Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1177962
I am often asked by producers, "Have you ever made a movie like this before?" To which I answer, "NO, have you?" Each film is its own unique entity and even if it's a sequel, it is often begun from scratch. Past experience can of course, provide approximations, but inevitably the variables are always different. Working on the last two installations of the Rambo franchise, one would presume I could have answered that question in the affirmative. But alas, that just was not so! Although the character remained constant, albeit a touch older, everything else about the story vis-à-vis design was new to me. In this article, I would like to discuss the challenges faced by a designer who must design in remote and/or foreign locations, and has to deal with issues such as language disparity, clashing methodology, cultural barriers and the ever-compressed preproduction schedule. And this is consistently the case, movie after movie. This time around, the production would not take me to Southeast Asia, as with Rambo (2008), but to Eastern Europe. Bulgaria would stand in for A T h i s T i m e I t ' s P e r s o n a l R A M B O : L A S T B L O O D B Y F R A N C O - G I A C O M O C A R B O N E , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R