Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504681
G E O R G E & T A M M Y | P E R S P E C T I V E 7 3 Often, when confronting a new project and meeting the writer, director or creator, one of the first things I am interested in discerning is how "real" they want to film or series to be. I often do period work, and with little exception, it has been based on real people or events. This is a particularly important question. Sometimes a project calls for meticulous recreation, but often, others beg for interpretation. This series wasn't just a true story, it was a story of two megastars—a couple that a huge part of this country grew up listening to. So, one of the first conceptual questions was—OK—how close to all of the well-documented spaces they performed and lived in does the production want to be, and how much can we use the design instead to inform the story? I feel like I always walk a fine line between verisimilitude and stylization on these projects, and based on Abe Sylvia's scripts, I knew that this would require both approaches to pull off. It was clear this would be the first thing to bring up in ascertaining if I was the right designer to collaborate on this ambitious challenge. Luckily, when I met Abe Sylvia and John Hillcoat, I quickly learned we were on the same page—neither of them wanted to make a replica. It was important for the story to be accurate, particularly in the public spaces the subjects performed and recorded in, but they also wanted to build a visual world that told the story of who Tammy and George were out of the spotlight. We were going to dutifully recreate the performances and the things viewers knew and saw collectively as a culture, but we were going to dig deeper and also show a side and a narrative of these characters that America didn't see. And with this portion, we all agreed to not try to make a facsimile, and that telling their story in the best way possible was the true way to do right by them, as well as for the audience. Inspiration came from an encounter early in preproduction. Production Designers don't always get to have a lot of collaboration with actors, but on this project, I was lucky enough to have early contact that helped shape the design. Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon came into the stages very early to do a rehearsal and some camera tests. By the time I saw them sing together, Jessica had been developing this project and preparing for this role for over a decade, and Michael had been on for a long while as well. It was obviously inspiring and spectacular. But seeing them sing together, I realized that they were walking this same line. They sang everything live and it was captivating. But no one is going to sound like Tammy Wynette or George Jones. It became clear watching them that instead, we were telling the story through song, telling a story about this massive love affair. Their chemistry really shook me—not just when they were performing but what happened before and after they sang. Just like George and Tammy—there was this dance between the spotlight and the shadows—but it was a continuous, unending dance. It would be my job to make sure the world they were in supported this —showing the performances and the things the public saw to some degree, but equally focusing on what was happening behind closed doors and how they changed as people through three decades. A. GEORGE AT FIRST LADY ACRES. TAMMY'S LEGENDARY HOME. SHOT ON LOCATION IN WILMINGTON, NC. THIS BEAUTIFUL MID-CENTURY LOCATION PROVIDED PERFECT ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS TO COMPLEMENT OUR LANGUAGE OF FRAMES WITHIN FRAMES. PRODUCTION STILL COURTESY OF SHOWTIME.