Behind the Scenes

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ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS GETS AN UPGRADE

Inside the sterile research lab of
Winifred Burkle

Season five brought perhaps the most radical change in the entire series: Angel taking over Wolfram & Hart. While in past episodes the power and resources of the firm had been explored, it was not until Angel this season that fans got an insiders pass into the workings of Los Angeles' most powerful law firm. Replacing the Hyperion hotel lobby as the central hub of A.I.'s headquarters, the Wolfram & Hart main lobby can be seen in virtually every episode of Season Five. Despite its grand scale, the set was designed and built in a very short amount of time. "We built this in about three and a half weeks and had it done [in time] for the first episode of the season. It was great to see all the faces of the crew. We took the hotel out during hiatus and they came back to find this brand new set the next stage over. They were very impressed and very happy with having so much room to work around in," admits Stuart.

The unique and massive set was a very specific brainchild of Joss Whedon himself. "When I first met with Joss last year he said, 'I'd like a giant set that I could walk all around with a Steadicam and never have to cut--a la--something out of The West Wing. I also want to be able to walk through pools of light and dark and just to be able to play with different times of day. Sometimes the place is full of hustle and bustle activity, sometimes it's the end of the day, it's closed, and it's just our gang haunting the halls. Sometimes who knows who will be haunting the halls for some scary episodes,'" Stuart recalls. However, Steadicams and interesting lighting are not the only aspects that make the lobby unique. "One of the things he also specified was that he'd love to see a lot of ceilings, something that I was really interested in showing and so was the cinematographer because we can always build in a lot of different lighting set ups if we build a hard ceiling. So we impressed upon them that we are a 'stunt and action' based show and we have to give up a few abilities to do stunts and certain flying rigs if we're going to put in hard ceilings. They all agreed they'd much prefer to have hard ceilings and limit our stunts to certain areas of the set."

Branching off of the lobby are all of the main offices, most notably Angel's, with a collection of artifacts, including a samurai sword mounted on a marble wall behind his desk. Angel's space is dimly lit, "old world ceremonial office" which perfectly reflects his personality. However, it did not start off this way. "Last year for episode 22, Home, we built a version of Angel's new office that Lilah was enticing him with to come to the firm. No one, including myself, was very happy with it. This year when we did get our pickup and decided to go forward with a brand new giant set, the request from the producers was that Angel have an office that is just enormous, where we can walk in and you really feel a sense of power and you're in awe of the space he's in." Other influences for the office design are a bit more subtle. "They kind of took a nod towards an office in the film Bladerunner," Stuart continues. "We looked at that and said, 'OK, we got some elements there, but we still have to fit it in with our scheme and plan design of Wolfram & Hart.'

From conference room to private office within 20-paces

So we gave Angel this giant office with floor-to-ceiling windows and gave him a conference room at the far end which even made his office that much larger. He could close off his conference room to be private or he could open it up. He also has, right next to his desk, the entrance to his private elevator. He can see the comings and goings out in the main lobby area as others out there can look in here and see him working. If he wants to have privacy, through the magic of CGI work, he can press a button that will secretly frost all of his windows." Although this effect is computer generated on Angel, there are glass treatments today which will 'opaque' your windows at the touch of a button.

While Angel's office does have the size and glamour, the other offices are not too shabby by any standards either, like Angel's, the designs are all unique. "Everybody has their own niche. Everyone's office has their own character reflected through their set decorator." The decorating team, including Set Decorator Sandy Struth, have overlooked no details in personalizing the offices. Decorated mostly with ancient texts and parchments, Stuart describes Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's office as the, "hot bed of research on the main floor of Wolfram & Hart. Wesley is sort of the book learned and scholarly type. He's got a lot of the research tomes, he has a lot of the charts and maps whereas Gunn has the robots." However, beneath all of the decoration, Wesley and Gunn's offices are essentially very much alike. "It was very important from the beginning that Gunn and Wesley have almost identical offices. The idea was that they could almost be interchangeable until each one made it their own. The first episode or two they were without any decoration. That was part of a story point. Gunn said, 'I like this one because it has a better view,' but it really has the exact same view as Wesley's," Stuart offers up the inside joke. "Gunn chose it because it felt better to him. Gunn has now made it his own, he has brought in his robots."

"For Lorne's, we take Wesley's and change out a few walls. It has the sort of fanciness of a Dean Martin lounge that they wanted to have in his character." ~ Stuart on office décor

The robots, left unexplained in the show, can be attributed to another member of the Angel team. "Our Executive Producer, Jeff Bell, liked the idea that Gunn was sort of a new kid in a candy store and since he's now making a lot of money he can buy all the expensive toys he always wanted to have," Stuart explains. Yet with his new lawyer-brain upgrade, Gunn has also established an atmosphere of style and power in his office. "He brought in a much higher-end sensibility that goes along with his new upgrade, his new wardrobe, and his new grooming. He has chosen some deep colors to accent the beautiful leather desk. Gunn has a real snazzy office that really befits his status as the main powerful lawyer in the firm." Interestingly, as Stuart reveals, Lorne does not have his own office on the stage. "For Lorne's, we take Wesley's and change out a few walls. It has the sort of fanciness of a Dean Martin lounge that they wanted to have in his character."

On a different stage, apart from the main lobby and offices, Fred has her incredible lab. With a state-of-the-art metallic design and countless instruments of various shapes and sizes, the lab has just enough quirkiness to make Fred feel at home. More of a success than they imagined, the lab has become an integral part of the season. "So far it's worked out great," Stuart happily admits. "I think we've used the lab far more than they thought we would originally. Maybe because the storylines have taken that direction, but I have been really happy with the way it looks on film. Probably more happy than many of the other sets I've built because we strived this year to get a lot of built-in lighting so Wolfram & Hart had its own character. It wasn't just being lit with lights, it was being lit from within so it glowed and illuminated and it almost shone itself like a shining jewel. So we were able to achieve that a lot with this. We looked at photographs of real labs and other movie labs and picked some elements that we liked in those, and chose from column A and column B what we thought we could throw in our lab." With Fred's office overlooking the lab, a keen observer could find it strangely reminiscent of a past set in the episode, Happy Anniversary. They were able to salvage the "overlooking office" from the set that they had in storage and built this lab all around that existing one.

Angel's private penthouse of luxury,
style and comfort

The last, and least filmed, set is Angel's penthouse. Quiet and removed, the penthouse is adorned with gorgeous wood furniture and has an incredibly spacious 'common area'. Just more icing on the cake, the luxurious nature of his penthouse is undeniable. "The idea that was presented to us in the script was that Angel lived in a swanky penthouse, high above his office at Wolfram & Hart and the only way to access his penthouse was from his private elevator that goes through his office. Inside the elevator he's got five buttons; he's got his office, the lobby, the penthouse, his private garage, and there's an SW for sewer. I don't think they'll ever use that aspect, but we decided as an art department just to put that in there for the fun of it," Stuart chuckles. In the same style as the rest of Wolfram & Hart, the penthouse is far from the old 50's style Hyperion. "The idea with all of Wolfram & Hart, the penthouse included, is that the place was just very, very sleek, modern, and cold. Something totally separate and different from the hotel they came out of which was more 'old world', more charming, more nooks and crannies, and had lots of little character built into it. This is almost the antithesis of that in that it's very streamlined and modern. I'd almost say a modern Japanese feel to it with the simplicity of the lines and the design. We don't shoot here that often. We haven't really utilized it that much, but I've been happy with it."

As filming continues, the sets are constantly evolving and growing closer to the characters inhabiting them. "All of our sets now are coming together after the first dozen episodes into finding their own sense of where they are supposed to be. Usually with a set you don't have the liberty of evolving and changing much, but we've taken a little liberty with this and said, 'Lets see how this pans out,' and 'His light doesn't work that well, this desk is a little high, these chairs are a little low.' We've taken our chance with that to sort of give ourselves a little breathing space to learn what works best for our cast and our crew."

CREATING THE PAST...IN THE FUTURE?

While his work on Angel has been exemplary, Stuart is uncertain what the future holds for him. "I've been a production designer for close to fifteen years and I realize how many different twists and turns my career has taken. I've learned to think down the road, but not look down the road. You hope things will continue to change, but all you can really do is basically live for the here and now, enjoy the project that you are on right then, give that your all, and hope the next one that comes along is going to be as rewarding if not more rewarding," he states. For Stuart, the ultimate achievement in set design lies in reconstructing the past. "What I enjoy a lot on Angel is doing our period pieces where we flashback to Armenia or Paris or wherever. I would like to do an entire project that is in a different time period. You really get to do a lot of research and spend time and effort recreating something that isn't around anymore. That is something that I have a lot of interest in." If film is the next medium that comes his way, then there are a few projects that highlight what it means for Stuart to be a production designer. "A project along the lines of Gangs of New York where I'm recreating a specific time period with an infinite amount of resources and be able to sink my teeth and my department's teeth into fine detail. Something like that or [Francis Ford] Coppola's Dracula. That is really tremendous." Whatever the future may hold for Stuart Blatt, he is certain of one thing. "Something so totally different than the life you are living is, to me, the ideal of what to design."

Written by CoA Writer, Jeff Ritchie

CityofAngel.com would like to graciously thank Stuart Blatt and Andrew Reeder for taking time out of their extremely busy design schedule to give us an exclusive look at the set and a wonderful interview

Special Thanks to Joe Pew for his generous help in making this feature possible.

Notice: All Set Photos were used with permission from the Angel production office and designers, any reuse without written permission is a violation of copyright infringements.

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