New York Tunnel
Set Designer / Assistant Art Director
We designed a New York city sewage tunnel for an action scene in the television series The Stand. The intention was to create a journey for our characters to make their way through. The journey begins by climbing down a man hole into the first chamber, which allows for peaks into other chambers beyond. From there, they continue through a concrete culvert filled with rats and dripping water. Continuing on, we enter a brick labyrinth that descends into the depths of the water, chin height to create a suffocating atmosphere with shafts of light to illuminate the shape and textures. This was an engineering challenge as we needed our set to self contain the water while also allowing for wild sections and camera accessibility. We also needed to take into consideration the comfort and safety of our actors and crew.
Drawings
The design of this tunnel began with a plan to decide the length and shape of the journey, while keeping within the limits of our stage. The next step was to create the profile of the tunnel itself, and from there we cnc cut ribs to be lofted together. We wanted the depth of the water to gradually get deeper and therefore our set was built on a platform to allow the tunnel to descend. For the area holding the most water, we collaborated with an engineer and reflected his adjustments into our drawings to create the safest and most contained water tank possible. Finally, once our amazing scenic painters had made their way through, we added in pipes along the entry chamber walls to allow live rats to climb next to the actors heads.
