ADG Perspective

November-December 2022

Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1485934

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 91 of 163

B Grandma Is an Uber Vamp "Who are you? What are you doing in my room?" A kindly old woman appears in her bathroom doorway innocently asking the question to the next-door pool man (Jamie Foxx) who has just broken into her house. With one horrific shotgun blast to the old lady's chest that ratchets her into a bone-crushing shower wall impact, we quickly get to know this is no ordinary grandma. She is an Uber Vamp and it will take more than a shotgun blast to put her down. The fight is on… The funny is on…and it is clear this pool man is no common thief. In a knock-down, drag-out, kicked-through-a-wall fight, we get to know the film's hero, Bud Jablonski, as a vampire hunter. Thus sets the stage for the film's opening act and what is to come. To capture the right location and mood for this unassuming, old lady, it was important to understand that as a vampire, she was ninety years old, which meant she was turned sometime in the early 1930s. Building off the familiar mythos that your physical body no longer continues to age when turned, we might accept that grandma was born sometime in the 1850s. As an ongoing theme, JJ liked to use the phrase "hiding in plain sight." So, in looking for the right location, we felt grandma would have tucked herself away into the subdivision sprawl of the San Fernando Valley where she could live in public obscurity. After finding an iconic one-story ranch- style home on a palm tree-lined street in Van Nuys, I worked with set decorator Lynne Mitchell to create a layered interior environment of clutter and collection that spanned nearly one hundred years of time. Beginning with her Victorian era belongings from when she was turned, until present day. We had great fun crafting a menagerie of eclectic hoarding that played to the dark and foreboding atmosphere of the scene. A. GRANDMA'S HOUSE. ILLUSTRATION BY JAMIE RAMA DONE IN SKETCHUP AND PHOTOSHOP. B. GRANDMA'S HOUSE WALL DAMAGE. PRODUCTION STILL. C. GRANDMA'S HOUSE. THE FINISHED LIVING ROOM PRE-FIGHT. SET PHOTO. A C

Articles in this issue

view archives of ADG Perspective - November-December 2022