Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
an abandoned lodge high in the mountains and meet a new character. This was an opportunity to design a frozen palace, essentially a castle for a new hero in the series. We started digging into the WPA-era designs for wilderness lodges like the Ahwahnee in Yosemite, the Timberline in Oregon and the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone. It was such a pleasure combing through these magnificent designs and generating a visual language for this place. Set Designer Greg Papalia was a primary voice in the development of this language, and I had a great time working up the look of the set with him. As with the ape fortress, connectivity was critical, so while the stage set was being designed, we were scouting for a place in the peaks to set this castle. The Canadian locations team pointed us to Fortress Mountain in Alberta, a defunct ski area at the base of some of the most impressive granite peaks I have ever seen. I had spent some time in the area designing a commercial a few years earlier, and was excited to get back and see if it would fit into the production plan. It turned out to be another treasure trove of stunning, accessible locations that would bring the audience deep into the wilderness with relatively little pain on the production side. "Developing the language for a new civilization is the pinnacle for a Production Designer, setting up the rules of a new world and fleshing out the systems that make it run."