Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1072449
H O M E C O M I N G | P E R S P E C T I V E 9 9 During the middle of shooting the third season of Mr. Robot in New York, where I'm based, Sam Esmail, the creator/director, asked if I would like to come to Los Angeles to design Homecoming. Mr. Robot collaborators Tod Campbell (director of photography) and Cat Thomas (costume designer) would also be on the project. I had five months until preproduction began, which gave me time to listen to the podcast a few times. Since there were no scripts yet, this gave a definite advantage—to be able to know the meat of the story and let it sit for quite a while before actually going to work on it. Sam, Tod and I got together in New York closer to preproduction to discuss our first impressions and ideas. At that time, I had an outline and more information from the writers. Our meeting was about Sam's shot ideas in episode one which included a fairly long "oner." A single shot following Heidi through the facility and eventually outside. We knew we would be building the Homecoming facility, and learning about his ideas ahead of time was what drove a fair amount of the design early on. Around the same time, I had HEIDI'S PATH MATCH TO LOBBY LOCATION CLIENT ROOMS CLIENT ENGEL GAMES COMPUTER LAB CAFETERIA BATHROOM CLIENT ROOMS CLIENT ROOMS KITCHEN WALTER SCHRIER B A. THE CAFETERIA IN THE CENTRAL COURT OF THE HOMECOMING FACILITY. ILLUSTRATION BY KASRA FARAHANI. B. SKETCHUP MODEL BY ANASTASIA WHITE SHOWING THE TWO- FLOOR LAYOUT AND HEIDI'S LONG PATH THROUGH THE HOMECOMING FACILITY.