ADG Perspective

January-February 2016

Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/619377

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P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 6 71 Stefania Cella, Production Designer Jeremy Woodward, Art Director Sarah Contant, Assistant Art Director Gloria Shih, Concept Artist Geoffrey Mandel, Graphic Designer Bryan Felty, Karl J. Martin, Set Designers Doug Cluff, Charge Scenic Artist Paula Bird, Kim Nelson, Scenic Artists Dan Sweetman, Storyboard Artist Tracey A. Doyle SDSA, Set Decorator very gentrified now, as technology and progress have reshaped the face of the urban landscape. In every aspect, from lighting to traffic signals to city transportation to shop signage, it all had to be redone to look right for a period film. So the search was on for a small town near Boston where the community has maintained the look of the old days, and in the end, a main street in Lynn reminded us of Broadway in Southie. A subway station was built of glass block like the famous Red Line station on Broadway, all the signage was changed on every store front, shop windows redressed, and floats built for the parade, one with Saint Patrick himself on it, played brilliantly by Art Department coordinator Jason Mayoh. With the help of research and photos from the library and The Boston Globe, the St. Patrick's Day breakfast given every year by Billy Bulger was reconstructed, with fabrics and shamrocks and flags. It was immensely fun and exiting, and with the help of real university and league marching bands, it actually felt like St. Patrick's Day in Boston, circa 1980. There are many sets in Black Mass—a total of almost 130—but one scene is dear to me, when FBI agents Connolly and Morris realize that their coverup of Whitey's activities is about to get discovered, and it's a very intimate dialogue in an old pub. I wanted to have Boston as a backdrop again, not the modern city but the old historic buildings, watching them and judging them as traitors. Once again, we had to leave Boston to find a place that felt like it did decades ago, and the perfect spot was found in nearby Lynn. ("Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never come out the way you went in," so the rhyme goes.) There is an old pub there with a giant mural behind the bar. The Art Department hunted up a beautiful print of Boston Harbor from the 1800s, which was enlarged and used as a substitute mural. It reflects the architecture of old pubs, and gives the interior a strong atmosphere. It's also symbolic of our process of selecting carefully and mixing together the real, the historical and the invented, to frame the storytelling in a way that is both factual and dramatic, and still feels true. ADG

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