Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/686925
52 P E R S P E C T I V E | J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 6 Above: This is a combination sketch drawn over a 3D model by Model Maker Kris Bergthorson. Below, left and right: A SketchUp ® model view of the Nazi Embassy set with some Photoshop ® work done to add drama. The idea was to examine what a big swastika window might do for a set. Here is the constructed set on stage: the Nazi Embassy to the Japanese Pacific states. There were a number of logistical challenges to creating the world of this show. Director David Semel, costume designer Audrey Fisher and I discussed the three different environments and heavily researched the look of the 1940s through the early 1960s using the period's color photography. That formed the basis for color choices and palettes for settings, dressing and wardrobe. We all wanted each section of the story to have a different look without relying on photo timing or adjusting the color after the scenes had been shot. The three distinct palettes: • The East Coast Nazi-controlled part of America became sober Nazi uniform colors—grays, blacks and cement colors. • The West Coast Imperial Japanese-controlled area became the khakis of their Kempeitai military police divisions, with Pacific blues and aquas as accents and regional colors. • The neutral zone, where the resistance thrives and people of all races are safe, became an area where most colors are represented but faded, as if America's clock had stopped in 1941 and things decayed from then on. As we continued to look at the research images, it became clear that the most important design decisions were to subtract what did not happen, to visually delete the post- war American dream. So rock-and-roll was removed, and cars had no tail fins. Everything just became suspended at the beginning of the 1950s. Frank Spotnitz, the showrunner and writer of the pilot episode, challenged us to "do violence to the American dream," and that is the way the show succeeds best. We did that with a perverted game show, Guess My Game, with a Nazi competing in an American game show setting.