Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/834282
decision, pushed the concept, and I was surprised when they relented. It wasn't till six months later, when the billboard for the series appeared on Hollywood Boulevard, and the single image they chose to represent the series was a shot of the church giving its pronounced middle finger to the world, that I knew the fight was worth it. Meanwhile, two miles away onstage, Art Director Mark Zuelzke, who I have worked with on a number of projects, and Assistant Art Director Kirsten Oglesby were tackling the interior of the church. A vestibule was designed into the exterior church that would allow the actors to walk up into the church, or play scenes looking out to the exterior. That vestibule was replicated in detail onstage as well so there was a bridge between sets. The interior of the church was a modified replica of the Mission Chapel of Our Lady of Light, built in 1926 in Lamy, about fifteen miles southeast of Santa Fe. The stained-glass windows were printed on both sides, the leading on one side and the textured glass on the backside. In an initial lighting test, cinematographer John Grillo was striving for shafts of refracted colored light through the windows, but the massive lights actually melted the plexiglass, so they were then rebuilt using laminated tempered glass. I have spent many years building decrepit scenery; it's harder than it looks. Finding the right balance in the Above, left: The production schedule was so tight that the first phase of the construction of the church began while the floor for the living quarters behind the chapel was laid out and final details were still being approved. Design and building proceeded in chunks. Right: The stained-glass windows were double-printed with thick 3D textured ink on the front for the leading and colored window details on the back. Below, left and right: The common room of the church was built onstage as a part of the main set. Halfway between a public and private space, this was the area where parishioners would congregate after church. The vintage linoleum floor was custom- printed and then aged in place. The family living area was designed to allow directors to move from the very front of the church all the way through the living quarters in one shot. The decor gives a frozen-in- time look to Jesse Custer's childhood in the early 1990s. patina of water stains, cracked plaster and grime is what keeps me up at night. I worked with lead scenic painter Virginia Hopkins to create a style-board of age-related cracks and decay. We would walk around the set and black-marker spots on the new flats to add lath and plaster blowouts. Too much character and it looks like you're building a haunted house, too little and the details get missed. In the thirty-two days before principal photography, there was quite an array of changes and augmentations. First, the church was to have a basement common area with a kitchen where AA meetings and such could take place. The vampire Cassidy also would live in the attic, getting high by smoking the insulation and trying to fix the air-conditioner. Then the producers wanted to add a residence, as Jesse's bedroom had been briefly seen in the pilot. A three-level spiral staircase from the basement to the attic was devised and a three-tier set was designed, rendered, priced...and rejected as too expensive. We went back to the drawing board in the ninth hour with the clock ticking away. I sold the producers on a single-story concept that would allow people to flow from the Sanctuary into a kitchen or a meeting room for religious consultation. Now from the back of the kitchen, you could see all the way to the front doors, giving extraordinary depth to the set. Show runner Sam Caitlin wanted the residence and common area to have a bit of a