Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/820551
NEW MEXICO by Jordan Ferrer, Art Director Logan is a road movie and New Mexico served as the dramatic backdrop for several of its distinct settings. Whether it was the rugged desert of the Ciudad Juarez smelting plant hideout, the copper canyons of the Eden lookout, or the dense forests and meadows in the final Eden battle, the goal was to integrate the sets into these landscapes and get the most out of each one. When construction began on the smelting plant location, principal photography was already underway in New Orleans. François and the team there had established a wonderfully dark, worn-out tone to the interior tank and other sets, so it was our job here in New Mexico to make sure that all of the exteriors matched up. Building a full-scale water tower was a large undertaking, compounded by the fact it had to be built on an angle, as if it had collapsed and corroded. François and Steve DeSantis had thought to source a local tank manufacturer and to buy all of the tank pieces, but using thinner gauge metal to make it more manageable. For weeks, sheet metal and steel beams were lifted into the air, while two lifts with welding teams would lock them into place. Foreman John Trapp was fearless, supervising all the moving parts. One of the challenges to the tank's design was finding ways to build it on a tight schedule with manageable materials, while still keeping it strong enough to support the size of an actual water tower structure in a desert with high winds. Simultaneously, the main smelting plant structure and catwalks were being built to surround the still-functioning Above: Set drawings of the collapsed water tank by Walter Schneider. The tower was modeled in AutoCAD, rendered and textured in Foundry's Modo, and then taken back into AutoCAD for dimensions. A realistic fallen tank was achieved the old- fashioned way—by sculpting and posing a paper model, and then re-creating the broken model in AutoCAD. Below, left and right: The collapsed water tower under construction. Like all of the sets, the decision was made to film in more of a 1970s style of filmmaking by completing the location set as much as possible and utilizing very limited CGI.