Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1514626
T H E C O L O R P U R P L E | P E R S P E C T I V E 4 3 backcountry road. In her imagination, it magically transforms into her version of an African village, all the while the chaos of burning huts happens around her. The trick was to squeeze enough space to build three small rural houses and incorporate an existing house in the distance for depth in one direction, while keeping enough room to build the African huts in the other, yet out of sight for one of our earliest musical numbers, "Mysterious Ways." This distant location was tasked to Assistant Art Director Rebecca Runyon, whose family happened to live nearby. The Rock Quarry and Waterfall The number "She Be Mine" starts with a chain gang breaking rocks under the hot sun, which was shot at Atlanta's Stone Mountain and finished at an old mill's waterfall. This seemed like a simple location but was incredibly difficult and time-consuming to execute. To enable the choreography to happen, we had to fill in the entire 80-foot-long pool below the waterfall with underwater scaffolding and scribe in a double layer of plywood around the existing irregular waterline. With the aid of safety divers, it took Rory Bruen and a team of grips and carpenters four days to create this danceable platform three inches below the surface of the water. The existing depth varied from seven feet to just a few feet and it had to be painted to look like a worn, smooth rocky bottom. We were at the mercy of the Georgia weather where it can rain heavily, changing the water level, so we could only do it in the immediate days before the shoot. The Small African American Town The film scouted so many small towns around Atlanta and all roads led us to the town of Grantville. It had a lifeless main street that died when the freeway was built on the outskirts. It was perfect for us, however, only about thirty percent of the storefronts were occupied, so it became a bit of a backlot set for us. This was where we set our biggest scale musical number, "Shug Avery," as well as the exterior of the general store, the interior/exterior of Big Slim's pool hall, and the barbershop. Graphic Artists Jenn Moye and Andi Denney researched and created all the signage to bring this main street to life. Larry Dias's team decided which types of mercantile stores would be appropriate and achievable. We also had to redress the town to represent three different decades. C. BACKCOUNTRY ROAD. LOCATION BUILD. PRODUCTION STILL. D. AFRICAN VILLAGE LOCATION BUILD. SET PHOTO. E. WATERFALL. SET BUILD IN PROGRESS. C D E