Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/686925
found a bridge over railway tracks in downtown Atlanta that I could imagine working as the Hollywood Freeway. I took stills of the location and the Art Department created quick visuals to share with the team, showing how we could make these locations work. Sometimes a location had to be seen as a series of elements for a later visual effects composite. Hollywood Boulevard was a well-known sight in the '70s, and a key setting for the movie. By 1978, when the story is set, it had become the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and had slid into a sleazy parade of sex shops and porn cinemas. A short section of Peachtree Street in downtown (it seems like there are four hundred Peachtree Streets in Atlanta) was a perfect mix of old, undeveloped storefronts. I re-imagined the location in a visual, dressing up the storefronts, widening the boulevard and extending the street beyond. To help re-create the storefronts of the era, researcher Anna Livia Cullinan had unearthed a wealth of material. As well as a huge trove of still images, she had found lots of Super 8 films taken by people driving down the boulevard. These proved invaluable for creating an authentic version of the street. The location process was arduous in Atlanta, but we had big pieces of luck finding two key locations. First was porn producer Sid Shattuck's house, where a huge party takes place. Hiding in a subdivision north of the city is a house that a local hip-hop producer had commissioned, a scaled-down copy of John Lautner's famous Silvertop House in Los Angeles' Silverlake neighborhood, perfect for a 1970s party. Taking my inspiration from Italian interior design of the period, and a large dose of Verner Panton, I set about transforming the all-white interiors. The wonderful set decorator, Danielle Berman, used Hugh Heffner's mansion, among others, as inspiration for the bold set dressing in this location. Set Designer Sean Jennings fell in love with the references and helped create the authentically '70s party. The house had almost no straight lines in it, so much of the construction had to be cut in on site, despite Sean's painstaking surveys. Two particularly tricky problems needed to be solved at this location. First, neither I nor cinematographer Phillipe Rousselot liked the actual entrance to the house, located to the side of the structure, cramped Above, left: Wrapped columns, mirrored plexiglass prisms, shag carpet and orange flame stitch all helped transport the house back to the 1970s. Below, left: Sid Shattuck's round bed, fur throw and elaborate sound system were modeled after Hugh Hefner's bed in the Playboy Mansion. Inset posters: PLAYBOY photographer Arny Freytag and Graphic Designer Jason Sweers collaborated on posters for director "Savage" Sid Shattuck and porn star Misty Mountains.