Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/619377
Top: Eric Deros' hand-drawn elevation of the barbershop storefront. Above: A set still showing the finished and dressed storefront. Below: A street layout for the buildings across from the barbershop on the Toronto location, created by Graphic Designer Arlene Lott using both Adobe Illustrator ® and Photoshop ® . I had just finished working with director Anton Corbijn on the Arcade Fire music video for Reflektor when I was asked to design this film. I was so excited; I had wanted to dive into a period film for a long time and was thrilled to be doing it with such a stylish director. Because I was dealing with real people and locations on this project, I didn't want to create an entirely made- up history about them. I wanted to be as respectful as I could to the reality of those lives. So I spent October reading as much about Dennis Stock, James Dean and his girlfriend Pier Angeli as I could get my hands on. I watched every documentary, movie and press clip I could find. But, there was so much information missing, mainly about his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana. There's plenty out there about 1950s New York and Los Angeles, but I was having a hard time finding enough about Fairmount. My gut kept telling me to keep looking. So, Patricia and I headed out on an eight-hour trip to Fairmount. Our first stop was the James Dean Gallery. One of my primary concerns was creating a believable Main Street. Gallery owner and curator David Loehr produced a beautiful album of historical photos of the town, photos I hadn't seen anywhere else. We drove up and down the street, taking stills and video, so I could scout it back in Ontario with its feeling in mind. I then headed off to the Winslow farm just a couple minutes' drive away from the Gallery. The beautiful stark white clapboard house and barn overlook nearly 350 green acres of farmland. Marcus Winslow, James' cousin, greeted us warmly in his garage, surrounded by vintage vehicles, including the actual tractor from the photos. Here, there was already a story for many of the sets—the Winslow home, James Dean's New York apartment—I wanted to know what those stories were. Marcus gave me details of their lives; the piano in the living room, the gold-trimmed dishes in the cupboard, his dad's navy blue car, memories of his childhood, all of which helped me start to get to know these people and not just the media accounts of their lives. There's only so much you can glean from photographs and secondhand accounts. Marcus had the Fairmount Museum, normally closed this time of year, opened up for us. It housed James' 1955 Triumph motorcycle, his two conga drums (which I was able to measure in order to reproduce), his