Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1043753
M I N D H U N T E R | P E R S P E C T I V E 7 1 While I was finishing the fourth season of House of Cards, David Fincher called me to say he was planning another series with Netflix and to ask if I would be interested in designing it. Of course I jumped at the chance, not knowing exactly what Mindhunter would be, but certain that with Fincher involved, it would be a quality project. I soon found out that it was based on the John Douglas book of the same name and that it would be shooting in Pittsburgh, a city I knew quite well since I received my graduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University there, and where I got my start in the film business while still a student in the CMU theater department. The series is somewhat different than many crime shows in that it's not a who-done-it, or even a how'd they do it, but more of a psychological exploration of why'd they do it. Mindhunter is a period show set in the late 1970s, so I knew the choice of Pittsburgh as a location would simplify much of the exterior design work. Many rust belt cities like Pittsburgh were hit particularly hard by the collapse of the steel industry, and all the ancillary businesses that supported steel have suffered as well. The small towns that surround a city like Pittsburgh are often stuck in the past, sometimes for forty years A. THE INTERIOR OF DEBBIE'S APARTMENT, ALONG WITH THIS EXTERIOR FRONT PORCH AREA, WAS BUILT AT 31ST STREET STUDIOS IN PITTSBURGH. IT IS A COPY OF THE ACTUAL LOCATION IN PITTSBURGH WHERE MOST OF THE EXTERIOR WORK WAS SHOT. PHOTO BY NIKOLAI LOVEIKIS.