Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/834282
P E R S P E C T I V E | J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 7 31 Main image: Forty-five minutes of running time of 1881 period Western sets were shot in just four days on location at Bonanza Creek Ranch, NM. Opposite page: The entire town was dressed, signage added and streets brought to life in under a week. Playing to their strengths, the Art Department artists worked with the series' writers to script the types of sets that could be done. Signage was designed to mimic the artwork used in the graphic novel, and much of this highly detailed set was only seen briefly as the cowboy rode into town. This page, top to bottom: The hanging tree was deceptively complicated. The perfect tree had to be found to stand alone in the middle of a desolate landscape, something with a unique silhouette. The tree had to be defoliated twice for shooting over the season to give it the proper stark appearance. The painting of the Birth of Venus was added above the bar as a nod to TOMBSTONE and HARD BOUNTY, both Westerns that Dave Blass and construction coordinator Bill Holmquist had worked on, and that shared a mural of that particular piece. Bare skulls and taxidermy were added to give a sense of macabre to the location where death would take over. vintage feeling. As a story point, the place had been boarded up in the 1990s and not much had been updated, even before that. Old rotary phones and tube televisions became a signature of our decor style. Decorator Edward McLoughlin and his team worked the balance between giving the set a retro feeling while not being specifically period. It was a delicate balance. With the exterior church going up on the prairie and the interior now designed and underway, I focused on the next main set, the Sundowner Motel. I was less concerned about doing a run- down motel set, having done dozens of them on five seasons of Justified. Photographer Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places book is a treasure trove of research of the ghosts of Route 66. His images were combined with tear sheets from the Preacher graphic novel to create a wall of inspiration to pitch our concept. This set would have some unique design challenges as it would host the massive fight scene between angels and demons later on in the season. Every wall would need to be destroyed and reset, or augmented for specific stunt needs. I had no idea what the specific needs would be other than an email from the writer saying, "It's going to be the most epic tiny room fight scene ever." We chose classic 1970s wood paneling that could be replaced in planks for the fight. The