Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1490572
When Production Designer Jon Carlos reached out wondering if I'd be interested in designing the second season of Hacks, the cultural and critical significance of the show had yet to be fully realized. Between my initial interview with showrunners Jen Statsky, Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello and my ultimate hiring, Hacks would go on to win multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and be nominated for three times as many other awards, including an ADG Award nomination for Jon's fantastic work. To put it lightly, the pressure was on. With the second season also taking place on a cross-country road trip, the only permanent sets returning would be a few days' work in a couple rooms in Deborah's mansion and the Marcus' house location. Adding to this, the most permanent set, the interior tour bus, would only shoot for four days…ultimately, the show would have one hundred twenty-nine sets over eight episodes, including a mural thirteen stories tall, a UFC arena, roadside rest stops and diners, a fully built crystal shop, a fully dressed cellphone shop, over a dozen comedy clubs, an entire cruise ship, a state fair, a smattering of hotel rooms, a collection of studio executive hangouts, a high-end auction, a pretentious redress of one of season one's most beloved sets, and a Hollywood rooftop party. The show may not have had that one hero set for the season, but it had a hero set every episode. Deborah Vance Mural Season two begins with a 13-story billboard of Deborah Vance being unceremoniously painted over, symbolically removing her from her Vegas residency and pushing her into her cross-country road trip. Because this was such an important image to kick off the season, I immediately drew storyboards to help understand how we'd achieve this. For wide shots, the production would need to use VFX to place a digital painting onto an existing building, and for close-ups, we'd paint an actual mural and have actors roll paint over the artwork. Using multiple rejected promo stills from season one, Graphic Artist Evan Regester 'Frankenstein- ed' together a head and pose. The folks at Trio were then called in to paint Deborah's head on Stage 23 on the Universal Studios backlot for close-up shots. Plates were shot of the Renaissance Hotel in Long Beach and VFX supervisor Dan Levitan and his team put all the elements together for a very convincing and memorable scene…and then it became a real billboard in Vegas. T a k i n g t h e S h o w o n t h e R o a d H A C K S B Y A L E C C O N T E S TA B I L E , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R A. DEBORAH VANCE MURAL PAINTED ON THE UNIVERSAL LOT. B. DEBORAH VANCE MURAL. GRAPHIC LAYOUT. C. DEBORAH VANCE MURAL. PRODUCTION STILL. A