Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1109293
B L A C K M O N D A Y | P E R S P E C T I V E 7 3 The most interesting and fun challenge was finding the same Quotron computer terminals used by stock traders in the 1980s, a must for the Jammer Group bullpen and trading floor. I reached out to museums and other contacts I had made while piecing together an IBM 360 mainframe computer for the series Mad Men. The consensus was that these machines likely do not exist anymore. I was able to find ten Quotron re- creations made for The Wolf of Wall Street, but it was not enough to fill the forty desks in the space. Then, the seemingly impossible happened! Chris Marsteller posted a message on a Facebook group of former Quotron employees. Unbelievably, someone responded that they had recently bought a storage unit filled with nineteen Quotron terminal monitors and keyboard sets! Chris purchased everything he could and the rest of the desks were filled in with period- correct Wyse and Qume terminals rented from Playback Technologies, Inc. The challenge then became how to make these thirty-year-old-plus terminals work on camera. In the end, almost all of these CRT terminals operated as practical playback, thanks to the meticulous work of 24 Frame playback supervisor Jared Rosen. Mo's hotel room was cleverly built to utilize the existing windows of the empty thirteenth floor "penthouse" of the Pacific Stock Exchange. Taking cues from the 1982 book Contemporary Apartments, published by Architectural Digest, Spellman incorporated two beautiful moon doors and a circle motif. An overall gold color theme was chosen to imply ostentatious wealth. Set decorator Chris Marsteller custom built Mo's headboard, along with the motorized window drapery. Mo's robot butler—Kyle—was a vintage 1980s toy robot that propmaster Andy Siegel modified to drive around, blink his eyes and give high-fives. Another pilot highlight was the Lehman Brothers office, which was drawn by D. Tracy Smith, a full wood-paneled office with a large window that overlooked the trading floor. The set was once again designed to come apart to fit into the elevator, and then reconstructed on the eleventh floor. Construction coordinator Mike Fowler did an F. THE PILOT VERSION OF THE JAMMER GROUP BULLPEN. G. SKETCHUP RENDERING OF MO'S HOTEL ROOM. PILOT. H. MO'S HOTEL ROOM. PILOT SET PHOTO. I. LEHMAN BROS. OFFICE. PILOT SET PHOTO. G H I excellent job coordinating the hundreds of pieces that went up and down that elevator. Those same Lehman Bros. walls would eventually be used in the series for a number of swing sets, including a mansion hallway and bedroom, and a private dining room. Lastly, paint foreman Rodney Pickens bombed the interior of a real subway car with graffiti. In a clever trick, he first covered all surfaces of the interior with clear carpet protection tape, which allowed the subway to be quickly restored.