Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545081
4 2 P E R S P E C T I V E M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 6 Highland Theatre stood out as local time capsules that deserved to be preserved on screen. Taix, opened by French immigrants in the 1870s, was a living archive, with its murals, stained glass, downright sylvan booths, glam ceiling tiles and the oldest cherrywood bar in town. It was beautiful to shoot in and provided the perfect moody backdrop for an intimate and tense moment in the series. It closed its doors in March this year, and everything inside was auctioned off by April. The Highland Theatre, a Moorish-style cinema that served Northeast LA families for one hundred years, offered that same sense of history—a neighborhood stalwart with a classic marquee, red seats, and a concession stand steeped in nostalgia. It felt like the kind of place both Simon and Trevor, with their shared love of classic cinema, would often visit. Playful additions by Graphic Designer Sarah Gonzalez helped its aging interior feel vibrant again. The Highland Theatre is now closed, but poised to reopen following a pending reinvention—nobody yet knows what its comeback moment might look like. Vasquez Rocks and Filming a Cult Classic The throwback Wonder Man movie-within-a-show was an opportunity to use practical effects and D A. RETRO SPACESHIP CONCEPT ART BY ANDRÉS PARADA. B. RETRO SPACESHIP PALETTE EXPLORATION. CONCEPT ART BY ANDRÉS PARADA. C. RETRO SPACESHIP PREVIS MODEL. D. RETRO SPACESHIP MINIATURE BEING SHOT. AT VASQUEZ ROCKS. SET PHOTO BY KENNY LAUBBACHER. scrappy low-fi visual effects. To celebrate the era of low-budget action-adventure movies, we leaned into the techniques of that time period. We set the scene at the iconic Vasquez Rocks. Countless space epics have been shot there, which sold us even more on it. Once again, we benefited from LA's unique versatility; within a short distance, familiar terrain transformed into someplace otherworldly. Instead of hauling a full-scale spaceship to the desert, we used forced perspective to make a tiny foam-carved ship look like it could hold an army of alien soldiers. Concept Artist Andrés Parada refined the spaceship's shape and scale in relation to our actors, using sea creatures as inspiration— the spaceship was dubbed Tako, the Japanese word for "octopus." Art Director Ryan Brett Puckett then tested our practical, in-camera forced perspective effect through extensive modeling and precise calculations to determine the scale, ideal shooting angle and placement of the miniature. Tako was placed on a built platform positioned one hundred and fifty feet from a full-scale ramp, carefully aligned so that the aliens could run seamlessly off their spaceship and continue on the ground. Achieving that illusion required close A B C