Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/780285
24,000 square feet look like 200,000 square feet was to keep it simple. To create the illusion of a larger continuous space, I focused on maximizing vertical height and elongating horizontal sightlines. Tomas and I landed on 14-foot ceilings, the maximum height the crew could work to without the need for lifts. With five hundred practical fluorescent light fixtures, it was important for the crew to be able to work quickly from ladders, not just for ease of maintenance, but for speed of shooting, critical to the survival of a half-hour single-camera show. I also designed a four-foot-tall cloud wallpaper boarder to draw the eye up, emphasizing the height of the set. To maximize horizontal sightlines, I utilized clerestory mirrors, which elongate the space by reflecting the ceiling light fixtures and wallpaper, giving the illusion that the perimeter walls and ceiling continue seamlessly between the two stages. If you stand in the center of either stage and look lengthwise, the interior walls feel twice as far away as the perimeter walls even though they are both thirty-five feet away. Six weeks to go. Art Director Matt Flynn was keeping an eye on construction efforts on the stages and the backlot store exterior. It was time to shift my focus to the store interior. Set decorator Cynthia McCormac had been scouring her resources locally and nationwide to source all of the store fixtures. Finding the quantity of fixtures, in the time provided, proved to be very difficult. None of the prop houses had even a fraction of what would be needed. Lead time and cost made new purchase prohibitive, so it was the secondary market we looked to for salvation. But deals kept falling through. Television timelines were too short, prices too high, inventory too low. Cynthia and I were getting ready to hit the auction circuits in Arizona and Texas when Cynthia found our angel in Mira Loma, Denise Branum. Denise is the manager of an asset liquidation center that liquidates stores like Ralphs and Fresh & Easy. Not only was Denise an expert in the field, she had the inventory we needed, at a price point we could work with. Piece by piece, the store came together. Three different manufacturers' components were used to build the gondolas. Checkout counters came from a closing Ralphs store in Compton. Freezer and refrigerator doors came from a recently closed Fresh & Easy. If something didn't fit quite right, we welded it together and then sent it to lead scenic painter Ron Hinson to be finished. We all just figured out how to make it work. Some of my favorite memories were getting junk drunk sifting through Denise's warehouse and then negotiating for first-cousin pricing. We still email Denise when we need a fixture or a meat slicer or whatever comes up. Simultaneous to Set Design and fixture acquisition, a small army of people reached out to every product