Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720
P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7 49 VARIOUS PROJECTS Scott Baker, Set Designer I'm struck at how much really great looking stuff we all did on Passengers, and I'm proud to have had a hand in bringing it to the screen. I joined the team a bit late due to prior commitments, and at first it was a bit like running the design gauntlet. Every few days it seemed like I would be assigned a totally new and exciting design challenge to be solved. "Design the transition between these two major sets." "OK." "Doors, let's design these doors." "OK, awesome!" or "The schedule has changed. Let's design a hero custom vehicle that shoots in two weeks." Yep, we did that. Luckily for me, I've worked for Guy several times over the years, and we have a familiar shorthand together, which I think is tremendously useful when facing compressed schedules of this sort. I do a lot of quick sketches of design ideas before going straight into modeling in the computer, especially if it's a genre like science fiction which has few innate stylistic or structural rules except those you establish yourself. Working quickly, I try to get as many of my bad ideas out of the way first, not spending too much time on any one idea, or aspect. After a bit, I'll usually show three or four rough solutions. Within the feedback there is almost invariably some sketched detail Guy has drawn out, showing a particular aspect of the design that he'd want in the finished piece, or paint, or finish notes, lighting notes, or all of the above. In short, working as a Set Designer on Passengers was the highlight of 2015 for me. It was rough going now and then, but in the end, we all did some memorable work, and I'm happy to have been along for the ride. ADG Top: Where the bar becomes Jim's place to forget his dilemma, the pool becomes Aurora's sanctuary. As events unfold, she spends increasing amounts of time focusing on physical health and fitness in the hope that the nightmare she's living will resolve itself. Above, left to right: After extensive location searches for a suitable swimming pool, it was decided to build one. The schedule was tight—only five weeks to design, construct and shoot the set. One of the rear parking lots at Pinewood Studios became the site for the construction. The swimming pool required a large window at one end to provide the basis for some key visual effects shots. Although a four-meter domed glass window was beyond our capabilities within the time frame, a flat window could be parially submerged below the water's surface.