Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504681
Productions, who had to travel the staff and gear from Pennsylvania down to New Orleans. Brian: As Supervising Art Director overseeing that set, I felt like a Rosetta Stone because I had filmmaking people and concert and touring people that were both trying to execute Jess's vision. It was a very interesting challenge for me to get those two worlds to understand each other's languages. Andi: It was important to me to use equipment that looked and felt real. One of our set dressers, Ron Volz, had toured with Alice Cooper, had been at Woodstock, and knew all the appropriate pieces of equipment that would have been on a tour of this scale, including all the sound mixing boards and speakers. He connected with some old roadie friends, specifically people from Showco, which was a big concert sound company in the '60s and '70s. They were able to provide us with a lot of information and photographs of equipment like the speakers. We ended up searching for speaker components of that period and then designed and fabricated a lot of them. That became the "Wall of Sound" based on Jess's research. Every detail was considered, down to the actual cable connections and the stencils of the Daisy Jones & The Six logo on the back. Brian: It was amazing to see those layers take shape and it was a massive undertaking at that scale. I know the lighting and electrics teams dealt with a lot of the same logistical challenges, and they were a great asset. They found hundreds of vintage par can lights and cyc lights that ended up becoming part of the environment as well. Jess: As part of the band going on tour, we also designed and renovated two buses from the ground up. The exciting thing was that they started out as just two old Greyhounds complete with the bathroom in the back. So we ripped everything out and started from nothing. On top of the fact that the buses were completed in LA and then took the trek across the country, both metaphorically and physically with the band and crew, they represent much of the process of designing the show. They required recreating the past but also imbuing each space with character, and required an incredible collaboration between the Art Department, construction and set decoration. Our success on this set and the show as a whole is grounded in our commitment to this collaboration. Three and a half years after we embarked on this project, we hold an immense amount of gratitude for all of our collaborators and team members. A show of this scale is only possible with the most talented and dedicated artists. No matter the challenge, everyone persevered and delivered. Now that's rock 'n' roll. ADG Jessica Kender, Production Designer Brian Grego, Monica Alberte (Greece), Super vising Art Directors Morgan Lindsey Price, Shengxin Jin, Kirby Feagan, Art Directors Rhea Rebbe, Michael Dimarco, Rachel Geiger, Assistant Art Directors Lia Burton, Andrew Leitch, Set Designer Steven Milosavleski, Adee Serrao, Graphic Designers Lisa Clark, Andi Brittan, Set Decorators D