Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1438629
William Arnold: esigning a moie is most times a marathon. y experience in designing King Richard was more of a relay race. The project started long before I was involved with it. Wynn Thomas was hired as the roduction esigner by the producers and director, Reinaldo Green. Wynn was well suited for this project and put together a solid team for his rt epartment. fter prepping the moie and starting principal photography, the pandemic shut down production in the third week of shooting. It was six months later that I was contacted to see if I wanted to pick up the baton and complete the movie. After reading the script and discussing it with Rei, I accepted the assignment. After all that time had passed, there were many changes. eople had moed on to other proects. Some locations were no longer available or viable. y fi rst task was to assemble an rt epartment and with production starting to pick back up while working with the protocols, that was not easy. lucked out by fi nding a terrifi c rt irector, Chris Brown, and soon after, the wonderful Brana Rosenfeld as set decorator. Both of them talented people with good crews attached. The only hold oer from the original rt epartment group who was available was Graphic Artist Eric Rosenberg. I had worked before with Eric and was glad he joined us. To begin, the rt epartment had to do some archaeology. What had been shot? What had been already established? What could be resurrected and what had to be created? With the help of the original department archives, we were able put our game plan together. Some locations were still available, but some new ones had to be found. Some sets that were once to be shot on location, were now needed to be built on stages. The Williams' family home in Compton was originally shot on location. One house was used for the exterior and another was prepped and shot as the interior. roduction shut down while shooting the interior location with many scenes still to go. When production planned to resume six months later, the location houses had been restored back to their original conditions and were not available to use again. t was decided to fi nd another eterior house to use for scenes in the backyard, and the interior house was to be reproduced as a set on a sound stage. We were fortunate to have Anthony Syracuse and his construction team, who were used in the fi rst phase of production, to recreate the interior house. A. LOCATION FOR RICK MACCI'S TENNIS ACADEMY COMPLEX IN FLORIDA, SHOT AT THE RACQUET CLUB OF IRVINE. SET PHOTO BY CHIABELLA JAMES. B. MARRIOTT SUITE IN OAKLAND. SKETCHUP MODEL BY ALANNA BARRETT. C. VIC BRADEN'S OFFICE. SKETCHUP MODEL BY ALANNA BARRETT. D. VIC BRADEN'S OFFICE. SET PHOTO BY CHIABELLA JAMES. E. LOCKER ROOM. SKETCHUP MODEL BY ALANNA BARRETT. F. LOCKER ROOM PRODUCTION STILL. PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES A B