Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1260764
buried remains of the school, the streets and their surroundings. For this episode, new interiors were created for both Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace. When a scene showing the desperate, bare- handed digging by night in search of survivors cuts to the Queen learning the news, the palace interiors are designed to shock with their perfect, untouched state. Likewise, Princess Margaret in her bedroom vs. Lord Snowdon among the rubble. The chapel where the bodies are laid to rest is presented without sentiment, a fact. With the new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, came the promise of a refreshed country. To represent this a whole shopping centre, interior and exterior, was created on location: brutalism, but with the promise of a bright future. In other episodes, Margaret and Tony toured the world by plane and car—a short sentence to type, a massive undertaking to design. Spain, or a relatively small triangle of southern Spain, was to take on South Africa's old role as the rest of the world, with great success, a tribute to its versatility, its crew and its extraordinary light. When I approached season three, the only thing I could predict was that by its end, I would need to have made the 1970s look photogenic, itself a big ask. Until I read the scripts, I had no idea I would be recreating South Wales, Arizona, California, Athens, Washington, DC, The White House… As for season four, another challenge: making the 1980s look photogenic. The Royal Yacht Britannia, I'm happy to say, will reappear, this time in just one of its old guises, plus one or two new ones on its voyage to Nassau. And the vacant lot? In 2020 it went on to become Place de la Concorde in Paris, filled with rally cars about to depart for Africa, their destination played this time by another part of Spain. In designing The Crown, I soon came to realize there are places you stick around in for dramatic exchange and there are spaces you pass through to convey scale. In both cases, the story can return to any, often several episodes later. My aim is for an audience to know where they are without need for captions, not necessarily to shout "Balmoral Castle!" at the screen or, worse, wonder if it might possibly be Balmoral Castle but, through some visual clue, amplified if necessary, to simply know where they are. ADG A A. EXTERIOR OF PANTGLAS JUNIOR SCHOOL ROAD. SET SKETCH BY IAN CROSSLAND. B. INTERIOR OF PANTGLAS JUNIOR SCHOOL. PRODUCTION STILL. C. EXTERIOR OF PANTGLAS JUNIOR SCHOOL AFTER THE COAL TIP COLLAPSE. PRODUCTION STILL. B C