Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 31 center/border crossing. All of this history needed to be communicated visually since there was no indication in the script of the prior history of the prison camp. As a designer, this is one of my greatest pleasures: helping flesh out the narrative by illuminating the function of a space, and adding the historical layers that give it context. With all of these specific demands, it was obvious this would be built as an exterior backlot set...a really massive one. It would be a challenge finding a space. Possible construction sites to support the five-acre prison camp were scouted all over Vancouver, and finally, an old log-sorting lot in Richmond was selected. The lot was ideally located on the banks of the Fraser River, but there was a catch: You couldn't dig. The water levels were so high, anything set into the earth would literally pop out over time from the water pressure. The story, of course, depended on several underground tunnel entrances. We all put our heads together, figuring a way and, in the end, the challenge was conquered by using massive concrete cisterns for the entrances. The Art Department got right into layout and planning for what would be one of the biggest constructed sets I have ever been involved in. The camp encompassed many distinct sets within its overall footprint. It was essentially, a small city housing hundreds of soldiers, vehicles, horses, weapons and of course, several hundred angry apes. Staring into the yawning void, I was reminded how lucky I was to have Amanda Serino returning to decorate the set. She and I had a tremendous collaboration on the first film and she was a tireless ally as together, we cracked the code of this world. She brought so much specificity and character layers, exploring how the hidden histories of the camp could be revealed and post- pandemic systems for power and water would be created. It was a privilege to be working with her again. During the script development, while we were exploring the space, Matt was looking for some reason the apes had been captured and not killed, a job that only the apes could do. We came up with the idea that the apes could be put to work repairing the camp wall that had been destroyed during a previous battle. It was a monumental task that would require all of their simian abilities, scaling high into the mountains around the camp to retrieve trees, using their strength to haul the logs and stitching them together in their unique ape architectural style. I was eager to build another log construction at scale; the whole department had so much fun with this technique on the last film. We had learned that trees had more strength than steel and took advantage of this to push the set to extraordinary heights. In the end, no steel was used in the ape wall section of the set. The work of the construction team was superhuman, and we were in the right town to Top: Set Designer Luis Hoyos' pencil drafting for the façade of the depot in the prison camp backlot set. Luis' design, inspired by the design of a large blimp hangar, went through countless iterations before the final version. Center: Nathan Schroeder's Photoshop and Maya illustration of the depot exterior, built on the backlot in Richmond, BC. Above: Brett Phillips built this 3D-printed model of the prison camp. The five-acre set was designed entirely in Rhino ® , including the set extensions, and this model was 3D-printed to help decide how much would be built practically.