Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124104
After having spent several years on two FBI shows, The Blacklist, pilot and season one, and Blindspot, pilot and three wonderful seasons, I was ready to take a break and then move on. A month in Italy was enough for me to want to look for a new project that was completely different. I found it in NOS4A2, and the challenge of creating the interior world of a terrifying abductor of children, who spirits them off to a place called "Christmasland," and in the family life of a young girl—Vic McQueen, in a dying Massachusetts mill town who realizes she can see and cross a bridge demolished long ago. The Shorter Way Bridge transports her on her "special" dirt bike to "find things" and gives her clues to the identity of the demon Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto) and perhaps a way to save the children. Charlie is transported through his own "inscape" via a 1939 Rolls Royce Wraith on the "St. Nick Parkway," another form of transporting through the imagination. The world of NOS4A2 (a sly reference to the first vampire movie by F.W. Murnau) is a collision of the spectral and the mundane worlds we live in. It's a story of family abuse coexisting with love. The novel was written by Joe Hill for the 1980s; but this was set in 2012. Together with show creator Jami O'Brien, director Kari Skogland and director of photography Martin Ahlgren (with whom I'd worked on the pilot of Blindspot), we developed the look of the show while prepping the first two episodes, which functioned as the "pilot." It's a dark cool world until you get to the imagination, and then color is stronger; but always a controlled palette using red and green together sparingly, as those colors are reserved for Christmasland. Costume designer Sonu Mishra came from Rome to create the common world of Massachusetts, and the extraordinary world of Charlie Manx's mind. It was a great experimental fun time as we became friends and collaborators on the look and feel of the show. A. ORIGINAL PRODUCTION DESIGNER CONCEPT SKETCH OF THE BRIDGE. PENCIL ON DRAFTING PAPER. B. DESIGNER'S CONCEPT SKETCH OF CHRISTMASLAND, WIDE VIEW OF THE INTERIOR. WHITE PRISMACOLOR PENCIL ON A BLACK CHARCOAL PAPER. ARTWORK BY ANDREW JACKNESS