Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545081
Town Square The town square set is a massive outdoor complex, a bustling crossroads for The Boroughs community and a critical visual story element for the series. And it didn't exist at all in the original script. By utilizing the facade of an abandoned shopping mall, the crew built a massive indoor/ outdoor location that combined the pilot script's disparate slug lines into one location that the production could own for the run of the show. Rather than the scripted stand-alone Ext. Community Center, Mexican restaurant, Pilates gym and security office, "Señor Cocina's," the ubiquitous senior hangout and cruising bar and restaurant crowned with a 40-foot sombrero, "Kicks," a '60s-style gym and Pilates center, "Fountain Rx," a '50s vintage-styled soda fountain, coffee shop and prescription filler, "Palace Pictures," an old-school movie house, "Cherries," an airstream juice bar, and "Bow and Sparrow," a teepee structure with spa, all become one location with a common basecamp. The work encompassed massive cleaning out and redesign of all the interior spaces. Madie Hayes, newly transplanted Art Director, set up an Art Department command center in the heart of the construction to oversee this massive challenge through the coldest and hottest of days. The crew resurfaced and replaced windows and reimagined all the facades of each space. We built roads and repaired sidewalks, added fountains and fire pits, changed the architectural lines of the parapet. In addition to the refurbishing work and work we completed on the existing structure, we also added several new structures to the location where nothing existed before, including a community center at the heart of the town square, all to turn a run- down, rat-infested galleria from the '80s into an aspirational, clean, safe space for seniors, in which, because it's a Duffer Brothers show, they could later be attacked and eaten by inter- dimensional monsters. A. TOWN SQUARE, RENDERING BY DYLAN KELLING. B. TOWN SQUARE SITE PLAN FOR 75TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. C. TOWN SQUARE PREPPING FOR THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. DRONE SHOT. B A C