Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316563
except myself and Harry Bradbeer thought that it should be built in the studio, but without the resources to build a forest to place it in, I was adamant it should be in a tree. In story terms, it was the construction of an enterprising teenager and it was conceived as a series of random platforms lashed into the branches under a makeshift bark roof. John's greens team pretty much followed that approach to construct it, but with a steel armature and steel cables disguised as vines suspending it from the main trunk. Prebuilt towers floated in to create a working platform for the crew for close work that could not be covered with a Technocrane from the ground. Drawing the treehouse was also a challenge. While the finished set looked very much like the initial concepts, producing a set of plans and elevations that made any sense to the builders and more importantly, a structural engineer, proved difficult. We contemplated scanning the tree and building it in 3D, but ultimately decided a low- tech approach was uicker and more effective. We roughed out the shapes using bamboo poles in the tree itself, photographed it, and sketched out the various elements as overlays. The engineer then designed a steel structure that could support the set in the tree independent of the ground, which could quickly attach to towers for access and additional support when not in the shot. Limehouse/Chinatown All the London streets in the film were shot on location with a series of well-orchestrated guerrilla raids to add signage, dummy shop fronts, and awnings. The interior shops, the tearoom, and the lodging house all built on the stage. But for the Limehouse set, we needed more real estate to facilitate a fight seuence. Again, rather than building from scratch, we enclosed a section of "street" at the old Luton Farm by building a lodging house exterior and a row of Chinese shops based on the wonderful photographs of John Thompson. Luton Farm consists of a series of brick-built small warehouses and the cobbled space between two of the taller warehouses provided a fairly good starting point for the film's Limehouse Street. We A. ENOLA'S TREEHOUSE. ILLUSTRATION. B. ENOLA'S TREEHOUSE. SET PHOTO. C. CHINATOWN STREET. ILLUSTRATION. D. CHINATOWN STREET. DRESSED LUTON FARM LOCATION. SET PHOTO. E. TEAHOUSE EXTERIOR. BUILT ON LOCATION. SET PHOTO. F. TEAHOUSE INTERIOR. STAGE SET. SET PHOTO. G. TEAHOUSE INTERIOR. CONSTRUCTION PLAN AND ELEVATION. H. NEWSROOM INTERIOR. SET PHOTO. A C B D © 2020 LEGENDARY