Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/619377
Color and textures are always important. Knowing that this genre would demand atmospheric lighting, I felt they were even more critical, so that the backgrounds didn't become black holes. The most challenging new set for this season was the home of Evelyn Poole, the tarot reader we first met in season one. The scripts described her house as disorientating and dripping with madness, a cross between Gaudí and Giger. My initial designs were a little more conventional but the show's creator, John Logan, kept pushing me to create something more fantastical. I wanted to avoid veering too far into a fairy tale—my main goal for the sets was that they be believable and real. Partly as a practical solution to limited stage space, but also because I liked the look, I decided to build the corridors in a series of curves which meant they naturally disappeared. The script described the characters as confused and lost, not knowing where a corridor would end and perhaps confronting evil around the bend. Evelyn Poole is a character deeply involved in the devil and—similar to the way the stations of the cross are displayed around church walls—I wanted to create the evil equivalent as a series of frescoes depicting the end of man and the rising of the devil. It was a complex set to build within the budget and available time, so I used lots of repetitive shapes and vaulted ceilings with animalistic influences. These were based on classic shapes but had a Gaudí-esque influence with bat-like wing shapes and claw details. I used shapes that would create interesting highlights and shadows when combined with the moody lighting. In order to construct the complicated set, the Art Department made a 3D computer model in SketchUp ® . Individual files of repeating elements were created and sent to different companies to reproduce full-size pieces in Styrofoam. The final truckloads for Evelyn's enchantment room arrived from Spain just over a week before shooting that set. Thank goodness the computers cut them so perfectly, they went together very quickly, almost like a jigsaw puzzle; it would have been a disaster if they had turned up slightly wrong. The construction department then had very little time to finish the set, as well as blend all the joints, paint and age it as though it had been carved from a rocky underground cavern. Set decorator Philip Murphy and his department filled Evelyn's parlour with momento mori, collections to remind one of death. I was inspired in this by a church near Prague. Chandeliers, Evelyn Poole's crest and other elements of decor were created from bones and skulls. Ours were of course fake and made by the set decorating and prop departments from a lightweight foam.