Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/780285
time, so it was pretty quiet at the White House but it was great because we got to really wander around the West Wing and look closely at all the details. We got to go into the Oval Office. We were not allowed to take many pictures but I had a sketchpad and so I was sketching furiously as we were walking through. I couldn't help but notice all the pre-Civil War details, the lower head height of the doors and the way they handled ventilation and hardware. On the first level, a lot of it is nautical hardware taken from 19th century US ships. The highlight of the tour for me was walking out into the rose garden. It was night so we couldn't see out very far but the young man who was giving us the tour started waving to somebody out in the shadows of the south lawn who turned out to be walking the Obama family dogs. When he came over to say hi, we got to have a little playtime with Sunny and Bo Obama, which was great fun. Smartest dogs I've ever met. In addition, Rich Klein got us into secure areas of the US Capitol, including the chamber of the House of Representatives. He set up meetings for us with DC Metropolitan Police, FBI, Secret Service. We asked them questions and listened to their stories. Particularly on what Washington was like during 911. We dug in pretty deep. We got the facts right, then we abstracted and fictionalized things for the story, as much as we were allowed to. Was it a challenge to put an original spin on such an iconic location? The challenge now is that audiences of this genre have become very sophisticated about what they're looking at. Programs like The West Wing, House of Cards, Scandal, Veep and Madam Secretary have made these locations feel very familiar, so you really have to start from a place of complete realism. And I have to say, that our set could be the most accurate representation of the real Oval Office on television right now. It's right down to the square inch. We were very faithful. And from there, you start to add the details that tell you things about the characters that you're not getting from the script. A few past administrations gave us valuable clues. We took the drapery design from FDR, flag ideas from Top: The White House diplomatic reception room set was built contiguous to the West Wing corridors and the Oval Office. This is where Kirkman first gets instructions on how to operate the nuclear football. Center: Elevations of the diplomatic reception room set illustrating custom mural placement, drawn by Guinevere Cheung and Greg Gilmore in SketchUp, AutoCAD and Photoshop. Below: Two views of the façade of the West Wing facing the Executive Office Building. Built on Stage 2 at Downsview, this set was used to start the opening Steadicam sequence where the camera rides inside the SUV on stage with the President and follows him out into the White House, down the corridors and on to the Oval Office foyer for his swearing in.