A previs dolly of the lounge.

Each airport we visit I look for clues that will allow us to stratify the airport into the components of American society — the luxurious first class lounges with valet assisted showers compared to florescent lit locker rooms in the bowels of baggage handling; the “streets” of fast food stalls competing with one another, the high end stores and tourist traps; cleaning closets tucked into corners behind art displays; a children’s playground in the main thoroughfare; TVs everywhere; signs and advertising everywhere; and the endless corridors of behind the scenes bureaucracy.

March 20, 2003: At this point in preparation Steven says he would like the setting of the film to be pre-September 11, possibly around the Millennium Celebrations, mostly so as not to have to confront the security complications that the portrayal of a contemporary airport might raise. Eventually, however, we settle on 2004-2005 as our time period, which radically changes the security aspects of the script.

An interesting and unprecedented relationship develops within the production as Sergio Mimica (first AD), Patty Whitcher (producer) and I spend many hours trying to make sense of the complexity of an airport in regard to security and how it affects the design of our space while satisfying the needs of the script. It’s a very satisfying interlock of heads of department who often do not spend enough time working collaboratively in pre-production. We speak with the newly formed Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, airport administrators, security services, Food prep companies, airlines and the top people in Homeland Security.

We are trying to resolve the mechanics of how a passenger could be held secure within an international airport. We show Steven a typical flow diagram of an airport revealing the security boundaries between customs and Immigration. It seems that the secure area that most closely represents the needs of the script would be an International Transit Lounge. In reality, in the U.S., it would be impossible for a passenger to be held for any real length of time inside the airport.

The key security area is the transparent set of doors that lead to the exterior. Steven sees a customs exit at LAX that he likes, which uses revolving doors that are secured exits only, with no reentry. Viktor has to be able to see the outside world, with people on curbside, taxis and freedom, without ever being able to reach it. He returns to these doors throughout the film. We will end up building this part of the set twice, once on the main set and once to match at Mirabel, to really emphasize the reality of this transitional area.

The exterior 3D models of the airport.

March 20, 2003: We show Steven four airports that are shut down or otherwise accessible for shooting: JFK Terminal 4, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Montreal (Mirabel). Steven prefers Mirabel for the architecture, and that it has an area where we can build offices that will overlook the high Immigration Hall.

Mirabel Airport was built for the Olympic Games in Montreal. In the past few years, it has serviced a decreasing number of charter and freight flights and in six months, it is scheduled to close down. Now, it is almost abandoned and is perfect as a film set: it is functioning and well maintained but has few of the restrictions of most airports. It’s also a pretty good match for the look of JFK Terminal 4 that we will see in our exterior views.

April 2004: Chris Burian brings on a talented model-maker Andrew Jones, who will put together a small team to build a really detailed model of the set that can develop concurrently with the previs model so that all aspects of the design are being dimensionally tracked and updated both for the eye (through lipstick cam) and digitally.

Eventually Andrew and his team will also build the diorama of New York that convinces Viktor that he’s seeing the real city, until he gets close enough to see that it’s a model and the Statue of Liberty is missing.

April 14, 2003: The first product placement meeting discusses video screens, “I love NY” footage, baggage carts, the division between food court and retail canyon, escalators, playground area, the commercial logos that will emphasize our N.Y. locale, a N.Y. oriented gift store with giant head of the Statue of Liberty, the centralized newsstand, a double height department store — all to portray the airport as a microcosm of the city.