in the way of dynamic visual interest with which
to work. The VIP lounge, dressing room and corridors
had to be not only period-correct but also cinematically
interesting. The challenge was to take this well-worn and
humble art center, with all of its contemporary updates,
back to 1984 while at the same time making it a fittingly
dramatic backdrop for one of the great technological
unveilings of the twentieth century.
Color played an essential part of Guy and director Danny
Boyles vision for the film. It was used to great effect
creating the illusion of expanded space and altered
reality as well as pushing the audience back in time to
the period. For the Flint Center, Guy chose institutional

green and gold as the palette, colors that subconsciously
remind us of that period. He then integrated that palette
into a series of super graphics. Lead Scenic Artist Jason
Byers and his crew then masked and painted horizontal
lines and geometric shapes through the corridors, VIP
lounge and dressing room. Any existing color of the
Flint, and particularly any red, was painted over. This
level of color consideration extended all the way down
to the red exit signs, which were switched out for green,
as red was to be preserved for Act 2, the revenge act.
The meticulous attention to detail that typified Guys
design, transformed the aesthetically bland Flint Center
into a far more visually stimulating environment for
camera and the actors.
In addition to the painted super graphics, Graphic
Designer Emily Rolph used ad campaign graphics and
created period posters of past events at the Flint Center.
The graphics poster images at the Flint were relatively
small in comparison to the second and third acts of the
film. The groundbreaking Orwellian-themed commercial
directed by Ridley Scott for the 1984 Super Bowl and an
homage to Bob Dylans Subterranean Homesick Blues
were used as projections in addition to print graphics
during this first act.
Guys careful attention to historical and visual accuracy
of the period extended to every aspect of the Flint and
the exterior was no exception. Since its construction in
the 1960s, the Flint has undergone many alterations,
so in an effort to achieve period accuracy, signage was
removed and replaced, as were the contemporary clues
such as satellite dishes and cellphone transmitters.
12/1/15 11:29 AM
ACT 2, SAN FRANCISCO OPERA HOUSE

by Peter Borck, Art Director
The NeXTcube product launch in 1988 takes place in the historic
San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. Here the institutional
colors and textures of Act 1 give way to the gilded opulence of the
Opera House. We referred to this as the Revenge Act. In selecting
this location, Guy was looking for a venue that would complement
the heightened emotional and narrative intensity of this act while
commenting on the theatrical artifice of the product launch. The
NeXTcube was little more than an esthetically pleasing box with no
practical application in the real world. Too expensive for public
institutions or consumers to be commercially viable, the NeXTcube
was visually compelling in its simplicity and its development
allowed Jobs to stay relevant in the personal computing world while
he exacted revenge against Apples CEO John Sculley and plotted
his own return to the company.
Top: The army of NeXT staff and hardware necessary

to run the demo up above on stage for Mr. Jobs
presentation in 1988. Above, left to right: An overview
of the stage setting for the NeXT computer launch at the
San Francisco Opera House for Act 2. The Opera House
lobby dressed and ready for the NeXT launch of 1988.
Below: Mr. Jobs talks with his daughter Lisa, high above
the stage of the Opera House. This area was selected
to make the audience feel as though they are inside the
working circuitry of a giant computer.
Embracing the rich colors of the Opera Houses grand public

spaces, Guy brought this palette of golds, burgundies and deep
ochres into the back-of-house warren of corridors, catwalks,
dressing rooms and theater craft shops revealing the seldom-
12/1/15 11:29 AM
In the pit below the stage, set amongst

enormous archaic elevator screws used to
raise and lower the stage floor, we placed
the nest. This was the nexus of off-stage
computers that supported the product launch
on stage. This messy but necessary tangle of
monitors, wires, cable and electronic gear,
all manned by harried engineers, belied the
message presented on stagethe simplicity
of personal computing.
seen, richly enticing backstage world of the theater.
Blood-red paint was applied liberally, along with the
occasional highlight of red neon. Graphic Designer
Emily Rolph designed super graphics specifically for
the venue, utilizing archival San Francisco Ballet
images. The effect was a vivid backdrop for a
constantly moving camera and actors. Steadicam takes
of 35 minutes in length were the norm.
Top: The final dressing

room design in the San
Francisco Opera House
for Act 2. Director Danny
Boyle often referred to
this as the Revenge Act.
Inset: The raw dressing
room as it was found.
54
If the stage was the public face of the product launchs

debut, then Steve Jobs dressing room was its nerve
center and inner sanctum. His dressing room would
have been an obvious choice to build on stage
were it not for Danny Boyles requirement that it be
physically contiguous with the rest of the venue. This
forced the revamp of a rather dull dressing room
into an environment appropriate for a wide range
of dramatic scenes: equal parts war room, kings
court and sanctuary. Guys design for the dressing
room presented an opportunity to distill the rich
visual history of the Opera House and its legion of
performers into a space of intimate familiarity and
contemporary intrigue. Set decorator Gene Serdena
created a dense backstory, individually personalizing
each makeup station with fifty years of history,
memorabilia, photos and ribald graffiti.
Emily Rolph on Graphics for Act 2:

In Act 2, Steves ability to command a team and take
control over details continued to expand. The San
Francisco Opera House was much more grand than
Flint in both scale and history. Using a combination of
modified archival posters from the San Francisco Opera
and original artwork, we lined the red-painted hallways
with wall-sized super graphics. Similarly, the graphics
advertising the NeXT itself stepped up in scale. Instead
of a few small posters, 35-foot-long NeXT banners
dramatically unfurled in the lobby, large-mounted posters
plastered the venue and bright advertisements lit up the
backstage in glowing light boxes all hailing the arrival of
NeXT.
ACT 3, DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO

by Luke Freeborn, Supervising Art Director
The third act details the 1998 launch of the iMac. At the
time, the product embodied the functional simplicity and
elegant minimalism Apple is known for. Guy and Danny
wanted a setting that could visually reinforce this ideal. The
San Francisco War Memorial Louise M. Davies Symphony
Hall auditorium, with its beautiful Scandinavian-inspired
12/1/15 11:29 AM
finishes and dramatic minimalism, offered a perfect

background to this end. It is an instrument unto itself,
with its fine wood stage and undulating walls, and a
prominent feature used to shape the sound, called the
cloud, a structure of sixty-five acrylic positionable convex
panels suspended directly over the stage and producing a
dramatic kaleidoscopic reflection of stage and performer.
Indeed, Davies Hall had a great deal to offer as a
location; it also came with its own challenges. Because
the facility is working daily to host the Symphony, our
productions footprint had to be minimized. First, we
were required to shoot nights only. Second, we were only
allowed to install set pieces and decoration, including
the very delicate nest of glowing iMacs, immediately
before shooting. Lastly, at the daily wrap, it all had to be
removed. For these long nights, Art Director Peter Borck
shepherded the team with tireless energy and zeal.
Due, in part, to these limitations, the use of Davies Hall
had to be limited to its stage and wing areas. Action
continuing backstage beyond the wings needed a much
larger space and to provide additional angles that
could not be accommodated at the location. For that,
an 11,000-square-foot set was built across the bay,
in Alameda at the old naval base. In order to link the
location with the set, the locations wings were matched,
complete with its nest of glowing iMacs, and a massive
labyrinth of backstage corridors was attached as well.
This way, only one cut at a wing door was needed to
connect the walk-and-talks leading from the stage, into
the long corridors, and eventually, Steves VIP dressing
room. Doug Williams construction team and Gene
Serdenas set dressers worked feverishly to produce
Top: The iMAC nest set built to match the stage left wings of the Davies Symphony Hall location in San Francisco. Center: An overview
of the Davies Symphony Hall stage setting for the iMAC launch in Act 3. Above: The dressing room set to match Davies Symphony Hall.
Mr. Dyas says, I was trying to integrate the Apple aesthetic into the architecture by the third act to hint at the companys global design
influence in the 1990s.
55
12/1/15 11:29 AM
this massive set in just ten weeks. Meanwhile, Graphic

Designer Emily Rolph created the ultimate print exhibit
by resurrecting Apples 1998 Think Different poster
campaign and a series of twenty-foot-tall super-graphics
depicting historical legends whose ideas changed the
world. Susie Alegria and Art Department coordinator
Kelli Lundy spearheaded the goliath task of legally
clearing each image. When finished, the set truly felt like
a shrine to great people and great ideas.
Steves VIP room set was a special one last thing for
the entire Art Department team. The story spends a
great deal of time in this space and from a multitude
of angles. Guy and I worked tirelessly to make this into
an unforgettable moment in the movie by considering
every angle and surface. Again, the construction and
decoration teams rose to the occasion. Doug Williams
crew formed and fabricated the intricate draped acrylic
ceiling in house. Gene Serdenas dressers maintained the
reflective motif with massive mirrors and a very special
hand-crafted vanity. Emily Rolph created a super-graphic
translight that made the space feel like an ethereal
jewelry box.
Emily Rolph on Graphics for Act 3:

In the culmination of Act 3, Steve is at the height of
his ascent and we used Davies Symphony Hall as its
the most grandiose of the modern venues. Dramatic
black-and-white photography and Apple advertisements
covered the whole constructed backstage set, acting
both as venue dcor and presentation promotion.
These images included the iconic Think Different
ad campaign covering several forty-foot walls. Twenty
different Apple advertisements lined the hallways, and
ten full-size banners hung from the vaulted ceilings in
the lobby. The graphics, the largest and most striking of
the film, fill the whole frame just as Steves larger-thanlife influence fills the whole world.
For many years, I had worked as a product designer for
Sony in Tokyo before transitioning to the film industry.
I have fond memories of that time, designing products
for a cutting-edge electronics company, and believe
that Apples design philosophy picked up somewhere
where Sony left off in the mid-nineties. For the keen
eye, youll notice the discreet picture of Akio Morita, my
old mentor and Sonys founder, pinned to the wall of
Steves garage among other heroes of Steves: Dieter
Rams, chief designer at Braun, and Bob Dylan are there
too. This attention to detail sums up how passionately
we felt about the film. Steve Jobs is not an obvious
film for an Art Department to get excited about, yet we
all felt a common responsibility to show an imagined
snapshot into the life of a man who loved and cared so
much about innovation and elegant design. ADG
12/1/15 11:30 AM
Guy Hendrix Dyas, Production Designer

Luke Freeborn, Supervising Art Director
Peter Borck, Art Director
Susie Alegria, Assistant Art Director
Emily Rolph, Graphic Designer
Doug Pierce, Lead Set Designer
Jason Byers, Lead Scenic Artist
James Shefik, Scenic Artist Foreman
Katy Moore-Kozachik, Wayne Olds,
Tom Richardson, Scenic Artists
Gene Serdena SDSA, Set Decorator
STEVE JOBS is not an obvious

film for an Art Department to
get excited about, yet we all
felt a common responsibility to
show an imagined snapshot into
the life of a man who loved and
cared so much about innovation
and elegant design.
Opposite page, top to bottom: The corridor set, designed

to suggest Davies Symphony Hall, under construction
across the bay from San Francisco in the old Navy base
at Alameda. The backstage loading dock, part of the
14,000-square-foot constructed set. Another view of the
corridor set for backstage at Davies. The length and scale
of the various corridors, loading docks and vestibules
were carefully designed to complement Aaron Sorkins
dialog and the rhythm Danny Boyle wanted to maintain
with his actors. Breaks in dialog were punctuated by a
doorway entry and changes of space. This page, top: The
dressing room corridor, part of the constructed set of an
imaginary wing at Davies Symphony Hall. This hall leads
to the VIP room and various dressing rooms. Above:
The main corridor between stage left and right, another
part of the set built for the back of Davies Symphony
Hall. The Think Different portrait of Alan Turing was
ultimately rejected by Steve Jobs because he thought
nobody would know who he was (historical fact). Left:
The instrument storage area, part of the backstage set
built for the third act.
57
12/1/15 11:30 AM
A SECRET
IN THE
MAKING
by Nelson Coates, Production Designer
58-65 Coates-Secret.indd 58
12/1/15 11:32 AM
Let me tell you ten reasons you shouldnt

take this movie... were the first words from
director and Oscar-nominated writer Billy
Ray when I met him at the Beverly Hills Tennis
Club in early August of 2014. Not enough
prep time, not enough budget, not enough
shooting days, definitely not enough crew
positions the list went on.
Main image: Jess (played by Julia Roberts) waits

outside the gates of the finished mosque set. Minaret
towers not seen here were added in post-production.
Far left, top to bottom: A representation of the
mosque outer wall details, executed by Graphic
Designer Martin Charles on top of drawings by
Senior Set Designer Paul Sonski. A detail elevation
of the main mosque arch, drafted by Mr. Sonski.
Finished photographic elements being applied to
fabricated scenery by the scenic crew prior to on-site
installation. Mosque entry gates in the process of
being bronzed after fusing C&C-routed elements onto
an operational framemath and drawing were both
done by Senior Set Designer Patricia Klawonn.
STX Entertainment
59
12/1/15 11:32 AM
I had to laugh, because no amount of dissuasion could have kept me

from wanting to design one of the best scripts I had read in years. I did
my best to tamp down my excitement and remain calm for the duration
of our first meeting. That evening, I emailed Billy a list of places I
thought would add dimension to the story and ratchet up the visual
tension. I even did a quick concept comp depicting a potential location
modified to become the script-required mosque, just to get Billy excited
about the possibilities of a downtown-centric film.
At noon the following day, I got the call: Wanna do a movie? Can
you scout this afternoon? And we were off to the races. I wanted to
introduce Billy, and line producer Jeremiah Samuels, to the downtown
Los Angeles I knew, in hopes of fashioning a contemporary or neo-noir
look, evocative of classic movies set in LA. That cold scout of potential
downtown sites (and hidden gems that eventually wound themselves into
the movie) was one of the best days of scouting ever, and even included
some fence jumping and construction site trespassing.
Top: A SketchUp model of the Los Angeles District Attorney

investigators office bullpen and adjoining offices. Inset: Material
samples for the office set with elements for both 2002 and 2015
versions. Center: The bullpen set circa 2002. Older monitors and
electronics are indicative of the technology lag in the public
sector. Above: The District Attorneys Office set circa 2015 on
Sunset Gowers Stage 14, as inhabited by Claire (Nicole Kidman).
60
Beginning life as a best-selling Argentinian book, La pregunta de sus

ojos (The Question in Their Eyes) by Eduardo Sacheri, then fashioned
by Juan Jos Campanella into El secreto de sus ojos, the 2010 Oscarwinning foreign-language film from Argentina, Secret in Their Eyes was
five years in the making. Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson, chair
of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foreign Language
Film Committee, waited a year after El Secreto collected the Oscar
before moving in to secure the rights. Billy Ray was initially brought on
to write the script, and find ways to convert the politics of Argentina,
so much a part of the original, into a cohesive, more layered American
movie. The original was set in two different eras, twenty-two years apart:
a few months post 9/11, and the present day. Billy infused the script
with tensions related to the vigilance against terrorism. Not long into the
process, Mark asked Billy if he would direct as well.
As different cast options were explored and attached, Billy had
refashioned the script for various cities including London, San Francisco
and Boston; but by our first meeting, Los Angeles was chosen and
12/1/15 11:32 AM
Chiwetel Ejiofor was the male lead. Location manager Ralph Coleman
and I began two weeks of scouting, locking many of the locations. Then
some casting opportunities arose, and once we discovered Julia Roberts
and Nicole Kidman had thrown their hats into the ring, we were more
than willing to wait out an eight-week push.
With the limited production, we were hunting for a combination
production office, stage/warehouse/mill with potential corners that could
be modified into some of the myriad sets required. The former Hostess
Bakery factory in South Los Angeles looked to be just the ticket, but
redevelopment commenced during the push, cutting up and changing
the space. Once prep geared back up, we were on the hunt again.
Two stages were needed. Production was cranking in Los Angeles, and
we could only find one stage available in the zone, at Sunset Gower.
The stage had been put on hold by production supervisor Christa
Vausbinder before the push, just in case. Stage 12 at Sunset Gower
has a basement underneath with a rehearsal hall that could potentially
accommodate several sets. Quentin Tarantinos film, The Hateful Eight,
had just completed several weeks of rehearsal in that space, and we
became the beneficiaries of their leftover lumbera windfall for a small
movie.
Billy and I wanted to feel the presence of Los Angeles in every shot. LA
needed to be a strong character, and the tension of post 9/11 needed
to be omnipresent. He and I combed through the script to marry scenes
with the locations we had found. Billy rewrote several scenes to take
advantage of interesting sites and specific geography.
Much of the action was set in the Los Angeles District Attorneys offices.
We needed private offices, a bullpen with adjacent private offices,
elevators, lobbies, corridors, and all needed to be able to shift to clearly
show the change in years as scenes jumped back-and-forth. Billy also
decided to set the current-day sequences during the Christmas holidays,
to help with the visual shift of eras, so we started the hunt for worn-down
civic decorations.
Top, left: Los Angeles District Attorney investigators office set

ground plan as constructed on Stage 14 at Sunset Gower Studios.
Above, top to bottom: Hallway to the investigators office under
construction. Marble panels are book-matched laminate with an
applied aged-wax finish developed by charge scenic painter Kay
Kropp. Wood wall expanses were created with textured wallpaper
for consistency in color and finish. The completed outer hallway
and staircase set adjacent to the bullpen. Graphics reflecting Los
Angeles County District Attorneys Office history were created by
Beatriz Kerti.
61
12/1/15 11:32 AM
0'
Concrete Block Wall

from Chop Shop
Storage Area
DOWN
Set #144
Hospital Room
Lights
Wild
Photo Backing
Camera & Tripod
Firelane
Set #125
Photo ID Room
Filing Cabinets
Lights
wardrobe
Bumper Wall
Curtain
Counter
Set #144
Hospital Room
wardrobe
Bumper Wall
wardrobe
Firelane
Camera & Tripod

Storage Area
Counter
Bumper Wall
Set #125
ID Room
DOWN
Photo Backing
Photo
Concrete Block Wall
from Chop Shop
Counter
Set #144
Hospital Room
Wild
DOWN
Counter
Curtain
Firelane
Count
Counter
wardrobe
Set #132
Jail Holding
Cell & Hallway
Filing Cabinets
+0
- 4'-0"
Counter
+0
Counter
- 4'-0"
wardrobe
Set #132
Jail Holding
Cell & Hallway
DOWN
New Wall Build

as Tie Form Concrete Wall
DOWN
+0
- 4'-0"
DOWN
New Wall Build

Floor Grates
New Wall Build

Floor Grates
Note: these sets are to be shot out and st

before redress space as CCB Vault
New Build
Prison Bar Wall
New Build
Prison Bar Wall
Note: theseNote:
sets
aresets
to be
struck
these
areshot
to be out
shot and
out and
struck
before redress
as
CCB
beforespace
redress
space
asVault
CCB Vault
5'
10'
Drawing above: The initial layout of the Harmony Room rehearsal hall,
showing sets nesting within sets to take advantage of as much square
footage
and location
wall20'as possible.
0'
5'
10'
30' Drawing by Aaron Jackson. Top,
left to right:20'
The district attorney
case file vault set. All the concrete
30'
block used as accents in lower floor sets was actually sheets of heavily
textured and painted cardboard pulp, finished with a rich glaze.
Another view of the case file vault set in the Harmony Room rehearsal
hall. The brass doors at the back of the set are a modified photograph
applied to a flat surface with added dimensional hardware. Opposite
page, center, left to right: A Good Samaritan Hospital room circa 2002
built in the Harmony Hall basement space at Sunset Gower. Parole
office sets were built into the Sunset Gower set dressing storage of the
SCANDAL series in order to utilize adjacent hallways for a walk and
talk. Bottom, left to right: More rehearsal hall sets: a hallway in the old
Los Angeles County jail, and a jail cell set which was later converted
into Rays (Chiwetel Ejiofor) Mets Stadium office.
62
0'
5'
10'
20'
30'
After scouting the actual District Attorneys offices, I knew flat white
Sheetrock was definitely not the look to support the narrative ofInt
this
Photo Studio / Int Hospital /
Int Jail Holding Cell & Hallway
complex thriller. Most of the buildings I presentedJACKSON
Billy were 125,
stone
132, 144
Sunset Gower Studios, Stage 12, Basement
edifices constructed in the early 1920s. I was hoping
to show the
JACKSON
125, 132, 144
01/14/2015
accumulation of time and bureaucracy with the furnishings, layers of
01/14/2015
remodeling and technological details to support the grave nature of the
subject as well as to demonstratively show the slow wheels of justice.
Int Photo Studio / Int Hospital /
Billy and I landed on a bit more idealized, yet bureaucratic look

than the real District Attorney, featuring substantial marble and dark
warm woods. During the initial scouting, we had hoped to build
the offices into the old Pacific Mutual Life Insurance complex at 6th
and Olive Streets, to help with the budget and to take advantage of
12/1/15 11:32 AM
Concrete Block Wall

from Chop Shop
Storage Area
Counter
Photo Backing
Camera & Tripod
Lights
wardrobe
Room
Set #125
Photo ID Room
Wild
Curtain
Filing Cabinets
Counter
Counter
Wall
wardrobe
downtown
views. The buildings started real-world renovation during
Set #132
Jail Holding
Cell & Hallway
the production
push, but we concluded that was for the best, and
production would be better served if all the offices and bullpens were
on stage. The PacMutual lobby was modified for filming and elevator
inserts were installed to match the elevator set on stage that needed
to incorporate breakaway mirrors. A few small sets were tucked
into other unfinished
areas in the building to help make the limited
Floor Grates
shooting schedule.
New Build
Prison Bar Wall
park traffic, or the emergency exits, all the while working with the
adjacent office building to allow vehicles to enter and exit the parking
garage and make deliveries to the dock. A new entry with double
gates and minaret bases was designed and built modularly off-site to
speed installation and reduce impact on the location. Several original
tile wallpapers were created digitally and individual faux-glazed
tiles were fashioned out of wood, then combined with CNC-routed
ornaments and faux limestone. During the week prior to filming,
the Central Library acquired a new director who began reviewing all
contracts, plus a major speaking event had been newly scheduled on
the day prior to filming, which required Secret Service security. All this
caused us to lose a prep day; fortunately, the crews kicked it up a notch,
and the modular set was installed in just two days.
One of the centerpieces of Secret was a Los Angeles mosque. The

closest mosque to downtown is in Culver City. With a very boxy
ot out and struck
shape and rather isolated location, it didnt have a connectivity to
Vault
the urban core, nor a visual sense of history. The back faade of the
Los Angeles Central Library on South Hope had always fascinated
me. The bones of the structure and imposing wall, as well as a more
Another challenge was the need for a prominent sports venue that
JACKSON
144
recent brass stud pattern embedded in the street, seemed
to yield 125, 132,would
allow filming and changes to make it look like 2002. Of
the prime building blocks for a mosque. Story dictated01/14/2015
an adjacent
course, Dodger Stadium was the dream, though financially way out
parking garage, which this location had. Now, the real challenge was
of our league. The Dodger organization had been burned in the past
getting the Central Library staff on board. The building is situated in
by less than scrupulous film crews, and was reticent to have the team
/ Int Hospital /
ell & Hallway
s, Stage 12, Basement
a public park, so set pieces and installation could not impede either
and stadium portrayed at all. Billy (a die-hard Dodger fan), Mark
Int Photo Studio / Int Hospital /
125, 132, 144
63
12/1/15 11:33 AM
Above: A redress of
Coles restaurant in
downtown Los Angeles
served as a Dodgersthemed sports bar.
Right, top to bottom:
Trick dumpsters were
fabricated from scratch
to include fold-down
sides for camera
angles, and built to
proportions and with
hand and footholds to
aid Julia Roberts into the
dumpster in any of the
several ways she chose
during the scene. The
Downtown Metro station
dressed for circa 2002,
a few months post-9/11.
Metro Alert signage
was created by Graphic
Designer Martin Charles.
A downtown Los Angeles
mural in the style of
circa late 1990s, painted
by Scenic Artist/Muralist
Gabrielle McKennaElliott from Mr. Coates
initial design.
64
Johnson, Ralph Coleman and I had numerous meetings

with various departments of the Dodger organization,
showing them how the stunts and filmed sequences
would work, and just how integral the Dodger story
line was to the success of the film. After several weeks
of negotiations with both the team and MLB, to clear
copyright issues, and of course, a beautifully written
impassioned plea from Billy, the Dodgers said yes. Two
perfect-weather days of filming were required with a
helicopter and five hundred extras. A combination of
digital and physical modifications was set in motion,
including getting the field ready months prior to the
season. The Stadium had been renovated in 2005,
significantly altering several filming areas including
the mens restrooms, which were needed for a chase
sequence. Since the film was also filming at Santa Anita
Park, an older restroom at the racetrack was used that
looked like pre-renovation Dodger Stadium. The two
locations were married with graphics, matching floor
tile, paint and dressing.
Billy had written several scenes for the Short Stop Bar,
a Dodger fan/Dodger player sports bar near Chavez
Ravine. Again, wanting the neo-noir LA connection, I
pitched redressing the downtown institution Coles to be
a sports bar, as the geography was great and I knew we
could make the sports memorabilia and Dodger details
just right. I scheduled a scout there along with several
locations on the first official directors scout with Billy,
cinematographer Danny Moder, Jeremiah Samuels
and Ralph Coleman. Coles was slated for around 11
AM. The scene that would be filmed at this location
involved several characters sitting at the bar discussing
Dodger players and listing four of them, including Orel
Hershiser. We fell behind on the scouting itinerary, and
then went to lunch prior to Coles. When we finally
did make it to Coles about three hours later, Billy got
a very funny look on his face. Sitting inside at the bar

of the very location where we were to have characters
discussing Dodger players, was Orel Hershiser and his
wife. We were all pretty dumbfounded, and Billy declared
that I had arranged it in order to sell the location.
Needless to say, we filmed there.
The Art Department started R&D on materials that could
emulate large panels of marble. I wanted the wall panels
to be very polished, smooth and reflective, and yet have
the depth of age and wear. I also wanted large sections
of wood paneling, yet could not afford to construct and
wood-grain the area needed make a consistent look. I
selected a slightly pitted-sheet laminate from Formica for
the marble, and a dimensional paper from Astek, and
added scenic and wax treatments. Danny Moder and I
did tests with the two materials, and found that by tinting
waxing and polishing, we could achieve a realistic look.
The Sunset Gower stage could only accommodate the
DA investigators bullpen, attached private offices, stairs
and hallway, and a DA office suite in the far corner of
the stage. To accommodate all these spaces and still
have a workable city view beyond, Phil Greenstreet at
Roscoe shot and helped create an original two-sided
12/1/15 11:33 AM
day/night Los Angeles drop that would be one of the

first printed with a new technique in Germany on a
lightweight canvas. We designed the drop with elements
from downtown buildings that had the same neo-noir
feel as the locations. By running a rail between sets,
and using a rail siding, the drape could effectively be
turned around with two people to have the correct
side face whichever set was slated to shoot that day.
Through a bit of trial and error, we found that cinching
top and bottom of the drop could help counterbalance
the stretch in the fabric and maintain the verticals of the
building depicted in the backdrop.
Space was so tight during construction, that several
other sets were actually built inside the main stage sets
prior to loading scenery out to locations. Every square
inch was used, and used again.
Numerous sets were also constructed in the Harmony
Room rehearsal hall, and much like Russian dolls, were
completed inside one another, with the innermost set
dressed to film first. As each set was shot, the company
would move back to the main stage. The innermost sets
would be dismantled, revealing the next set of walls,
which were then dressed and filmed. Where possible,
actual rehearsal hall walls and doors were utilized. We
even prevailed upon the set dressing department of the
series Scandal, to allow us to erect walls in a portion
of their set dressing lockup in order to utilize adjacent
hallways for walk and talk.
To save money on strike, we again called upon
Production Designer Corey Kaplan and the Scandal
team, giving them first look at walls and scenery which
could be reused instead of being tossed.
Designing contemporary movies can be much more
challenging than period ones when shaping the visual
1/8"
1/8"
narrative to create a strong and cohesive look. Most

casual viewers, and even savvy professionals, often
dont realize the amount of work required to make
design elements of a contemporary narrative appear
natural and seamless. Even the films crime-scene
dumpster was built from scratch, and specifically
designed for the ergonomics of the actresses, with
trick-hinged sides to hold dressing in while allowing the
camera to get low inside, and then up and wide, all
without seeing the wild wall moving in the shot. Art was
commissioned to subtly reinforce scene content and
the change in eras. Layered touches of bureaucratic
history and lags in technology in the public sector were
carefully chosen, and all the ergonomics of character
interactivity carefully crafted.
Secret was a special collaboration with a small but
outstanding design team, many with whom I had
worked in the past, including Art Director Colin De
Rouin, Graphic Designer Martin Charles, Set Designer
Paul Sonski, set decorator Andrea Joel, construction
coordinator Robert Carlyle and lead painter Kay Kropp,
all who went above and beyond to give Secret an
excellent and very specific, layered look. I am forever
indebted to Billy and Mark for inviting me to the party,
and to talented collaborators, costume designer Shay
Cunliffe, Danny Moder, editor Jim Page and visual
effects supervisor John Heller for their great contributions
to bringing the Secret to audiences eyes. ADG
Nelson Coates, Production Designer

Colin De Rouin, Art Director
Michael Allen Glover, Assistant Art Director
Martin Charles, Beatriz Kerti, Graphic Designers
Patricia Klawonn, D. Tracy Smith, Paul Sonski,
Chris Biddle, Aaron Jackson, Set Designers
Dwayne Turner, Storyboard Artist
Andrea Joel SDSA, Set Decorator
Below: Graphics created

by Martin Charles
and Beatriz Kerti for
the main door to the
District Attorneys
office suite. The signage
system for all the
offices was developed
by Ms. Kerti and a new
(clearable) version of
the Los Angeles County
District Attorney seal
was designed in the
Art Department and
formalized by Martin
Charles. These pieces
were all executed by
Dangling Carrot Creative
in Valencia, CA.
1/4"
1/4"
1/8"
12/1/15 11:33 AM
Pope
The
Above: A digital rendering by Mr. Lagler of the set, dressed for the mass, in the center of Philadelphias
Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background. Inset: A photograph of
the mass set, built on the Eakins Oval in front of the steps made famous by the ROCKY films.
66
66-71 Papal-Lagler.indd 66
12/1/15 11:34 AM
in Philadelphia
by Production Designer Ren Lagler,
speaking with journalist Sharon Stancavage
from LIGHTING & SOUND AMERICA
magazine
When event producers are alerted to a

Papal visit in the US, who do they call for
scenic design? Ren Lagler. The longtime
ADG member has worked with Pope John
Paul II, Pope Benedict, and now, in 2015,
Pope Francis. Producer Scott Mirkin of
Philadelphias ESM Productions was the
one who made the call to Ren in regards
to the Popes visit to Philadelphia.
67
12/1/15 11:34 AM
Below: The first of Pope Francis events in

Philadelphia was a visit to Independence
Hall. This is Mr. Laglers rendering for
the set elements installed in front of the
national landmark. Bottom, left to right:
Rather than designing a traditional square
rock & roll trussed stage, Mr. Lagler
writes that he was certain that an arch
motifs gentler shape would be just what
was needed. I drew it up and never even
considered a square stage. A photograph
from behind the altar back shows some of
the nearly one million people who showed
up to hear the Pope celebrate mass.
68
The Papal visit to that city included three events: a visit to Independence Hall, a concert on
the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and a mass the next day for the World Meeting of Families. The
Independence Hall visit was fairly straightforward, a smaller set that required a baldacchino;
the concert and mass were more complex. Ren explains, The concert was a nighttime event.
I didnt want the stage to have an over-the-top, rock & roll look, because I had to transform it
into an appropriate setting for a mass. I had used the arch motif for The 3 Tenors in Paris and
felt certain that its gentler shape would be just what was needed. I drew it up and never even
considered a square stage.
Since the venue needed to provide the setting for a mass, there were religious aspects that had
to be considered. There were certain elements to accommodate, such as the Papal procession.
I didnt want to do an endless staircase, so I designed a pair of fifty-foot switchback ramps with
12/1/15 11:35 AM
a 22 x 32 foot mid-level forestage that facilitated the entrance of the participants. There
were also the physical needs of the mass: a Papal chair, altar ambo (a type of raised pulpit),
lectern and the cross. Ren continues, I used Larry Hoy, of Renovata Studios in Port Chester,
NY, to create the cross. I had used him on a previous project to build a Papal chair. He did
a great job. The cross itself was gold-leafed in two different shades.
Seating arrangements during mass were also a concern. Ren explains, Theres a very strict
layout of who sits where, dictated by the Vatican with details concerning the type of chairs
and stools. All of the seating had to precisely be laid out according to the liturgic order.
Through the entire process, Ren worked closely with Father Gill at the Archdiocese of
Philadelphia, and, to some extent, the Vatican. It was very important to all of us that this
Below: Mr. Laglers digital model of the shell

and stage dressed for the Festival of Families
concert for Pope Francis, hosted by Mark
Wahlberg, with appearances by Aretha Franklin
and comedian Jim Gaffigan. The backing
included an eighty-foot-wide staggered LED
wall, hung on a sixty-foot radius truss. Bottom,
left to right: A production photograph of the
evening concert, lighted by Ted Wells and
Dave Thibodeau of Full Flood Inc. Another
view of Mr. Laglers model, showing the
orchestra section which had to be confined
to only half the stage to allow room for the
Popes retainers, and requiring extraordinary
cooperation from the musicians.
69
12/1/15 11:35 AM
5'-6 1/2"
1'-4"
1'-0"
8"
BORDER BUILT UP +1/2"
1 1/2"
END UNITS BUILT UP 1 1/2"
1"
8"
1"
1'-11 1/2"
6 1/2"
PAPAL MASS BACKING CRUCIFIX
1'-4"
WILL DISCUSS WITH VENDOR

3D CRUCIFIX SCULPTURE METHOOD APPROACH
10'-4 1/2"
10 1/2"
6"
1 1/2"
5"
7 1/2"
5'-11"
5'-0"
Right: A beautifully polychromed working

drawing of the crucifix, designed and
built for the altar back. Below, top to
bottom: Larry Hoy, of Renovata Studios.
Delivering the cross and crucifix he built;
the cross is gold-leafed in two different
shades. The crucifix, seen above Pope
Francis during the mass, was highlighgted
in $100/gallon gold paint.
PAINT ENTIRE CRUCIFIX IN TWO VALUES OF

"PAPAL GOLD" AS DISCUSSED WITH VENDOR
1"
1"
1'-6"
8"
10"
8 1/2"
6 1/2"
+1/2" BIG CASLON LETTERING

IN THEATRICAL GOLD LEAF
6 1/2"
RADIATING BURSTS
IN THEATRICAL GOLD LEAF
Center Field set back 3/4"

6 1/2"
6"
10 1/2"
1'-11"
first US visit by Pope Francis be very special on all levels. Those of us on the
production team worked for months to incorporate all the wishes and wants
of the diocese, and make them function in a practical and visually pleasing
way.
The concert portion of the event included a veritable army on stage: the
invited families, the choir, the entertainers, the Pope and the Philadelphia
Philharmonic. Ren confides, The challenge was for all this to work within
a 108 x 108 foot deck space. It was most difficult for the orchestra. Ive had
these space limitations with orchestras before, and sometimes suggest that
maybe they need to cut a few musicians so they can all fit in. Of course, that
never happens; they figure it out. Ive learned that musicians are like water;
they find their own level. In the end, we agreed that we did the impossible
and everyone was happy.
The concert look included an eighty-foot-wide staggered LED wall provided
by VER of Los Angeles, hung on a sixty-foot radius truss. Ren notes, In
the last few days, we had to reconfigure the LED by taking two rows off the
top in order to see more of the museum faade, as it was part of the Philly
branding.
The stage layout for the concert took some tweaking. The initial idea was to
have the orchestra up high, at least eight or ten feet above the stage floor,
with the Pontiff and others in front. But then we were told that the Pontiff had
to be upstage, Ren confides. For the final layout, Lagler split the stage in
half. The orchestra, at stage right, came exactly to center stage, while stage
left was used for the Pope and the families.
The mass, the Scenic Designer explains, was a straightforward layout of a
series of risers with its center focal point a backing with side columns and a
recessed shape to feature the cross.
Renes color palette was based on tradition. The Papal colors are yellow
and white, and because of this particular season, the additional liturgic color
was green, which was incorporated as an accent as well.
70
12/1/15 11:35 AM
5'-11"
10'-4 1/2"
8"
1'-11 1/2"
Left: A photograph of the set,

freshly dressed for the mass,
just after Ted Resnick of Event
Carpet and twenty carpet layers
finished transforming the raw
plywood into a white pallet.
Below: Mr. Laglers working
drawing for the eight-foottall Papal chair, custom built
for the mass. Bottom: For the
Papal procession, Mr. Lagler
didnt want to do an endless
staircase, so I designed a pair
of fifty-foot switchback ramps
with a 22 x 32 foot mid-level
forestage that facilitated the
entrance of the participants.
For the Popes visit, IATSE
Local 8, Philadelphia, filled
nearly 1000 positions, providing
crews over a 4-week period,
at the airport, the seminary
prison, Independence Hall and
the parkway. They set up 31
video walls around the city, in
addition to the sets shown here.
3'-0"
Speaking of accent, Ren says, I used a gold

paint that is actually $100 a gallon from Modern
Masters. Its a great paint. They mix it themselves;
it paints beautifully and looks fantastic. We used
it sparingly in small quantities for some of the
molding on the Papal throne and the various
chairs.
2'-3"
1'-6"
3 1/2"
6"
1'1'-1 1/2
6 1/2"
"
1'-5
1'-3 1/2"
9"
4 1/2"
4 1/2"
"
3'-9 1/2"
3 1/2"
3 1/2" thick medium/ hard Foam filled

Fabric Papal Purple and Gold Velour Cushions
6'-4"
The overnight reset from the concert to the

Sunday mass was a huge challenge. There were
nine hours in which to strike the LED wall, the
orchestra and all the other related gear before
any of the risers could be placed on stage. The
finishing touches came from Ted Resnick of Event
Carpet and twenty carpet layers who transformed
the plywood into a white pallet. Then, Pennacora
Flowers of Philadelphia did their magic and
helped make the scene even more spectacular. In
fact, 95% of the scenic work was done by 7:15
AM. Ren admits, It was a rough one; I was there
twenty-one hours straight.
3'-1"
7'-10"
2'-1 1/2"
3"
1 1/2"
2'-5 1/2"
2'-3 1/2"
1'-9"
1'-2"
8"
1"
3"
1'-9"
2"
4 1/2"
2"
Cove Moulding
4 1/2"
1'-6"
4 1/2"
2'-3"
1'-10"
3'-0"
Philadelphia PAPAL CHAIR 2015
2'-4"
8"
1" Square Steel Tubing
All Open
Railing
3'-0"
70 degree
26'-3"
Carpeted Deck + 64"
+32"
5'-4"
Make Four Steel Railing Units Paint Silver.
All wood fascias to be painted in Gold color as selected

with color stripes as discussed.
Stage Left Elevation with Double Ramps
Metal Railings
Center Line
98'-0"
Note! All of Deck Top, Ramps and Curved Step tops,

as well as Step Risers to be covered in Carpeting by others.
49'-0"
+50"
<Ramp up
>
Ramp up
R.17'-6"
+32"
+40"
5'-0"
+64"
13.8 Degree Angle
>
Ramp up
<Ramp up
R.20'-6"
R. 21'-6"
R.22'-6"
R.23'-6"
+24"
+16"
Front face painted in

Gold with Stipe
5'-0"
PLANTER RISERS
TOP & FACE
PAINTED GREEN
2'-0"
+30"
+20"
+64"
2'-0"
+64"
Note! Dimensions are adjustable

depending on the actual height of the
scaffolding Stage height.
25'-0"
R. 20'-6"
2'-0"
When Lagler had one of his early meetings on

the project, he noticed that there wasnt a lighting
designer of record, so he made a list. Lighting
designers Ted Wells and Dave Thibodeau of Los
Angeles-based Full Flood Inc. were available and
came on board immediately. Ren says, We know
each other and were good friends, so that was
great and worked out really well. ADG
25'-0"
+8"
+0"
Stage Apron Plan
12/1/15 11:35 AM
Nostalgic
TELEVISION
in a
D i g i t a l Wo r l d
by Kristan Andrews, Production Designer
72
P E R S P E C T I VE | NOVEMBER/D EC EMBER 2015
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12/1/15 11:36 AM
Amazon Studios
Opposite page: A production photograph of the studio set for Mels thirdstory observatory, the kids main hangout. This page top, left and right:
Set stills showing two angles on Mels observatory, with its hand-tinted
wallpaper. Center, left: Yvonne Garnier-Hackls Vectorworks plan of
the elevated Mels observatory set, first rendered in SketchUp. Right: An
inspiration board, and a separate color, wallpaper and wood-detail mood
board, both created for the observatory set by Ms. Andrews using Keynote
for iOS. Left: Ranger, Mel and Gortimer peer outside the observatorys bay
window, double-faced on stage near Echo Park in Los Angeles.
73
12/1/15 11:36 AM
Below: Gortimer gets

hosed down outside his
house exterior on Normal
Street in Pasadena.
Bottom: Ms. Andrews
Keynote inspiration board
for the Gibbon living/
dining room set, added in
mid-season.
Created by David Anaxagoras, a first-time writer who

worked as a preschool teacher, the pilot for Gortimer
Gibbons Life on Normal Street was found through
Amazons open submission policy. The charming script
centers around Gortimer (a young Jimmy Stewart-like
everyman) and his two best friends, Ranger and Mel,
growing up and learning about life and themselves as
they discover that their seemingly ordinary world is not
so ordinary at all. In early summer 2013, I received
a call from producers I had worked alongside many
times. They were now the head of production and
production manager for the newly formed Amazon
Studios, and this would be their first live-action family
pilot, a classic single-camera show that was quirky,
visually interesting and most of all, different from the

programming that was currently available in the genre.
The ambitious script was crafted with a lot of heart,
a bit of Goonies-esque action and camaraderie, and
most importantly, it featured child heroes who were
kind, creative and perceptive. The first-time writer was
partnered with an Academy Award-winning director,
Luke Matheny, who helped focus a unique voice and
vision for the show. Gortimer would become a throwback
to single-camera storytelling for the family genre, part
magical realism, part sentimental nostalgia, and part
homage to the classic films and series of the 1980s. Each
episode ends with a reflective coda, narrated by Gortimer
as he looks back with insight and wit on the lessons

learned and life moments experienced on the show.
The pilot episode takes place during a scorching hot
drought, brought on (so we discover) by one very
disgruntled frog. Producer Richard King had a connection
to a Craftsman house on a tree-lined street in Pasadena,
which worked perfectly as idyllic Normal Street with
a lake at one end and a forest of shady trees at the
other, as Gortimers voice-over describes. It was pure
Americana, with kids rocking on porch swings while
their Popsicles melted in the unending summer heat.
Lemonade stands and sunflowers gave a small-townanywhere-USA feel to Normal Street.
74
12/1/15 11:36 AM
The location served many purposes: the front porch, guest bedroom, kitchen and
backyard became Gortimers house, while the dining and living rooms were dressed
to be the home of a mysterious and blind neighbor, Miss Hudspith (played by the
wonderful Fionnula Flanagan), who is plagued by the incessant croaking of a frog.
The houses master bedroom was given a fanciful makeover as the bedroom of Mel,
Gortimers close friend and resident genius scavenger. A local mini-mart got a miniface-lift. A neighboring home was enlisted for the exterior of Miss Hudspiths house.
(An old lady in an old house, sitting on top of ultimate doom.)
Above, left and right: Two views of Gortimers

internationally inspired living and dining room,
with the kitchen in the background. Below: A design
development study by Assistant Art Director Jerry
Ortega of the crawl space. The drawing, done for the
pilot, was elevated and modeled in SketchUp and
finished in Photoshop. Bottom, left and right: A frame
capture and a set photograph from an action sequence
in the pilot, showing the collapsing crawl space, built
and flooded on site.
There was one serious set piece missing from this seemingly normal equation. The
script called for a climactic action sequence in which Gortimer crawls under Miss
Hudspiths house to capture the frog of doom. The crawl space he is in quickly floods
12/1/15 11:36 AM
and Gortimer falls through a sinkhole and into a mysterious abyss where
he finds a boy with golden eyes. Since the scripted action could not be
accomplished in a location space and the original budget was unable
to accommodate the construction required to film the sequence, we
had to do the unthinkable, ask the studio for more money. In order to
successfully pitch what I had in mind, I brought in Assistant Art Director
Jerry Ortega to help create a design that captured the mood and action
of the sequence.
By designing a 24-foot elevated and enclosed crawl space set (all built
in a small side yard of the house), the burden of filming underground
was eased, and access was available for camera-tracking moves, lighting
and the special effects flooding rig necessary to ensure the safety of
a 12-year-old star. A removable section of false floor was created for
Gortimer to fall through, and a three-quarter round, 10-foot diameter
pit filled with gold glitter and mica-flecked foam completed the look. The
76
12/1/15 11:36 AM
pre-vis sales pitch was a slam-dunk and Gortimer got to

take on that damn frog in the climatic fourth act.
A creative solution was again required when a flashback
sequence detailing the origin of the nemesis frog could
not fit into the schedule or locations. One evening
during prep, director (and subsequent show runner)
Matheny spent the night at his coffee table creating a
simple paper-collage animated sequence to stand in for
the missing scenes. The Amazon executives loved his
clever adaptation of the piece, and through the magical
portal that is the Internet, came across a talented Texan
named Brandon Ray. Thus was the birth of what we call
storybombs. These little animated moments of flashback
or exposition have added another uniquely whimsical
element to the series, and there is now a small stable of
animators and visual artists consulting with the show.
Amazon Studios has a distinctive way of testing their
pilots: every single pilot is launched online free of charge
for one month while Amazon collects viewership data.
Based on that data, the series was green lighted and nine
months after filming the pilot, Gortimer Gibbons Life on
Normal Street began season one principal photography.
Immediately, resourceful as always, Richard King
secured a small stage near Echo Park with a collection
of quaint offices and support space for working trucks.
As a true testament to the pilots fun and creative work
environment, nearly 90% of the crew returned for the
series, including cinematographer Eduardo Mayen who
carefully crafted the moodier, darker side of Normal
Street, while adding so much to the visual language. I
was happy to have pilot set decorator Beth Wooke back
on board, and to re-team with construction coordinator
Mark Knightley (with whom I had started working twenty
years ago). A longtime friend and co-worker, Yvonne
Garnier-Hackl, jumped aboard as Set Designer and
launched the series through construction and the first
few episodes. The lovely (and unflappable) Sarah
Palmrose took over when Yvonne left to fulfill a previous
commitment.
The pilot episode established a period for the series that
we referred to as a timeless present. Care was taken
to edit out most computers, cellphones and advanced
technology from the Normal world. These kids wont
be asking Siri what to do about a magic frog, or take a
selfie with the golden-eyed boy or play Candy Crush for
hours on end. Visually, this timeless present means a rich
color palette, with a soft patina and lots of wallpaper.
Opposite page, top: Mel and Ranger direct a ship of pirates for the Normal Day play. The custom-built proscenium, apron pieces, set
elements and drapery were installed on location under the supervision of Assistant Art Director Sarah Palmrose. Center: A pencil concept
sketch of the pirate ship and wave elements by Ms. Andrews. Bottom: A pre-vis concept for the third tableau of the Normal Day play showing
the founding of Normal Street, created by Ms. Andrews in Illustrator and Photoshop. This page, top to bottom: Graphic Designer Simon
Joness steampunk-inspired periodic table, a hero prop in Mels observatory, was first started in Illustrator for the text, table and layout,
and then pasted into Photoshop as a vector smart object for the layers of color, texture, aging and distressing. Ranger at home on stage with
his parents in a kitchen with custom teak cabinets, faux soapstone countertops and a brick backsplash painted in a John Deere green. Van
Goethens bibliophile apartment, a set built on stage with an exterior to match the location and extensive decorations by Beth Wooke.
77
12/1/15 11:36 AM
Wall treatments have become quite a theme in the world of Normal

Street; they provide color and visual impact without being distracting
or overbearing. The Astek stock books were scoured, as well as
SpoonFlower, Wallpaperstogo, Wayfair, the British site Paint & Paper
and The Stencil Library for just the right feel.
Near-replicas of the location kitchen and bedroom were built on
stage while taking a few liberties to improve layout and depth.
Over the season, the house common rooms were completed and
dressed with a touch of international influence wrapped in the
classic Craftsman environment. Enough swing-set space needed to
be reserved to accommodate the unforeseen requirements of the
season ahead (sets that would unpredictably range from the town
library to an underground tomb, an obsessed book collectors home
and Forgetful Freds house of mnemonic devices). A third-story
observatory was designed for Mel and the kids to hang out in, plan adventures and
contemplate the world. It is partially finished (ostensibly by Mels grandmother years
ago) with a bay window to the front of the house and back windows leading to a
perch where the kids can sit outside. The color palette is warm, worn and inviting.
Vintage wallpaper was chosen to cover a few of the walls, with a contrasting pattern
in the hallway. Of course, the vintage paper proved to be unavailable in the quantity
needed, so a similar print was chosen, which the scenic department tinted by hand.
This became the epicenter of the standing sets, a space where Mel has amassed and
curated all of her favorite materials, tools, references and general items of wonder.
The timeless present look also lends itself to the shows props and graphics. When
Mel builds a robot for the science fair, property master Bruce Mink harvested
antiquated computer and non-computer materials to fashion a talking, walking robot.
Graphic Designer Simon Jones created a beautiful steampunk-inspired periodic table
for one particular episode; it now hangs permanently in Mels observatory.
There have been more than a few instances where a design element was added just
because it would be amusing to create. Such was the case with Rangers (the third
musketeer in the cast) cheeseburger bed. The first time Rangers room is seen, it
is just one shot of him attempting to train his goldfish. Never ones to pass up the
opportunity for a nice tableau, we took this brief moment to introduce a bit more of
Rangers eccentric world. We placed his bed in the closet (more space for a mess)
and topped it off with custom-built linens: a sheet of cheese, one of lettuce and
sesame-seed-bun duvet cover that made his bed look like a giant cheeseburger.
The SpoonFlower custom fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap site had some goofy and
unexpected wall treatments that were just right for Rangers actual mermaid kitty
wallpaper. Because Ranger is just that kind of guy. His room was such a hit that the
writers created a storyline inspired by Rangers space and his transition
away from the innocence of childhood. As for the mere kitty wallpaper, I
have never had more comments and inquiries about where to get a set
piece (even from several of the grips).
The quick pace of this single-camera series means there is little time for indepth concept drawings or renderings. Most design pitches are done with
good old-fashioned mood boards, maybe a quick sketch or rough photo
mash-up and always a preliminary ground plan. Our department is blessed
to have the complete trust and support of the network, so there is rarely
adjustment to a design concept.
As the second season of filming began, the kids social lives and
relationships expanded and more episodes became centered around
school. Thankfully, Richard was able to secure a second stage where a
dedicated school hallway, classroom and a small swing area were built.
78
12/1/15 11:36 AM
Set decorator Kris Fuller came in to replace Beth Wooke, who was
tied to another series, and we were able to leave Gortimers house
extension standing, expand on Mels house ground floor and create
an entire home for Rangers multi-generational household.
One of the crews favorite swing sets of season two was the Normal
Record Store. At first read, I was hesitant to build this set on stage,
knowing that the limited time and resources meant we would not be
able to create the level of patina and layering that could be found
at a location. Scouting led us to notice sleek boutique record stores
popping up. Thus inspired, a store was created on stage with custombuilt record bins, a small Chesterfield sofa in a cozy corner and some
warm antique pieces set off by a beautiful wall treatment executed by
scenic painters John Michael Hull and Chris Bodine. The exquisitely
crafted stencil from The Stencil Library in the UK was finished in pale
gold by Modern Masters. The end result was like an art deco argyle
version of a sonic wave. Knowing my proclivity for wallpaper, the crew
was in awe of the walls and could not believe it was stencil. Im not
sure construction coordinator Mark Knightley may ever indulge the
manpower to bring my stencil dream to fruition again, but it sure was
pretty.
Season two also brought an episode with a very visually rich storyline.
Her story weaves the towns history with modern day and ends with
an elaborate play about the founding of Normal Street. The play was
a highlight of creative synergy amongst all departments. Everyone
seemed to get it. In the end, the sets, costumes, hair/makeup, lighting
and camera all came together to create a visually stunning and
unexpected ending to a poignant episode.
It is special and rare to work in such a collaborative and creative
environment. Each episode is able to stand on its own and we are
artistically free to employ a different look or style for each. One week
might deal with a very somber rite of passage with a visual language
that is dark and moody. The next week might have elements inspired
by a wacky fantasy or childhood memento. Gortimer Gibbons Life
on Normal Street reflects on adolescence with affection and touches
on the magical nature of childhood. The whimsical perspective of
the characters is inspiring and energizing. It is my great challenge
and joy to help create a world that celebrates the extraordinary in the
ordinary, a place where, perhaps, a seemingly normal life may be
anything but normal. ADG
Opposite page, top to bottom: Normal Records, a record store

studio set, features stenciled walls from The Stencil Library in
the UK. A production still of the set, decorated by Kris Fuller.
Ms. Andrews Keynote mood board and ground plan for Rangers
original bedroom, complete with reference for his cheeseburger
bed. This page, top: A pilot episode design development sketch of
Gortimer in the pit with the Golden Eyed Boy, drawn by Mr. Ortega
using SketchUp and Photoshop. Above: The pit was built on location
adjacent to Gortimers house. Below: A frame capture from the
pilot of Brandon Rays animated storybomb sequence, done with
classic paper stop-motion techniques. Certain elements were filmed
against green screen and added in layers with Adobe After Effects.
Kristan Andrews, Production Designer
Sarah Palmrose, Jerry Ortega, Assistant Art Directors
Simon Jones, Graphic Designer
Yvonne Garnier-Hackl, Set Designer
Beth Wooke SDSA, Kris Fuller, Set Decorators
12/1/15 11:36 AM
production design
PRODUCTION DESIGN
CREDIT WAIVERS
by Laura Kamogawa, Credits Administrator
The following requests to use the Production Design screen credit were granted at its July and August meetings by
the ADG Council upon the recommendation of the Production Design Credit Waiver Committee.
THEATRICAL:
Julie Berghoff THE LAST WITCH HUNTER Lionsgate
Richard Bridgland AMERICAN ULTRA Lionsgate
Barry Chusid INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE

20th Century Fox
Nelson Coates SECRET IN THEIR EYES

Gran Via Productions
Michael Corenblith THE FINEST HOURS

Walt Disney Studios
Jack Fisk THE REVENANT New Regency Pictures
Troy Hansen SANTAS LITTLE HELPER WWE Studios
Derek Hill THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

MGM Studios
John Lavin BROTHER IN LAWS Broadway Video
Mara LePere-Schloop THE WHOLE TRUTH

Atlas Entertainment
Ina Mayhew BARBERSHOP 3 MGM Studios
Carlos Osorio THE BELKO EXPERIMENT

MGM Studios
John Paino DEMOLITION Fox Searchlight Pictures
Nigel Phelps PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES Walt Disney Studios
Steve Saklad HOW TO BE SINGLE Warner Bros.
Richard Sherman THE GIFT Blumhouse Productions
Annie Spitz THE NIGHT BEFORE Columbia Pictures
Brent Thomas ASHBY Paramount Pictures
Robert Ziembicki THE WOLVES AT THE DOOR

Warner Bros.
TELEVISION:
Russell Barnes HAP AND LEONARD

Sundance Channel
Bill Boes STAY ABC Studios
Charles Breen ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING

Disney Channel
Maria Caso FEAR THE WALKING DEAD

AMC Studios
Henry Cota EPIC OFFENDERS Disney XD
Jennifer Dehghan TEEN BEACH 2 Disney Channel
Mark Hofeling DESCENDANTS & INVISIBLE SISTER

Disney Channel
Jim Jones BUNKD Disney Channel
Carey Meyer INTO THE BADLANDS AMC Studios
Andrew Murdock SCREAM QUEENS

20th Century Fox Television
John Shaffner THE CARMICHAEL SHOW

Mark Worthington SCREAM QUEENS

coming soon
THE FINEST HOURS
Michael Corenblith, Production Designer
William Ladd Skinner, Supervising Art Director
Samantha Avila, Assistant Art Director
Po Sing Chu, Jonas De Ro, Concept Artists
Mauro Borrelli, Illustrator
Martin Charles, Graphic Designer
Lorrie Campbell, Robert Andrew Johnson,
Bria Kinter, Masako Masuda, Steven M. Saylor,
Clint Wallace, Set Designers
Darrin Denlinger, Warren Drummond, Trevor Goring,
Storyboard Artists
Doug Cluff, Charge Scenic Artist
Todd Clevenger, Scenic Artist Foreman
Kim Nelson, Dave Manning, David Rickson,
Rae Signer, Taylor Weeks, Scenic Artists
Opens January 29, 2016
80
P ERS P EC T IVE | NOVE MB E R/D E C E M BE R 2 0 1 5
80-83 ProdDesignMembership.indd 80
12/1/15 11:38 AM
Hollywood Center Studios

6281'67$*(6&5($7,9(2)),&(63$&(+'&21752/52206
Space for Big Ideas!
/$V3UHPLHU3URGXFWLRQ)DFLOLW\IRU)HDWXUH)LOP&RPPHUFLDO 7HOHYLVLRQ3URGXFWLRQV
Call for a quote today! 323-860-0000

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P ERSP ECT IVE | NOV EM B ER / DECEM B ER 2 0 1 5
81
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membership
WELCOME TO THE GUILD
by Emmanuel Espinoza, Membership Department
During the months of July and August, the following

28 new members were approved by the Councils for
membership in the Guild:
Art Directors:
Chloe Arbiture BRAVE NEW JERSEY Pacific Films
Molly Bailey THE TRUST Vault Film, Inc.
Parker Beck LEFT BEHIND: THE KIDS

Echolight Studios
Jonathan Bell BRAVE NEW JERSEY Pacific Films
Tracy Dishman PLAYING HOUSE USA Network
Giao-Chau Ly GOOD HUMOR

Mockingbird Pictures
Adri Siriwatt SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU IM Global
Ben Spiegelman SHANGRI-LA SUITE

Rapido Ridge, LLC
Joe Warson MTVS MILLION DOLLAR

MAZE RUNNER SPECIAL FRB Productions
John Zuiker BEST TIME EVER

WITH NEIL PATRICK HARRIS NBC Studios
Assistant Art Directors:
Vincent Bates KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

Fox 2000 Pictures
Aaron Bautista THE PERFECT MATCH

Perfect Match, LLC
Alicia Gerken Various signatory commercials
Aashrita Kamath KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Universal Pictures
Justyna Kornacka STEVE AUSTINS BROKEN SKULL

CHALLENGE CMT
Kathryn Molenaar-Guiler Various signatory
commercials
Alex Rose Various signatory commercials
John Snow THE DO OVER Netflix
Kit Stolen Portfolio review
Kate Weddle SCANDAL ABC Studios
Illustrators:
Joe Haidar ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:

THE ROAD CHIP 20th Century Fox
Anson Jew THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SAGE

AND MILO Warner Bros.
Khang Le SPACE BEARS Walt Disney Studios
Samuel Michlap GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2

Marvel Studios
Constantine Sekeris GHOSTBUSTERS

20th Century Fox
David Stephan ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:

THE ROAD CHIP 20th Century Fox
Joseph Studzinski WAR FOR THE

PLANET OF THE APES 20th Century Fox
Set Designer:
Christopher Sanford WAR FOR THE

PLANET OF THE APES 20th Century Fox
At the end of August, the Guild had 2341 members.
82
12/1/15 11:38 AM
Now
Open
15 Rewe St., Brooklyn, NY 11211

ny@bridgeprops.com
3210 Vanowen St., Burbank, CA 91505

la@bridgeprops.com
1369 Logan Circle NW, Atlanta, GA 30318

atl@bridgeprops.com
BR I D G E P RO P S.CO M
12/1/15 11:38 AM
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milestones
EDWARD HABIT
1924 2015
by Lockie Koon, Scenic Artist
One day, about ten years ago, Eddie Habit, the man who had been the head
of the Scenic Department at ABC for more than fifty years, pulled an immense
English flogging brush out of his desk and handed it to me. This was the passing
of the torch, acknowledging that I was now the department head for ABC Scenic.
This symbolic gesture was profound, and I was deeply honored. I had met
Eddie as a child. My father, Charles Koon, was the Production Designer for The
Lawrence Welk Show and had worked with Eddie for years. Growing up, I knew
Eddie Habit as a legend.
Of Lebanese heritage, from Uniontown, PA, he was a 54 macho giant of
a man. People said his true lovesin this orderwere cigars, horse racing,
cards, gambling and women, and yet he was one of the first Scenic bosses to
hire women. He fought in WWII, seeing service as a combat infantry rifleman in
Germany, the Ardennes and the Rhineland campaigns. After the war, he earned
a Bachelor of Professional Arts degree from Art Center College.
His first job in the industry was as a shopman at Triangle Studio for Phil Riaguel,
who was in charge of the Scenic work for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. He
worked there for three seasons, painting Peter Pan and Kismet among others. By
1963, he was at CBS Studios where he was soon promoted to journeyman based on the work he did for Playhouse
90. In the following years, he worked off and on at Paramount Studios, painting for Rear Window (1954) and The
Ten Commandments (1956); and at Warner Bros., working again for Phil Riaguel on A Star Is Born (1954), King
Richard the Lionhearted (1954) and other large productions. He painted for John Coakley at 20th Century Fox, and
had a long run on such productions as The Robe (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955) and The King and I (1956).
At RKO, Eddie did ninety percent of the Scenic work on the Oscar-nominated Around the World in Eighty Days
(1956). Producer Mike Todd and the designers, Ken Adam and James Sullivan, arranged a full-time station wagon
and driver to escort him to wherever any Scenic work was to be done. He painted Greek figures in battle on the
films signature thirty-six-foot-high balloon. Besides RKO, he painted a theater front and a backing at MGM. At Fox,
he painted a faded dragon on a Chinese junk and decorations on an elephant. When Around the World in Eighty
Days ended, he was appointed head of the Scenic Department at RKO. A movie with Frank Sinatra was started.
Three weeks into the movie, all the departments were summoned onto a stage and were told that Howard Hughes,
who owned RKO, had sold the Studio to Desilu Productions. Everyone was dismissed at the end of the week. To fill
in, Eddie went to work at Grosh Studio for Jimmy McCann, painting on a backing for Guys and Dolls (1955), and
another for Oklahoma which were done at the Shrine Auditorium. He worked on four projects for Disneyland: Snow
White, Peter Pan, Mr. Toads Ride, and a mural before Disneyland opened in 1955.
He did a stint at ABC as a casual, and soon was put on staff. In 1957, he was promoted to department head, a job
he would hold for half a century. There were just three Scenic Artists then, but within a month, new projects began to
arrive. From The Lawrence Welk Show on, ABC grew at a rapid pace. Over his years there, he supervised hundreds
of specials and series, from The Hollywood Palace to Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis and Ernie Kovacs; game shows
included The Dating Game, Lets Make a Deal and Family Feud; sitcoms, too, such as Barney Miller, Welcome Back,
Kotter and Benson. All this was slotted in between the Emmy Awards, the Country Music Awards and thirty-five years
of Oscar shows.
Above: A pen-and-ink
sketch of Eddie Habit,
drawn in the paint shop
break room at ABC
Television Center in
Hollywood by Scenic
Artist Angel Esparza.
86
In 1989, I asked him for a job. I didnt use my dad or anyone, I just needed a job and was hired as a shop boy
washing buckets. He was always a fair and honest man bringing many people into Scenic Art and giving them a
chance. He gave me a chance, too. I worked for twenty-five years starting from the bottom and never thought I
would be his equal. He is survived by his sons, Ed Habit Jr. and Andrew Habit, a daughter who kept his household
going in later years, and Craig Grady, his stepson. He could be a hard-ass, he was feisty and a true character, but
very generous and fair at the same time. He will be missed.
86-87 Milestones.indd 86
12/1/15 11:40 AM
Visit the Guilds

Art Gallery
Quality Prefabricated
Paint Ready Interchangeable
Easy to Assemble
SET RENTALS
Great Service, Great Prices
2x10 WALL
DOOR 146
8x10 WALL
WINDOW 108
5108 Lankershim Blvd.

in the historic
Lankershim Arts Center
NoHo Arts District, 91601
Gallery Hours:
Thursday through Saturday
2:00 8:00 pm
Sunday 2:00 6:00 pm
6x10 WALL
FIREPLACE 101
WINDOW 110
DOOR 107
And Dont Forget the
FIGURATIVE
DRAWING
WORKSHOP
Every Tuesday Night

The Robert Boyle Studio
at the
Art Directors Guild
DOOR 146
WINDOW 108
FIREPLACE 101
Enjoy good music and a live art

model for a pleasantcreative
evening.
7:00 PM to 10:00 PM every

Tuesday
$10.00 at the door
Please RSVP to Nicki La Rosa
nicki@artdirectors.org or
818 762 9995
818.834.2500
WINDOW 110
info@rentaset.la
rentaset.la
DOOR 107
86-87 Milestones.indd 87
87
12/1/15 11:40 AM
reshoots
In 1958, Production Designer Jan Scott, an ADG Lifetime Achievement Award

winner and Hall of Fame inductee, drew this atmospheric pencil and charcoal
sketch for the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of HANS BRINKER AND THE
SILVER SKATES. The primarily two-dimensional set of the Dutch river where
young Hans (played by Tab Hunter) skates for the chance to win the silver
skates was built on stage as a fully practical ice rink in NBCs Brooklyn studios.
Olympic gold medal skater Dick Button performed some of the more elaborate
ice choreography, and Ms. Scott received her third Emmy nomination (of what
would eventually become twenty-nine).
88
88 Reshoots.indd 88
12/1/15 11:41 AM
Were here
when
need us
Office hours to fit the hectic life

of the entertainment industry
UCLA and MPTF working together means you can see UCLA
doctors at the times that work best for you. We understand
that the entertainment industry doesnt just work 9 to 5,
Monday through Friday and neither do we.
Our extended hours, seven-day schedules and our Health Wheels
mobile office make it easy to keep your health in check and keep
working. Thats care the entertainment industry can count on.
And care that begins with U.
1-800-876-8320
uclahealth.org/mptf
UCLA1321 MPTF Ad Update-3461-Perspectives(PRS)ms.indd 2

0C3 IBC.indd 65
Woodland Hills
Jack H. Skirball Health Center
MPTF Wasserman Campus
23388 Mulholland Dr
(818) 876-1050
M-F, 8 am 9 pm / Sat, Sun, Holidays 9 am 5 pm
Toluca Lake
Toluca Lake Health Center
4323 Riverside Dr
(818) 556-2700
M-F, 7 am 6 pm / Sat, 8 am 4 pm
Santa Clarita
Santa Clarita Health Center
25751 McBean Pkwy #210
(661) 284-3100
West Los Angeles
Westside Health Center
1950 Sawtelle Blvd #130
(310) 996-9355
Los Angeles, Hollywood, Mid-City
Bob Hope Health Center
335 N. La Brea Ave
(323) 634-3850
M-F, 8:30 am 5 pm / Sat, 8 am 4 pm
9/29/15 10:56 AM
12/1/15 11:42 AM
0C4 BC.indd 100
12/1/15 11:43 AM

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PERSPECTIVE

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2015

Oscar - worthy, inspiring, important, brilliant,

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING

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Its Not Rocket Science

Oh, wait, yes it is

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Jungles and old colonial towns

A three-act Apple story

A Secret in the Making

Is the Secret in Their Eyes

The Pope in Philadelphia

Designing a historic moment

Nostalgic Television in a Digital World

Gortimer Gibbons Life on Normal Street

by Arthur Max, Production Designer

by Tom Conroy, Production Designer

by Miles Michael, Production Designer

by Guy Hendrix Dyas, Production Designer,

by Nelson Coates, Production Designer

by Production Designer Ren Lagler, speaking with journalist

by Kristan Andrews, Production Designer

An early digital concept painting by

PERSPECTIVE | NOV E M B E R/DE C E M B E R 2015

Novemb er/Dec em ber 2015

PERSPECTIVE ISSN: 1935-4371, No. 62, 2015. Published bimonthly by the

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING

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MOTION PICTURE: 2015 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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botany, organic chemistry and rocket technology again

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