Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1260764
H U N T E R S | P E R S P E C T I V E 5 5 2 3 1 VIEW 1 VIEW 2 VIEW 3 4 VIEW 4 5 VIEW 5 6 7 The Hardest Part Striking a visual balance between the tonal shifts of Hunters proved to be diffi cult and challenging, but this was not the hardest part of designing the series. Executing the many fl ashbacks to wartime Europe proved to be the thorniest design challenge, not only because of the sensitive material revealed through exhaustive and unforgettable research, but also due to the varied solutions reuired by production constraints. Some of these sets had to be done on stage for logistical reasons, while others had to be wedged into locations for scheduling purposes. The most important of these pieces, the concentration camp elements, did not have a home until fairly late in the process. These elements kept moving off the schedule as we searched in vain for a location within the zone where we could set the multitude of beats called out in the scripts. These script beats included an escape attempt via a stolen truck, multiple shootings of prisoners, prisoners arriving and being processed from the trains at Auschwitz, and the eventual liberation of the camps seuence for the end of the series. Producer erry upfer had looked at a lot of other projects to see how they had dealt with these types of scenes. As fl ashbacks, we were operating on a diff erent scale than productions whose primary story and action were at the camps. These elements were secondary to a much larger design, but had to have a distinctive look and emotional feel. The production needed to land on a solution somewhere between the epic scope of Schindler's List and the imagistic intimacy of Son of Saul. hat erry upfer eventually suggested was a standing concentration camp set in udapest that had been used on a handful of independent fi lms. It wasn't a perfect match for any of the camps historically, but it had many of the elements reuired to convey the desired mood and the tone. Conceptually, this limitation helped the overall idea of the fl ashbacks. This choice moved away from a strict documentation of each of the camps as specifi c places, and closer to a more generalized interpretation, allowing some room to work more simply toward achieving an overall feeling for all of the fl ashbacks. This was an important point of departure for the look of this part of the show, and one that eventually gave the directors room to think less literally about these moments. If we weren't actually at the train station where the indertransport originated, and we weren't in edzin, but were instead creating edzin and Austria in udapest, this allowed us room conceptually to combine the many disparate concentration camp elements into one place that felt like many, or more to the point, any of the camps. E D D. LODZ GHETTO LOCATION STUDY FOR PATERSON, NJ STREET. BY MARCI MUDD, SUPERVISING ART DIRECTOR. E. LODZ GHETTO FOR PILOT EPISODE. PATERSON, NJ STREET. PHOTO BY CURT BEECH. F. ALLIED LIBERATION CAMP FLASHBACK, SHOT ON LOCATION AT QUEENS COUNTY, NY. PRODUCTION STILL. F