I mean like Dennis I always want to be an architect from the age of 10 no never want
to be a fireman and everything like that and I want to be an architect but I my parents let me
watch fine enough can Adam James Bond movies when I was a kid all the way to the end when
I was too young to watch them to the end and I always wanted to know well who picked those
beautiful locations and created those crazy places and eventually I went to school to be an architect
and I worked for a couple years as an architect but Toronto at the time in the early 90s was just
booming for film and and there was also a bust for architects like there was a recession so I kind of
pounded the pavement a bit I had some friends that I met that worked in film when I moved to
Toronto and I volunteered in the art department and after about four days of working for nothing
a paid job came up for $100 a day driving a cube truck for set deck so I I was broke and so I took
that job and then I would you know I those are independent films non-union film so you got to
you know be the on set painter on side carbon door and set dresser so I got to kind of see
what what went on and it was a good background cuz I don't think often you don't get that if you just
go through the art department property don't let see what happens on the set and then eventually I
figured I had to draw these sets instead and then I pounded the pavement again and eventually got in
the Union and and that's and that's where it went from well the the sets were amazing one of the
questions that I have is how do you prepare and a two parter for all of you how do you prepare for
an apartment that is underwater I mean and how did you how did you achieve that well we didn't
really put it underwater that's another budget yeah yeah exactly we were a pretty small movie
so we afforded we could afford to build a small tank just for the bathroom but the rest of the
apartment we did an older technique dry for wet technique and there was a lot of trickery with you
know like you know just like nathan was talking about trickery on the beach with cutouts we we had
everything on wires and a lot of smoke and they they it was slow motion a little bit too slowed it
down a little bit so that movement was a little slower digital effects obviously did the fish
the opening a little bit and added particulate in the water but they projected this caustic
light projections of a caustic light through the smoke and digitated the wire I mean the hair and
the costume but pretty much everything else is just floating on wires old school that's great
and how do you to define your duties I don't think we really divide them I think we just
work together I the three of us worked really well together actually on this film and just developed
everything as a group from the laboratories in the apartments and we don't we don't have any
rules to follow for our division do we we still we're still doing that I was very upset though
that they ruined that sofa with all those wires and it's very upsetting well always a little L&D
I think yeah my you know in the in the the great film The Graduate there's the word plastic that's
brought up in your case plastics in your case I would say it steel how did you guys take a
color and turn it into a concept that is serve pervasive throughout the entire movie what was
what was that journey well first of all Guillermo is obsessed with color and he loves teal and he's
uses it in a lot of his films so you know the amazing thing about when you're working for him
it's really not about the dressing in the set it's about your color blocking so you really have to
step back and look at it as a painting and color block everything in that you do every set had an
important color every set had a muted palette so you sort of work back that way and sort of painted
in your furniture according to color so not just the teal but most of the colors that he has he's
very particular about and he tends to fine tune that with each one of his films so and I lived
the contrast between Richard Jenkins apartment it was so warm and there were so many layers and
eliza's was was lovely as well and I noticed also in the in the hallways the wallpaper sort of made
a feel like fish scales to me in my if that was the intention but but how did you how did that
come about those were all built sets I'm assuming yeah pretty much we shot 58 days and 40 days were
in the studio an 18 run location even though it wasn't a very big film we you're Guillermo prefers
to street in the studio put the control and again for the control of the color palette but but Shane
actually found that wallpaper here in California Bradbury and Bradbury and we picked the the just
like you said the scales we picked that scalloped block print for her apartment for the scales and
her apartment was all in the Aqua colors and then and then on purpose Giles his apartment was in the
well actually all the empathetic characters were in this warmer he go golden golds mustards and
things like that and then Dan Loused and the DP lit her aside with a sort of steel blue gels and
then on it was always golden light as always Magic Hour and Giles aside so but you know we ought to
work with props and costumes as well very very carefully for the color did you actually create
it like a color Bible for the different sets so that everyone had a clear reference yeah actually
a day one we met with Guillermo I met with Gambon that Louis met with Guillermo separately and we
broke we literally went through all the big box of colors and we just quickly went through them
all to pick roughly the color patterns for each color palette for each character and then and then
I would narrow mine down to like a 40 40 colors and put em on a board and then we all had that
board and then Louis costumes also did the same thing with fabric swatches and we each had our
own board and then it was really easy from then on because we did that day one and usually that
doesn't happen so it was it was pretty I think that's why it's successful because we all worked
on that same palette from the beginning and then there was the black and white musical number that
was pretty pretty special movie was gonna be black and white which was terrified me actually it's not
so bad no but that was basically you just did a recreation from from that film did you not yeah
more or less it was all march to that film I mean we added musicians I mean I mean I wanted
the ground to be more like watery and that in that original movie was white with very minimal
black I went the opposite just so that the black reflected all the stars and it was a bit shimmery
and it was basically all in camera your show isn't it um pretty much we extended some streets you
know if we did we'd only be like we could afford to get about four or five shops and then when that
bus passed up and away digitally they extended it they did that a couple of times but essentially
was in camera and the creature was augmented the eyes and yes emotion emotion couldn't get
it all through the latex what was that fire at the end of the block about those cameras story
point the chocolate the smell of napalm in the morning was the smell of chocolate chocolate
you know that was a digit there was a giant Eden center shopping mall right there and it had to be
digitally altered and so it became this chocolate things we built they the theater marquee wasn't
that theater didn't have a marquee Guillermo would pick that because he really wanted the
exterior fire escapes symmetrical fire escapes coming down the thing so we only had a day and
a half to install it but we built that marquee on there and then we shot it overnight and we
had a half a day to take it out they added the upper portion but the lower portion we built
practically right right but that the theater was a real theater yeah we didn't really do anything
in the theater yeah yeah except star on the screen which was really good the being a child
of sci-fi movies from the 50s and 60s and growing up watching those great films I got to say your
renditions of serve the evil militaria industrial complex and their labs was just spot-on it just
was just brought me back to those moments in time of you know those Saturday matinees and and so
was that just research by just serve drilling down deep into a lot of those old films and and
finding a vernacular that you could apply to this or actually I mean Guillermo has a vast knowledge
of films but he didn't really delve into that part so much that actually the idea from that
came from a picture of a sanatorium I found in France and then you know we just developed in I
you know I've only worked with him on three movies only one was realized but he's done lots of other
movies with lots of pipes he likes pipes and we ended up in exploring using those pipes as this
you know the mad crown on top of the and then the Setting Sun set of pipes and the other and it's
just something that gimr enjoys and we pushed it a little bit here we started with real reference
and then we it's a Gamera movie so we went felt a little more fantastical on it afterwards and
these guys had the crazy they had to deal with all those pipes there's a lot I like pipes as
much as salmon I think the fun thing on that film was that we were able to research down all these
in Nassau control room or a Russian power plant and we didn't have to be historically accurate
we had to create the era but then we could you know develop and riff on that and create our own
environment you know that had the tone of the 60s but we didn't have to match anything so he
got a mixed bag of things in there so that was really fun we had the freedom but we also have
the illustrations and Guillermo to pay attention to it's nice to have a little bit of freedom away
from the historical references though yeah they had to deal with so that's great it's a little
easier well it's beautiful work and it holds together on so many levels thank you so much