Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1072449
beautifully designed by Jeff Mossa and his team. I would be stepping in as Production Designer for the remaining nine episodes of the season. If it sounds a little chaotic, it was. After a brief meeting with Brad Beucker, executive producer/director, John Gray, co-executive producer, and the line producer Eric Kovtun (all of who were incredibly valuable partners in the season's success), I hit the ground running. No time to waste, within the first few hours, I was in a scout van, on an empty stomach, fighting off car sickness, looking for the perfect spot to build the exterior entrance to the Outpost. Some magic was found on a winding dirt road, on a large bluff at the James Cameron Preserve high above Malibu, overlooking the ocean. Episode three: Exterior hellscape post-apocalypse. It would be fitting given the title of the season, that the production would be faced with the challenge of creating some post-apocalyptic environments. Conceptualizing with director Loni Peristere, we wanted to create a stylized version version of this post-apocalyptic scene. We came up with the plan to find a long stretch of highway for the foundation of the environment. It didn't take long to zero in on the end of Westward Beach Road (next to the site of the original Planet of the Apes Statue of Liberty scene). It turned out to be a difficult location to control for five days in the middle of the summer break, but Scott Poole, the location manager, was able to make the nearly impossible…possible. About five hundred feet of road was used, with twelve burned cars and a burned Metro transit bus placed in various positions running the length of the road, always keeping in mind the direction of the nuclear blast. With Art Director Mark Taylor supervising, the crew added a crashed helicopter on the beach, downed telephone poles, wires, and tons of black and darkened debris and ash. Then a small army of scenic painters added a dark grey monochromatic hue. The only vibrant color was red, the blood seeping from the throng of dead bodies strewn all over the set. Episode four came, and to my delight, the iconic Hotel Cortez was back. Queenie's Room would need to be recreated, along with a section of hallway and the exterior hotel entrance. In the scene, Queenie is trapped in her version of hell. Whenever she tries to escape, she finds herself back in her room, on an endless loop of despair. The challenge was to establish what the threshold would be where Queenie was unable to leave the hotel. It was finally decided that the hotel main entrance would be the point at which the spell could not be broken, until Michael Langdon, son of Satan, effortlessly rescues her. A C A. OUTPOST ENTRANCE. SET PHOTO. B. HELLSCAPE ROAD DURING SHOOTING. C. HELLSCAPE ROAD. PRODUCTION STILL. B