So we wrapped on The Suicide Squad after almost exactly a year of production. I’ve been doing this for 27 years and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had on a film. We had such a great team of people across the board on this show. Our Art Department was fantastic. Set Dec, Props, Construction, Scenic, Plaster, and Sculpting were all at the top of their game as well. This was a huge sprawling movie, we filled 10 soundstages with sets (some multiple times) and had 2 large backlot builds, as well as filming on location around Atlanta and in Panama. Even with that large amount of work, it all went off as smooth as could be. That’s thanks to the excellent team of people on this film. I’m looking forward to seeing the final film.

Special thanks to everyone in our art department:
Beth Mickle, Production Designer

Art Directors:
Lauren Abiouness, Lorin Fleming, Brittany Hites, Alex McCarroll, Drew Monahan, Desma Murphy, Jay Pelissier (2nd Unit), Domenic Silvestri, & Carla Martinez (Asst. Art Director)

Set Designers:
Vincent Bates, Nick Cross, Robert Fechtman, Kristen Jenkins, George Lee, Silvia Mahapatra, Marco Rubeo, Ed Symon, Kevin Vickery, Kate Weddle

Graphic Designers:
Zach Fannin & Kelly Rae Hemenway

Illustrators:
Shane Baxley, Dave Levy, Sebastian Meyer, Simon Murton, Ed Natividad, Marek Okon, David Swayze, Henrik Tamm, & Josh Viers

Model Maker: Brett Philips

Art Dept Coordinator: Molly Hunter Flick

Art Dept. Assistants:
Sammy Wadsworth, Mary Shriner, Samantha Wood

Tags: The Suicide Squad, Suicide Squad 2

A new trailer just dropped today. Looks good…

Tags: Bad Boys for Life, Bad Boys

The trailer has arrived for Bad Boys for Life. We had a good time making this one. It was challenging because we shot a lot of it in Atlanta in the winter trying to make it look like Miami. Looking forward to seeing this, the script was very funny.

Tags: Bad Boys for Life, Bad Boys

Getting excited to see this film...

Tags: Godzilla, Godzilla King of the Monsters

This keeps looking better and better with every new trailer released. Can’t wait to see it.

Tags: Godzilla

Here’s a little video highlighting just some of the work and ideas that went into designing the look of Wakanda in Black Panther. We had an amazing team of people in the art department on this show, truly an A-list group. The film was a real design challenge too. We had to put aside all of our preconceived design notions and touchstones because we wanted Wakanda to look like it developed it’s own style outside of a colonized Africa. Showing the influences of tribes from all around Africa while separating out the European influences. And even though this was a big Marvel production, we did still have to fit it within a budget that wasn’t nearly big enough for the visual appetites for the film. All around probably one of the most challenging films I’ve ever worked on. Seeing that it all came together so well and has had such great feedback and success has been very satisfying.

Tags: Black Panther

The new trailer just dropped today for Godzilla King of the Monsters. It looks pretty epic. I worked on the additional photography and it’s pretty fun to see how far it’s come along since then. At the time, a lot of the CG creatures weren’t really done yet or fully rendered. It’s pretty impressive to see how good it looks after only a few short months. I’m looking forward to this one.

Tags: Godzilla, Godzilla King of the Monsters

Marvel just released a new foreign poster for Black Panther that shows a lot of the detail on his new mask. It looks pretty amazing. The costume department knocked it out of the park on this costume. The detail is amazing. Being able to see his eyes is a very nice addition. I also think that the foreign title of ‘Pantera Negra’ sounds pretty cool.

Tags: Black Panther

Here’s the latest teaser trailer for Thor which opens in 10 days. I worked on the additional photography and am really looking forward to seeing the film. This was a fun one.

Tags: Thor, Thor: Ragnarok

New trailer just out today for Black Panther. Nearly a year of work for our art department, and it’s really interesting to see how it’s all finally coming together.

Tags: Black Panther

An interesting video of a fight between the Rock and Jason Statham that just happens to take place on one of the sets I was in charge of on Furious 7. I’m not sure how accurate the science is in this, but it’s kind of fun. As we were designing this set, we knew that there needed to be a fight between the two, but that’s about all that was scripted. So as I was laying out the set, we created all of these glass offices and glass railings hoping that it would lead to some interesting action. Of course our fight coordinator loved it and we ended up with the Rock slamming Jason Statham through every glass wall!

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

They’ve released a new trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation over at Machinima. It’s looking pretty good. You get to see a few more of the sets we designed and a few hints at some of the bigger action sequences.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

So here are some of the new character posters released for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Here’s Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock and Elodie Yung as Jinx in the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Both of these pics are from the film’s twitter page.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Looks like the promo stills are coming out on a daily basis now for G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The latest features Adrianne Palicki packing a big gun.

The original link is at SlashFilm.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Here’s a new pic of Bruce Willis as Joe Colton in the upcoming G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation. That’s Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye in the background.
Originally posted by Coming Soon.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

It looks like G.I. Joe: Retaliation is getting some good buzz, rightly so. A new image was just released of the character Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park (who was Darth Maul in the Star Wars films). I know that Louise Mingenbach (Costume Designer) and Jon Chu worked really hard to capture the right look for these characters and remain true to the comic origins.

Check out the original link at TotalFilm

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

So here’s where I was for most of 2011. Working on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, down in New Orleans for eight sweltering months. The trailer looks great and we worked hard to bring a grittier, more realistic look to the G.I. Joe franchise. It was a ton of work, but I’m looking forward to seeing the finished film. I think it will kick ass.

Tags: G.I. Joe 2, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Just found out that a film that I worked on as the Production Designer over 2 years ago will finally be coming to theaters. It was a very funny script and a lot of fun to work on and I was doubtful that it would ever see a theatrical release. But it had its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival and got great reviews. I’m not surprised because it was a hilarious script and had a great ensemble cast. Looks like it will hit theaters this September. I’ll be interested to see how it al turned out.

Here are a couple of stills from the film...

Tags: A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

Here are some pics of a new set we did for the One Tree Hill finale. I designed the set to fit into an existing location. It took the place of an existing set, Clothes Over Bros, that was already in that location. I had about a week to come up with the design and our crew had about 3 weeks to tear down the old set and build this new one from scratch. Looks like this is going to the last set I do as a Production Designer on One Tree Hill. We’ve just wrapped season 8 and it looks like I’m going to New Orleans to be an Art Director on a big Paramount action film. Should be a fun change of pace. It was a good run on OTH and I had a fantastic crew to work with the entire time.

Here are some of the concept art pieces of the model I did in Sketchup along with photos of the finished set.

Tags: One Tree Hill

Here are a few of my ‘artsy’ digital photos that I shot while scouting various locations for film and television. Part of the fun of being a production designer or art director is being able to travel all over the world and scout great locations for filming. I’m always amazed at what people will show you if you tell them you’re making a film. People open up their homes and their lives to you at the drop of a hat. It’s really quite incredible.

Here are some shots from Namibia:








Here are some from Utah:



From Puerto Rico:




From Boston:


And From New York:

Just finished up another wedding and reception on One Tree Hill. Season 8 has been building to the big wedding between the Brooke and Julian characters. We initially planned on using the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, but that proved to be too expensive for our budget as well as difficult to fit into our shooting schedule. So we instead used the new Convention Center in Wilmington. We gave the reception a bit of a sleeker feel, since the Brooke character would be drawn to that look due to her design background.

Here is the concept art that I drew for the set, as well as some set pics.

Tags: One Tree Hill

Just finished up a really fun set to design and build. We had another episode where a car crashes on a bridge and gets pushed into the river. Due to the logistics of shooting a car crash on an actual bridge and river in October, it was decided (kind of late in the game) to build a replica on stage. We needed to have the actors in the car as it sunk in the river as other actors try to save the trapped passengers. So to control the environment, we built the bridge as well as a section of the river as a tank on stage. The tank ended up being 40’ by 65’ by 3’ deep with a 24’ x 24’ section that was 7’ deep. We kind of backed into the whole thing, as we started building just a tank first to shoot some close-ups in the water. Then with only 2 1/2 weeks until shooting, it was decided that we should build the bridge as well as river banks so that we could film entire sequences in the controlled environment of the stage. This all takes place during a heavy rainstorm as well, so FX had to rig rainheads over the whole thing. Our crew did a fantastic job in an incredibly short amount of time, working nearly round the clock and building the whole thing in just 2 weeks. Here are some pics of the concept, the stage and the location that we matched:

Quick Concept art done in Sketchup:


Another view for Previz:


The set under construction:


Work continues; Painting the last bits as the water fills the tank:


The car being hoisted into place. There’s plastic over the water to help heat it:


Nearly finished:


Here’s the real location:


Here’s the car placed in the water:


Filming the car in the ‘river’:


Filming continues:

Tags: One Tree Hill

We’re always doing strange things on One Tree Hill based on whatever crazy thing comes up in the script. This time we needed to have an articulated ‘dummy’ of one of our ex actors on the show. So we found a mannequin that looked similar and had our talented scenic department paint the face. Also, our construction department cut apart the mannequin and built joints so that we would have an articulated head and arms. Which generated some funny photos...

Tags: One Tree Hill

Just found out that One Tree Hill has been picked up for the back 9 episodes of season 8. That makes another full season order. Pretty incredible that this show has lasted so long. It’s been great to have such steady, long term employment in this industry. It’s definitely not the norm for the film business. Every crew member on the show has been very lucky to have such a great run.

Tags: One Tree Hill

We’re shooting some scenes at the set ‘Club Tric’ for our Halloween episode. We ‘ghouled’ it up a bit. Here are some pics...

Tags: One Tree Hill

Scouting for One Tree Hill today at the Atlanta Georgia Dome. We have an upcoming episode tied to a character playing for the Atlanta Falcons. We were able to watch the intro from the field as the players entered the stadium. Definitely a lot of fun and pretty cool to get paid to watch an NFL game. Too bad I don’t like either team. It’s going to take quite a bit of logistics to be worked out for us to film here...

Tags: One Tree Hill

So I’m back for another season of One Tree Hill. After the big finale last year with a couple of our characters being shot, of course we had to build some hospital sets. Just finished the hospital ICU rooms on stage. Here are some pics...

Tags: One Tree Hill

Just finishing up shooting a pilot for Spike TV called ‘Playing With Guns’. It’s a pretty funny cop/buddy show. And since it’s on Spike TV, it’s pretty raunchy as well. Since we couldn’t afford to build any of the sets on stage, we had quite a few locations to find for such a short shoot. Here is some of the concept work I did for the police cars and the show title....

Tags: Playing With Guns

These past two episodes have been kind of crazy for the art department. I've had to design two concerts back to back. The first was a huge outdoor concert with plenty to pull together in only 8 days. We had to build an outdoor stage, create all of the artwork and graphics, work out the stage plan and truss designs, create a backstage area and tents, arrange a fireworks display and more. We pulled it all off in time, only to have torrential rains for 3 days straight. Then once the rains cleared, we had to deal with flooding since we were right along the Cape Fear River. All of the rain, combined with lunar high tides, caused quite a mess. After almost a weeks delay, we finally filmed it and it turned out well. After pulling that off, we received the next script and found yet another concert. This one was meant to be an 80's themed fundraiser within the show. We soon found out that Cheap Trick was going to be the band - very cool. The design for that one seemed kind of obvious - lots of black and white checkerboard patterns. Hopefully the next script has something other than a rock concert in it.

Tags: One Tree Hill

Just got word from the network that they have picked up One Tree hill for the full season! 22 episodes. That means we'll be filming until the end of March. Nice to have a steady paycheck.

Tags: One Tree Hill

Just got done giving a talk over at UNCW. It was part of their Moviemaker series, where film professionals come in and speak to the film students about their jobs. I've never done anything like that before and it was a good time. There were about 150 students who all actually seemed to be paying attention the whole way through. So I guess I wasn't too boring. I created a little Keynote presentation, figuring that lots of visual aids are good. It's very easy to get jaded about your job, but speaking with students who are still very eager and excited about what I do kind of rubs off. I tend to forget that this job can be fun and cool. I was also surprised to find that there were a few students who are actually interested in working in the art department. Go figure.

Just found out that they've posted a little behind the scenes video on the CW website. It shows some of the work we do on One Tree Hill. Specifically it is me walking around showing some of the new sets for season 7 while still under construction. We will supposedly do another one that shows the sets in their finished state. At the time, we were completely buried in work, trying to get everything done for the first episode of the new season. Here's the link: http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/one-tree-hill/one-tree-hill-season-7-set-tour/?play=708-6396

The weather has not been cooperating with filming lately. These summer thunderstorms are popping up with regular frequency. We were supposed to filming an outdoor cafe scene this morning, until the skies opened up and the lightning started crashing. So we jumped inside of a local restaurant and pulled together some quick set dressing. It should all work out fine, but not sure what we're going to do about some of the other outdoor scenes today. We don't have enough of the other actors available to move to any cover sets, so we'll have to hope for clear weather.

Just finished opening a big set that we had one day to pull together for One Tree Hill. It was a high end, slick sports agent's office, full of sports memorabilia that all had to be created and cleared. It turned out pretty nice considering the limited time frame. Luckily, we've got a great team of people in the art department to handle crazy deadlines like this. The gauntlet was thrown down - 'I know this is completely out of the blue, but we want a set that looks like Jerry Maguire' and we want to shoot it tomorrow. Never mind that Jerry Maguire was a big budget film and they probably spent 3 months designing, building, and dressing the set. What we did wasn't close to that, but it was still pretty impressive for being so quick.

It’s been a crazy past two days on the show. We’ve had two units filming parts of four different episodes with three different directors and also prepping another episode - all at the same time! Utter craziness. We have yet to actually finish an episode. Hopefully by the time we start filming episode 5, at least one episode will have shot everything it needs.

Just opened up the last of the new sets for season 7 of One Tree Hill. That was a whirlwind; tearing down 2 stages worth of sets, completely redesigning and building 3 major sets (including an entire house with a pool on stage, cool!), filling two soundstages, re-dressing a couple of others - all in just 7 weeks. Start to finish. Now back to the grind of episodic television.

Season 6 of One Tree Hill is coming to a wrap! I’m looking forward to a hiatus and some free time to enjoy this Spring weather in Wilmington. If you’re trying to get a hold of me, it may be difficult, because I plan on spending a lot of time out on the water in my kayak :-).

Well, it's only taken me 4 years, but I've finally updated my website! All it took was learning an entirely new web-design program, weeks of sorting through set photos, countless hours capturing video and re-editing my reels and agonizing over what to keep and what to trash. I don't know why I waited so long?! Hopefully, with this new design and my new web-design knowledge, I'll be able to keep this site up to date with much less hassle. So take a look around the site and let me know what you think. I'd appreciate any and all feedback. Cheers.