Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1433736
South Carolina. I knew we could not shoot there but I was anxious to see if there were any more clues into their lifestyle that would help with the Production Design. It turned out to be a truly mind-blowing experience. The vast lands had been taken over by another religious group. Many of the Disney elements of Heritage Village had been torn down. A large fenced, unfinished hotel with decaying billboards of Jim and Tammy still stood. It was a stark reection of their downfall. Their megachurch, the site of so many telethons, was still a church. The vastness of the lands (much now converted to condos) that they had owned really gave their world the scope I am not sure I had fully understood before that. I later took the director, Michael Showalter, to scout it and he had the same visceral reaction. Then there was the main sound stage for all their shows, Tammy's House Party, PTL Today, Heritage Today and so on and so on. It was enormous and to my surprise, one wall of Tammy's set was still standing. Apparently, the air-conditioning had been built into the set wall. It seems they thought they would be there forever. Seeing the stage really helped us understand the scale of their show—the risers for seating, over a thousand blue chairs and the velvet curtains still remained. A ghost of their success. We would never be able to build anything as large as they had, but I better understood the elements, the scope and essence of their stage, their playground. We were also able to tour what had been their dressing rooms. Tammy's dressing room was a very large room. I found out its 10-foot walls had once been covered with oortoceiling mirrors. Jim's dressing roomoce was a labyrinth of halls away from Tammy's, with very separate entrances. It was more of a men's meeting place, a war room of sorts, with an adjacent also heavily mirrored dressing room. While I knew I did not need to build a Jim dressing room, the very separated and distant dressing rooms really struck me, as well as the extreme vanity and excess. These elements would become the roadmap to the main PTL set and the inspiration for their home. The Bakkers lived in several homes and stayed on the top oor in a suite at Heritage illage. etween our budget and shooting schedule, these places would need to be combined into one location that encompassed the essence of how Jim and Tammy lived. Again, scouting was tricky. At this point in the story was in the 1980s and in Charlotte, where there seemed to be only the very old or the very new and/or remodeled. I was hopeful when locations showed me pictures of an over-the-top unremodeled '80s house overlooking a lake. Alas, my dreams were crushed when I arrived and found the homeowner had just completed her remodel. But, all was not lost. The homeowner gave the production a few leads and called a few friends. Well, one of those leads paid o. We found our house. It had huge windows and a stunning view of the lake, a very large master bedroom, an over-the-top bathroom with two separate walk-in closets. There were very few references for the interiors of their homes. There was some grainy footage from a police raid on their hotel suite in Heritage Village showing an excess of mirrors, chandeliers and fake plants. Their home in Virginia had burned down and there were no photos, so it was up to the production to interpret. A. TAMMY AND JIM'S BEDROOM. SKETCHUP MODEL RENDERED IN VRAY BY CHARLES VARGA. B. TAMMY AND JIM'S BEDROOM. SET PHOTO. C. PRAISE THE LORD SET. OVERVIEW. SKETCHUP MODEL BY CHARLES VARGA. D. PRAISE THE LORD SET. JIM'S TALK SHOW. SKETCHUP MODEL BY CHARLES VARGA. E. PRAISE THE LORD SET. FLOOR PLAN. ALL THE SETS FOR PTL, JIM'S SET, TAMMY'S SET AND DRESSING ROOM, HALLWAYS, BACKSTAGE AREAS ETC., WERE INTERCONNECTED TO ALLOW THE CAMERA AND THE CHARACTERS TO TRAVEL FLUIDLY AND KEEP AN EYE ON EACH OTHER. F. PRAISE THE LORD SET. PHONE BANKS. SKETCHUP MODEL RENDERED IN VRAY BY CHARLES VARGA. G. PRAISE THE LORD SET. TAMMY'S HOUSE PARTY. SKETCHUP MODEL RENDERED IN VRAY BY CHARLES VARGA. A B