Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1010570
with Star Trek, and learned more about Civil War telegraph communications than I ever thought I would for Lincoln. I have been to 1960s Mississippi as Art Director on The Help, and later designed a creepily idyllic town and the sci-fi backstage areas that supported it for Wayward Pines. BlackkKlansman let me delve into the worlds of polar opposites to get to an understanding of Ron's world and an equal, if much more unpleasant, understanding of the world of the KKK, and the motivations of the characters who are members. As a designer, one may not feel qualified to represent aliens or racists or, in my case, the histories and burdens of African-Americans. But study and research are used to pursue all these emotional and visual truths and create something that looks and feels real on the screen. For BlackkKlansman, the research started with several scripted photomontages that became a lesson in the exploitation of blacks in the United States. These included pictures of blacks working in the fields, as Pullman porters and maids, an infamous Martin Luther King billboard where he is pictured at a Communist training school, minstrel stereotypes, pseudoscientific charts dehumanizing blacks, and countless lynchings, for use in a pivotal scene featuring Harry Belafonte. Once you have seen this last series of photos, it is impossible to unsee them, and inconceivable to think that people attended these as entertainments. On the KKK side of the coin, learning the peculiarities of David Duke's reading list revealed just how odd and twisted he is. Information and images were also gathered on Nathan Bedford Forrest—founder of the KKK, anti-Semitic graphics, footage from the KKK's very successful 1922 march on Washington, KKK initiation rituals, and the archive of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. After a while, the impact of this research started to weigh heavily on our entire department. We were an almost entirely white Art Department starting to come to terms with B COLORADO SPRINGS, CO A. THE INDEFATIGABLE HARRY BELAFONTE RALLIES THE FREEDOM HOUSE. B. COLORADO SPRINGS IN THE EARLY '70S, RESEARCH BOARD. C. OSSINING, NY, STANDS IN FOR COLORADO SPRINGS. LOCATION PHOTO. A B C