Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1531774
geography, which we then made sections of. Moving from ward to ward, and connecting E and B Wards via the yard, had to look continuous. The interior windows had to match the exterior sets. What we saw out of those windows had to match where we were in Gotham. This was done with hard and soft backings, as well as with VXF enhancements, especially the views off the island to the city. On the other side of the complex is the minimum security B Ward, where Arthur meets Lee in music therapy class. B Ward is for voluntary patients, which Lee turns out to be. It's much less severe, employing color and uplifting (not) self-help posters and patient art on the walls. Music is not only a theme because the film is a musical, it's what unlocks Arthur's fantastical psyche and connects him and Lee, and where their shared fantasy lives. In many ways, the film is about music therapy. The yard is the Rubicon that Arthur needs to cross to get from maximum security to the minimum security side where Lee is. It's a journey from darkness to light, from monochrome to color, and ultimately, from reality to fantasy. The yard needed to feel hard and real to ground this world. How to achieve this was vexing. Todd had a very specific idea based in starkness. We scouted the entire country for prison and asylum locations before finally deciding to build the yard set into a lot in Downtown LA. The production found a former TB hospital in Belleville, NJ, to play as the front entrance of Arkham, where Arthur and Lee sing, "If They Could See Me Now" and pretend to escape. We built the back of this building as one wall of the enclosed yard. Its deco design is similar in vintage and style to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Arkham from Joker, unifying Arkham's architecture portfolio. In the opening of the film, it's pouring rain as Arthur makes his way across the yard surrounded by four guards. As they lift their four black umbrellas (none covering Arthur), the umbrellas change color in a fit of magical realism, signaling that this film speaks its own language. The four colors of the umbrellas were also the four colors C. AARKHAM ENTRY GATE BUILT AT EXTERIOR ARKHAM BELVILLE LOCATION FOR "IF THEY COULD SEE ME NOW." PRODUCTION STILL. C