Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1184216
1 0 8 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0 who could build it. I modeled the initial design in Rhino 3D and found Dan Spinella, from Artworks Florida. Dan could make the lens out of brass with acrylic prisms (to cut down on the weight), but he would need more time than the proposed offi cial preproduction would allow. In December, I fl ew to New York to meet with Rob, Jarin Blaschke the director of photography, and the producers from A24, New Regency and RT Features. During our meetings, I brought up my dilemma; the Fresnel would be an expensive set piece, and to build a Fresnel lens and meet our timeline we would need to start building it right away, but the fi lm wasn't even greenlit at the time. I showed everyone my model and discussed what would be involved. To my pleasant surprise, nobody asked me to leave the room! And in a couple of weeks, the initial costs were approved, I began refi ning the design, and Dan started producing samples for approval. By January, the location search had narrowed and I fl ew to Nova Scotia to meet up with Shaun Clarke, the location manager. Shaun had photographed several locations, but Cape Forchu was the most promising. We drove down to Yarmouth to scout it and liked what we saw. Shaun found a lobster fi sherman to take us out on the water the next day, and we scouted the approach from the sea. It had everything we needed: eleven acres of black rock and wild rose bushes (brown thorny shrubs until late in the spring), with a 270-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean. All of the exterior buildings would need to be built, but luckily, where I wanted to place the lighthouse, there was a high point of bedrock where I could anchor the substructure. Later that same afternoon, I met with Vince and Dean Pearce from East Coast Scaff olding and Warren Gibbons from Yarmouth Crane to ensure we could get a crane into the site and build the substructure for the lighthouse. The crane could make it through a narrow passage by about a foot, and Vince felt he could supply a tube and clamp substructure, anchored to the bedrock, in the time frame available. He would do the engineering and get back to me right away with a quote. The fi lm had its location. The Design Rob is meticulous with his research, which suits me well. I love the research process and am thrilled to fi nd a collaborator who is interested in all the idiosyncratic details from a period. Those details, which are at once familiar and yet strange and specifi c to a time period, are very transportive. They help put the audience in a particular time and place; they help build the world of the story. That's not to say all period design should strictly adhere to the historical record. It shouldn't. Design is about building the world of the characters, the specifi c story you're telling; about amplifying the emotional beats and advancing the plot. But A. OVERVIEW OF THE TOP OF THE LIGHTHOUSE INTERIOR. DRAWN BY ART DIRECTOR MATT LIKELY. A