Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/747534
P E R S P E C T I V E | N OV E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6 77 by Derek Hill, Production Designer by Derek Hill, Production Designer The Magnifi cent Seven Above: A rendering by Kathryn Yingling of Chisolm's first view of the town of Amador City. Kathryn does her first sketches in pencil. Once we get to the point where I am happy, she starts doing a line drawing and then adds color. Opposite page, top to bottom: Since Antoine Fuqua sent me a copy of his script months before the project was green- lighted, I started by reading and making notes about what each town required based upon what is written. Art Director Sean Jennings was working with me and he and I went back-and-forth with preliminary designs and concepts so that when we did finally start working on the movie, we had something to start with. The scale model of the Rose Creek town was used by Mr. Fuqua and nearly every department on the film. settled on a flat, open sugar cane field outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It turned out, though, that the cane field was susceptible to flooding, so a different nearby landscape was ultimately chosen that had superior drainage, large rolling hills and a small lake around which the town was designed. Early on in the process, MGM executives and their insurance company talked with us regarding a hurricane contingency plan. This plan required that we incorporate safe zones into both towns that were going to be built in Louisiana, to protect the crew from the almost-daily electrical storms and to have secure places to protect the equipment if a hurricane were to come barreling through. The original layout called for forty-four buildings, with fourteen practical interiors. Antoine and I had decided that we wouldn't build any interiors on stage, instead, taking advantage of the flexibility that having practical interiors offered. That meant that in order to satisfy the hurricane contingency plan requirements, shipping containers had to be used to create the safe zones for equipment, and lightning rods had to be included on buildings in preparation for electrical storms that were sure to come. In the end, an additional six buildings were added once the crews started prepping and the amount of equipment became clear. A barn-type structure was needed to hide the portable bathrooms, another house to hide the electric generators and a few simpler buildings to hide the air-conditioning units. Sometimes, as was true in this case, finding the right location is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. In desperation, I turned to Google Earth to search for the largest plot of land within the thirty-mile zone of Baton Rouge. I looked for something that had good highway access and finally, found it near the city of Jackson, Louisiana. The location managers had to figure out who owned the land and see if they were interested in renting it on a long-term basis to build the town.