Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/834282
88 P E R S P E C T I V E | J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 7 traditional archway, as well, serving as a totally banal (by contrast) exit. The final, and most complex hurdle was devising a means of travel that would take the characters directly from the Man Cave set to a variety of undisclosed locations. We came up with the Tubes, a system of travel based on my childhood dream of traveling via the pneumatic tube system bank tellers used to deliver currency to drive-up customers. Of course, for comedy's sake, people don't travel in an enclosed capsule (like the defecting General Georgi Koskov in the James Bond film The Living Daylights), but just in the tube itself. Like so many things on this show, the Tubes make use of both practical effects supplied by Clark James and his team (there are gratings and air movers built into the set that blast the actors from below when they're about to leave the set), and copious work by David Van Riper's visual effects artists, who composite plates of the set, imagery of the actors rising onto the balls of their feet and shots of a hefty section of a three-foot-diameter acrylic tube. The show makes frequent (almost continuous) use of David's talents by peppering the set with green and blue screens, side- by-side with practical lighting effects, to accomplish the coordinated activity which makes sets like the Man Cave live and breathe. I can think of few shows I've been around that make as much use of green screen technology as this one does. Series-wise, there are two threads of visual style. For the day-to-day existence of the characters, there is a slightly heightened reality similar to that used on all the previous series for Dan, which includes the elaborate in-house branding he's famous for (Pear Computer, anyone?). For the covert superhero lifestyle, there is a visual funkiness (shown in the Man Cave and Junk-N- Stuff), a style that is a confluence of the original Star Trek series, the 1950s pulp science fiction illustrations in Amazing Stories magazine, and a certain modernist sensibility. Dan is a Star Trek man, through and through. We often throw back to Matt Jefferies' designs from the old series because it's such a touchstone for him. Given Dan's deep commitment to the continuity and look of the Schneiderverse, we cannot stop with just building sets. This carefully crafted sub rosa world must also have carefully designed props. I spend a huge amount of time designing the weapons, gadgets and inventions that flesh out Captain Man's Swellview. I look to comic book artists for inspiration: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Mœbius, Jamie Hewlett, Sam Kieth, François Schuiten, Greg Tocchini, Jason Latour, and so many more. I spend a good chunk of money every week buying comics, just to keep current with what's happening in the art form. Above, left to right: The weapons on these pages were all designed by Mr. Dalley. A marker rendering of Charlotte's Blaster, sketched by him (as were all of the weapons on these pages) with blue lead in a Pentel P207, inked with with a Fine Stædtler Lumocolor marker, and colored with Prismacolor markers. An HDR photograph of the weapon built, with all of the others shown here, primarily by Gene Rizzardi at the Burbank Studios effects shop. Four multiples were made of this blaster, as it was dropped as part of the action of the scene, but the effects technicians still spent the entire shooting sequence super-gluing guns back together as freshly repaired ones went back out for the next take. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Marker rendering and a photograph of the Backward Firing Blaster. Mr. Dalley uses photo reference wherever possible, when designing props. He purchases things from toy stores, 99¢ stores and Amazon, and pre-figures construction by laying the relevant pieces out. Here the lower flash suppressor is made from a hairbrush (bristle stem removed). A marker rendering and photograph of the Man Grenade Launcher. Originally, there was going to be a feeder tube for the (separately designed) Man Grenades, but the tube and the custom wooden stock evolved away as it was built. "This is my homage to Chewbacca's bowcaster," says Mr. Dalley, "but with twice the limbs." Below: A photograph of the Captain Man logo designed by Meagan Grimley Filosa. There are, at minimum, fifteen instances of this logo present in the set. Often, the numbers go up past twenty when props or small swing scenery is brought in. Branding is important to Superheroes!