Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1495092
Once the production found the location in Rancho Piru, an extensive farmland surrounded by orange groves and mountains, the Art Department began to do a site plan. Art Director Anthony Parrillo and the team staked out the key scenic elements: studio gates, barn, corrals, telephone poles and the all- encompassing outdoor shooting area. Everything was built from the ground up by construction coordinator Mike Diersing's all-star team. We coordinated a layout based on the absolutes of the path of the sun ("We're losing the light!") and the degree of difficulty involved in film shoots that went on simultaneously within a few feet of each other, as they were not recording sound. From Justin Hurwitz's score, we knew that there would be forty-five seconds for the Steadicam operator to walk the entire path, and that also greatly influenced size and placement. We called each set our jewel boxes in the desert; each had its own color palette, contrasting not only each other but also the harsh, barren desert. The sets, drawn by Paul Sonski, were designed to incorporate their exposed construction and the desert in the same frame, resulting in the constant feeling of being on a set within a set—as the background players were just as integral in the story. The construction team sourced real dimensional lumber, which was aged in detail to various degrees by lead scenic Jeremy Turley. Much research and sourcing by the set decoration and props teams went into generating working film equipment, working silent-era lighting, hand-cranked cameras, film boxes, and a vast overlay of sun clothes that provided practical sun cover as the players would have rigged them out in the elements. Jack's Home Movie star Jack Conrad's home was inspired by those of silent-movie icons Buster Keaton and John Gilbert, whose white Spanish Revival homes glistened against the harsh desert landscape. Jack's home featured a collection of objects that point to his need to display knowledge and taste in travel, art, books and poetry. The color palette of rich blues and reds is inspired by vintage fabrics of the period that Jack would have obtained. The film shot on location in Simi Valley on a 1920s horse ranch that afforded vast views of the barren Santa Susana mountains. The design of the "backyard" pool party was anchored by a custom-built pool deck F D E