Location Managers Guild International

42 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2021 "Tim wanted it to be a little dark, gritty and dirty, with a noir- ish feel to it. We referenced Chinatown (1974) quite a bit. The feel of it and as unsettling as that was, we were trying to evoke that same kind of emotion in Perry's journey—where he was coming from and where his demons were. By the end, he has transformed and has become a more polished attorney. "We wanted to stay away from the original '50s series. The old Perry Mason was a bit more refi ned and polished. We were trying to create a new story, darker, edgier than what anyone would expect. We were going off the Erle Stanley Gardner books rather than the earlier show. (Gardner, who introduced Mason in The Case of the Velvet Claws in 1933, died in 1970.) There had never been an origin story before. They wanted to present what Gardner represented." A reimagined prequel to the famous '50s serial Perry Mason is a sweeping series set in 1932 Los Angeles. Hard-boiled detective Mason struggles to solve a sensational baby kidnapping that ends badly in this noir crime drama steeped in hyper-realism. The intricacies of period detail coupled with a sense of scope and scale, given how little remains from that period in the contemporary City of Angels, is impressive. Corners, fragments, a remnant of patina—somehow entire locations materialize that describe a city of both extreme wealth and poverty, rampant corruption and frenzied spiritual revival. "We were not going for the highly stylized, clichéd version of the '30s," explains an executive producer. "We wanted to dirty it up." The period recreation of the Angels Flight funicular railway for a grisly murder scene sets the story in Downtown Los Angeles and the dark tone for what follows. The reimagined stately Women's Wilshire Ebell Club as a posh, masculine men's clubhouse was impressive. Another atypical use of a well-known location was turning a Ventura ranch into a period landing strip. Bonus points for its 19th-century farmhouse and barn that played for Mason's inherited family home and two-cow dairy farm. Familiar locations were turned on their heads in a most creative way, all hauntingly evocative of the period. Deception swirls around LA's iconic City Hall as the DA twists the facts serving his own political ambition. The steps of a stately columned church in West Adams and the interior of the Embassy Auditorium in Downtown Los Angeles are reminiscent of the home of historical LA evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson who Sister Alice channels, setting her fl ock afi re preaching that Mason's case has become her cause. 6th Street in the harbor town of San Pedro is lined with period facades, including the 1931 deco Warner Grand Movie Palace, and stands in for the streets Mason walks, the dives he eats in, and the phone booth where he conducts business. Empty lots allow for the construction of huge billboards that obscure the shanty towns behind them. The period courtroom was found in the Beaux Arts-style Old City Hall on Beacon and 7th Street. Digital effects were used as needed, but Perry Mason remains a show rooted in physical spaces. From period neighborhoods with appropriately spaced homes to a Downtown Los Angeles parade, the location team turned back the clock, coordinating the removal of modern streetlights and inappropriate signage. In Perry's unnerving fl ashback scenes of a WWI-trenched battlefi eld, staged on a Santa Clarita plateau, the authenticity is palpable. The location team was meticulous and unceasing in its hunt for elements that could blend into the sensational noir world of Perry Mason and bring us back into the sordid Los Angeles of the past to mingle with the sinners and the saved. WHY LOCATION PROS LOVE PERRY MASON: ITS LMGI NOMINEE BALLOT ESSAY FOR BEST PERIOD TELEVISION by Lori Balton & Diane Friedman Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany) at the Radiant Assembly of God Church

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• 20-27 In My City Chicago
• 40-51 Cover-Story_Perry Mason
• 62-63 Martini shot