Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1433736
T H E P O W E R O F T H E D O G | P E R S P E C T I V E 5 1 Mark Robins, Supervising Art Director: In 1967, Thomas Savage wrote a novel, set in the 1920s, about two unmarried sons running the family's successful Montana cattle ranch. In 2020, it was the Art Department's job to bring the ranch, the time and the story to life several worlds away on the Maniototo Plain in one of the most remote parts of New Zealand's South Island. What we had was a LOT of space with the Hawkdun ange on one side, the ock and illar ange on the other and bare paddocks as far as the eye could see in between. What we didn't have was time. A pressure-cooker schedule gave us just six weeks from the day we opened the design oce to breaking ground on a remote site with a myriad of challenges—access, a labor shortage and the weather to name a few. But director Jane Campion, having extensively researched Montana, knew she'd chosen the right location and it was up to her New Zealand Art Department to prove how authentic it could be to her vision. It helped that Production Designer Grant Major and Jane had a history going back many years from An Angel at My Table. Their shorthand sped the collaboration up—and my own experience with Grant across The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Mister Pip and Mulan meant clear communication was key in getting things done uicklyspecifically the signingo on the design for the ranch house so the structures could be engineered in what turned out to be one of the highest wind zones in the country, in a short time frame. During the build, Jane Campion was witness to one of the biggest weather days—gale-force winds and torrential rain—and she wasn't the only one to be concerned for and awed by the hardworking construction crew, which at one point numbered around one hundred thirty. n a big film that may not sound like much, but on The Power of the Dog, the remoteness of the location in an area supported only by small former gold-mining settlements added to the challenge, as did the tight labor market at the time, with mega- Amazon shows attracting huge crews. However, the pulling power of Grant and Jane—and the script— luckily had department heads hooked from the get-go. Another aspect to Jane's authenticity drive was to use as many real materials as we could find for the Burbank's transplanted "East Coast mansion," the cattle yards, barns and even the road surfaces. We were only a small design department but with a C. BURBANK HOUSE EXTERIOR SET BUILD ON LOCATION, HOME HILLS FARM IN THE IDA VALLEY, MANIOTOTO, NZ. PHOTO STILL BY GRANT MAJOR. VFX ROOF EXTENSIONS WERE ADDED IN POST-PRODUCTION BY ALTVFX. THE INSIDES OF WINDOWS AND DOORS WERE FINISHED FOR INTERIOR VIEWS OF THE RANCH, AS WELL AS THE ENTIRE KITCHEN AND COWBOYS' DINING ROOM. C