Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1495092
B A B Y L O N | P E R S P E C T I V E 8 3 I began my design process on Babylon in a fervor of excitement, ready to visually respond to the world that Damien wrote on the page, and knowing we had to start right away to be prepared for the massive challenge of mounting a period film on location. I sourced a variety of mediums for inspiration, always focusing on the characters while building my own visual "script deck" of images. Damien and I met weekly—over Zoom, as this was during the height of COVID—to discuss in sequence each scene's intention. Damien hand-drew storyboards for the entire 160-page script; so intricate was the detail in the camera moves he envisioned that we knew it would take heavy advance planning and choreography. On the production's first official start day, we met in-person on a ranch in Santa Paula—after three months of planning—on an intensive pre- production scout; we scoured mountaintops, ranches, barren terrains and homes of many architectural styles. Finding locations around modern-day Los Angeles that made L.A. look like itself one hundred years ago required the crew to fan out through the city. For me, the scouting period is integral to my design process; this is when, armed with extensive research, I can home in on the settings—whether because of shape and form or an instinctual feeling that a space evokes. My core concentration on individual characters also plays into it, as does how a setting places in the story overall. A. DON WALLACH'S BALLROOM. SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE ACE THEATER. SET PHOTO. B. WALLACH BALLROOM FRONT-DOOR PLUG. COLOR ELEVATION BY SET DESIGNER LUIS HOYOS AND ILLUSTRATOR JOANNA BUSH. C. DON WALLACH'S PARTY. PRODUCTION STILL. C B