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 5 this film leaned toward the UK, (strange…) with Michigan also in play at that time. I privately questioned the visual opportunities of each. Producers asked if Atlanta could work? How about New Orleans? Off they sent me to scout Georgia, but besides several interesting race tracks, the prospect of recreating period Southern California in the tropical South proved depressing. As I struggled to provide a production formula with several weeks in Southern California and the rest in Georgia, I could sense Jim digging in his heels. We agreed that the Southland was the heart of the movie. It also seemed that Christian Bale and Matt Damon (who were circling the project) weren't big fans of being far from home during the summer. And at about this time, producer Kevin Halloran announced a miracle: An LA-based version of the budget, with several weeks of second unit work in Georgia, that resulted in a palatable grand total in the lower right-hand corner of the master budget spreadsheet! Without missing a beat, all departments switched gears to this Southern California version. Solid location options for the eighty sets existed here, but what I didn't know was that several would become the most challenging of my career. B Supervising Art Director Maya Shimoguchi, who had planned on a relatively short run to manage the LA portion of the shoot, was now faced with the challenge of crewing up quickly, and prepping for a late July shoot with dozens of locations scattered throughout Southern California, from the Mojave Desert to Long Beach. At the heart of this story was Ken Miles' neighborhood, which Jim Mangold envisioned as a contiguous space with the Miles home ideally overlooking Ken's garage. After a few false starts, and many months of scouting, a candidate was found in a quiet corner of Eagle Rock. The crew proceeded in gutting and remodeling a two- bedroom house overlooking a small auto shop on a corner lot, with a fantastic period strip mall in the background. My longtime collaborator, set decorator Peter Lando, infused these sets with layers of thoughtful backstory discussed over several productive post- work brainstorms at the Blue Room in Burbank. The Miles' family background as British expats provided rich visual opportunities, as did Ken's military history in WWII. Peter also followed some wonderful research bread crumbs that lead him to the fact that Ken's Birmingham football club B. PHOTOSHOP ILLUSTRATION OF KEN MILES' GARAGE BY SCOTT LUKOWSKI.