Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/619377
Designers put together detailed construction plans for this decaying underground world. Location manager Vince Nyuli showed me the enormous abandoned Hearne power station which was perfect as the exterior of Raritan National Laboratory, home of Project Splinter, where the subterranean Temporal Facility was hidden deep beneath. It's grimy concrete and peeling steel were an ideal jumping-off point for the look of this underground world. Art Director Peter Emmink guided the construction team, led by Dwight Doerkson, as they built the Temporal Facility to appear as if it were made of poured reinforced concrete, with thick walls and headers. The corridors featured a vintage cable management system with masses of cables draped along the walls. Rusty ductwork snaked overhead, interspersed with distressed hanging and wall-mounted lighting. The whole set was heavily and expertly aged by the paint departement under head painter Joe Bower. The team responded to my suggestion that the present- day safe house could be an old bookstore, owned by John Mott, Production Designer Peter Emmink, Art Director Shelby Lynn Taylor, Trainee Assistant Art Director Rachelle Scarfo, Graphic Designer Sanford Kong, Illustrator J. Ryan Halpenny, John Keenan, Sorin Popescu, Set Designers Matthew Alan Taylor, Storyboard Artist Carol Lavoie, Justin Craig, Set Decorators Railly's deceased grandparents, full of bohemian artifacts and dusty tomes, the kind of store that is rapidly disappearing from our world. We all liked the explicit and implicit history that books engender: a timeless place, full of stories and knowledge. In contrast to the dark and oppressive Temporal Facility, I wanted the bookstore to be a warm and inviting space. The design incorporated wooden shelving and fixtures, with Victorian architectural details such as columns and leaded glass. I chose muted tones and papered the large front windows with yellowed newspapers, which gave a cozy golden hue to the space. In addition to the permanent sets, numerous episodic sets were built. Lots of lab sets of course, but also a voodoo temple, Haitian hotel and a medieval Chechen church basement, amongst others. At the end of the season we blew up the bookstore, so I guess we're going to need a new safe house in season two. ADG