Before doing the testing, did you have any photographic references for this having been done before in a film, say the 1946 Powell-Pressburger film Stairway to Heaven?
Yes, we did discuss Stairway to Heaven, but purely as a reference point, not as a stylistic influence. As I remember, their "Heaven" is rather abstract: there's the staircase, which is used quite extensively, and the court, which appears to be an amphitheater — a Hollywood Bowl in the heavens, if you like.
The one film that stuck in my mind, but was quite different, ultimately, was Defending Your Life (1981) [directed by Albert Brooks], but there really was no film we relied upon as a visual reference.
What was the next step after conducting these tests and coming to the realization that there was in fact no uniform whiteness?
The fact that there was no uniform whiteness was accepted without question. Then Kave [Quinn, production designer], myself and Rachel [Fleming, costume designer] spent considerable time testing a particular white on the different materials, afterwards checking the dailies to see how the materials reacted; we then tested a few different whites on the same material to see which would give the closest match. In the end, we built up about four corners of a police station set using a window, wall covering materials and various props — desks, light fixtures, filing cabinets — all painted with the different whites. The sets were built side-by-side, and we projected the photographed footage of them side-by-side so that Danny could determine which gave him the tones and qualities he desired. Once he settled upon the particular set, everything was then painted with that shade of white, and the textures of the materials decided the look for us.
How did that influence the type of lighting used on-set?
In my naiveté, I had assumed that [this scene] would end up being a set in a studio where we would have complete control. But it ended up being a disused, three-floor building in Salt Lake City [where A Life Less Ordinary was shot on location]. The police station set occupied the first two floors — with the building's actual staircase being used as the stairway to get from one level to the next. The entire scene was shot over a two to three day period, so we had quite a lighting rig.
We didn't ever want to see what was going on outside the building. In one instance, Dan Hedaya walks through the main entrance — which in fact went straight onto the sidewalk with one of the main roads in Salt Lake City going right past. I had Kave and Tracey [Gallacher, art director] build a very large flat, which we painted white. We also painted the sidewalk white and covered the grass with white duvateen. I then blasted three or four 12Ks onto it to get that burnt-out look so it seems as if Dan is merely materializing from nowhere as he comes in through the door.
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