Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504681
I Smell a Rat, aka "Graveyard Rats" Working again with Vincenzo Natali, a director who does his own storyboards for each and every frame and who really gets design, is an easy pleasure. Building a number of sets as a series of tunnels and caves and cave-ins that could house both cameras on a track, lighting, giant animatronic rats and real rats, was a huge challenge. The series' incredibly astute Art Director, Brandt Gordon, masterminded bringing all the departments together on this to devise a ceiling track for the camera which cut through the tunnel. The same tunnels that also accommodated wild units for SPFX, enabling them to create sections where the tunnel floor would give away, and sections that would fall from above and below. In a series of sets, from a larger crypt- like underground vault, to the smallest of tunnels wherein the actor could simply not turn (but that had wild sections that could easily be pulled, in case of claustrophobia or an asthma attack from all the dust!), we basically built our own amusement park of human-sized tunnels. The success of this story was definitely one of interdepartmental teamwork. A. "LOT 36" STORAGE FACILITY. DIRECTOR'S PLAN BY HENRY SALONEN AND THOMAS INWOOD. B. "LOT 36" STORAGE LOCKER, DOTTIE'S CELL. PLAN AND REFLECTED CEILING PLAN BY THOMAS INWOOD. C. "GRAVEYARD RATS" SINKHOLE PLAN, ELEVATION AND SECTIONS BY SORIN POPESCU AND THOMAS INWOOD. D. "GRAVEYARD RATS" BONE ROOM. PLAN BY ETIENNE GRAVRAND AND SORIN POPESCU. E. "GRAVEYARD RATS" MASSON'S TENEMENT APARTMENT. ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY TSANG. F. "GRAVEYARD RATS" SALEM MORTUARY. ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS PENNA. G. "THE AUTOPSY" ICE PLANT EXTERIOR. ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS PENNA. A B C D F E