Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1526889
many departments. There is no second time and you can't un-dig a 30 x 60 x 6-foot-deep pit if it's not exactly right. One afternoon I was in my office, alone, looking online for scale figures to fit in the model dump truck to spill into the model pit that we had just roughed up. As I started to place the order, I counted sixty male figures, thirty females, and ten children. Suddenly, the implications of this number gut-punched me and I couldn't breathe. I had to leave the building. I walked around for a while. I knew I did not want to grow a callous over my soul, but that I could survive in this state of shock for the foreseeable future. "We record so others will ask." I went back to my office and placed the order. The scene was incredibly strong. When I saw dailies, I realized that the DP was in that pit, with camera, for four days of shooting, with sixty males, thirty females, ten children and Jessie. The journalists arrive at the Western Forces camp, written to be set on the Rivanna River in Charlottesville, after Sammy has died. The Army is starting to roll out for its move to DC. The camp is the direct antidote to the comfort of the Global Relief encampment. Joel screams into a silent void as several young soldiers cross behind him. They have no interaction whatsoever with him, not even a nod of acknowledgment. Their faces are completely impassive. They are inhabiting a separate nightmare, and there is no crossover. The scene is filmed with no sound at all. The last twenty minutes of the movie was a monumental undertaking. The sequence was the assault of the White House by Western Forces, and by the journalists. The task for the Art Department was to visually connect at least ten separate locations/sets/ VFX and interface with FX, stunt, military advisors… et al. There was an enormous number of moving parts, and all departments had to understand how this was going to weave together. The design process was necessarily streamlined due to somewhat daunting time constraints, but A24 and our producers gave the Art Department total support. It was never, "You can't do that." It was inevitably, "We know you can do that." That affirmation was empowering. Art Director Jason Vigdor was adept at super-fast super renderings that made it easy to communicate our ideas. Alex is incredibly astute visually. We quickly developed a visual shorthand with him, and approvals came immediately. The Art Department built scale models of all the parts of the DC assault. The whole thing assembled was about twenty feet long. We had large maps taped together to show where the real sites were and where the filming sites would be. At the HOD meeting, everyone understood the geography, and had great faith that we could pull this off. Most of our big sets were at Stone Mountain Park, a bastion of the current wing of the Confederacy. The sequence started with a hybrid Art Department/ VFX set of the Lincoln Memorial being blown up, and then to a two-and-a-half-block-long, two-story- high DC street set. For this set, the crew replicated a section of Peachtree Street that had been extensively scouted. When the location fell through, we had to design, build and complete the set in under three weeks. We finished it about a half-hour before Alex showed up to walk it. Again, he didn't miss one detail. A. WESTERN FORCES CAMP. SET PHOTO. B. WHITE HOUSE BARRICADES. MODEL IN FRONT OF IN-PROGRESS SET BUILD. C. & D. WHITE HOUSE BARRICADES. SET PHOTOS. E. THE ATTACK ON WASHINGTON. PRODUCTION STILL COURTESY OF A24. A B