Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1184216
F O R D V F E R R A R I | P E R S P E C T I V E 1 2 3 Everyone who worked on Ford v Ferrari appreciated that this was an endangered species of a fi lm— the type of movie that fi lm studios now rarely produce. This was to be an original, period biopic shot in Southern California, with additional photography in Georgia and France. It would require the recreation of period settings that spanned the landscapes of Southern California, Michigan, Florida, England, Italy and France, and it would require the production to build and rent dozens of priceless 1960s race cars. It all started in late 2017 when I was entrenched at 20th Century Fox on a James Mangold fi lm that shut down unexpectedly, but Jim had a backup script ready and waiting in the wings… In the "lost in development" drawer at 20th Century Fox, Jim had unearthed a wonderful screenplay by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. It recounted the true story of visionary car designer Carroll Shelby's relationship with famed race car driver Ken Miles, and their battle to build the revolutionary Ford GT-40 that took on the dominating Ferraris at the twenty-four hours of Le Mans in 1966. The script may have also been stored in an "un-makeable" folder in that drawer at the studio, with several prominent directors trying (and failing) to get the fi lm made over the years. Even though fi lming was at least twenty-four weeks out, it was (literally) off to the races. My fi rst focus, as always, would be on research (Jim and I were far from being "car guys," and had only vaguely heard of the famed GT-40 automobile). An accepted tenet for Production Designers is that we must become the resident experts on the subject matter, so a deep-dive was compulsory. Researcher—and member of the Mangold "brain trust" from The Wolverine and Logan—Ozzy Inguanzo lead this charge and created character and event timelines, along with scholarly primers relating to the cars, the race tracks, and the key characters involved. One of the early discoveries was that most of the characters that had witnessed these events over fi ve decades ago had sadly passed on, so the testimonies had to be relayed by journalists and historians. Ozzy tracked down one very close A. DUNLOP BRIDGE AT LE MANS. SCALE MODEL BY ADAM GELBHART FIT PRECISELY OVER AN EXISTING PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE THAT SPANNED ROAD ATLANTA. B. LE MANS DUNLOP BRIDGE AND SIGNAGE, AS BUILT AT ROAD ATLANTA. SET PHOTO.