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Other Artforms => Movies => Topic started by: scenicdesign71 on Dec 15, 2019, 06:30 AM

Title: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Dec 15, 2019, 06:30 AM
Coming in summer 2020.  SO. EXCITED.


Title: Re: In The Heights
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Dec 15, 2019, 07:44 AM
So here's something extra crazy: that shot of a pair of dancers joyfully pirouetting right up the side of a building, at exactly two minutes into the trailer?  It turns out, they're essentially dancing right above my bedroom window (it's a six-story building, I live on the fifth floor).

By which I mean:

Granted, the "building" they're dancing on isn't real (obviously, given the only-in-a-movie-musical antigravity by which they appear to do so): it's a studio set -- one I actually worked on, briefly, between stints on location -- of a building façade laid flat, as a floor, with the background (street, sunset, Jay Hood Wright Park and Geo. Washington Bridge in the distance and Fort Lee, NJ on the horizon) all CGI'd in afterward.

And granted, this set doesn't exactly match the actual building that sits at that location (relative to the park and the GWB) in real-life Washington Heights.  The architectural detail, the color of the brick, and the fire escapes are all visibly different than the actual building at that site (which I live in) -- in fact, they're a much closer match to one of the buildings at the intersection used for most of the film's "neighborhood" exteriors, which is actually several blocks north and east of JHW park (whence also comes the promenade view of the bridge at 00:15 and 01:05).  They've shifted things around to move that intersection closer to the GWB than it actually is, and to bring both the building and the park a bit closer to the river itself.

But still: this shot, albeit of an essentially imaginary, digitally-improved Heights, clearly indicates a westward-looking vantage point from a building situated catty-corner to the southeast edge of a JHW-like park on the west side of Upper Manhattan a few blocks below the GWB, with the camera hovering outside a top (sixth)-floor, north-facing window, several windows east of the corner.  And for all the f/x wizardry -- I especially love the pigeons being startled from their roost by the dancers! -- it's a little eerie how much this shot feels like I'm looking out my own window, or more precisely that of my upstairs neighbors.  For comparison, here's a screencap next to a pic I actually took from my apartment window (north-facing, several windows east of the corner, catty-corner to the southeast edge of JHWP, looking west) last June, on one of the evenings when they were filming (a different scene, notwithstanding the strikingly similar sunset) in the park:

DancingOnTheBuilding1.jpg             DancingOnTheBuilding2.jpg   
from the trailer (turned 90º)                                                                         from my window (cropped)

Title: Re: In The Heights
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Dec 16, 2019, 06:42 AM
My mistake, it isn't my building after all.  :))

The angle of the bridge was bothering me, and I wasn't 100% sure whether "my" park, Jay Hood Wright, is actually the only one in the vicinity that could've been used for that CGI background.

Park-wise, proper, it is; and it for sure is where that promenade scene was shot (I visited while they were filming).  But further investigation turned up a little unnamed patch of green -- basically an oversize traffic island with a few trees on it -- just a couple blocks higher up and closer to the river, at the corner of 177th and Cabrini, which is clearly what they used for the background of that dancing-up-the-wall shot.

Voilà, Google Earth -- it forced me to choose between street-level (which left the bridge entirely obscured by trees) and this way-above-building-height aerial view, but if you compare the details closely with the trailer screencap, you can definitely tell that this is the location they used for that background:

Cabrini177.jpg  

It's possible that they're intentionally conflating the greenery on 177th with that of JHW Park for purposes of the movie's fictionalized geography.  But for that particular shot, they didn't need to digitally pull the bridge downtown or push the park closer to the Hudson: it's all there -- though not the same "park" -- in a single view, from 177th.
Title: Re: In The Heights
Post by: DiveMilw on Dec 17, 2019, 09:17 PM
Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Dec 16, 2019, 06:42 AMIt's possible that they're intentionally conflating the greenery on 177th with that of JHW Park for purposes of the movie's fictionalized geography.  But for that particular shot, they didn't need to pull the bridge downtown or push the "park" closer to the Hudson: it's all there -- though not the same park -- in a single view, from 177th.

I prefer to believe it was to protect your privacy.  They didn't want uber-fans to flock to your apartment and keep you up at night.  However, I think you should allow @LeonoraArmfeldt to point out the location when he starts his guided tours next summer.   8)
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Mar 14, 2021, 08:43 PM
New trailer.  June 18:


Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Mar 15, 2021, 08:03 PM
...And another!


Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Mar 20, 2021, 04:20 PM
Good lord, the date's been moved again (https://variety.com/2021/film/news/in-the-heights-release-date-moves-up-1234934294/) -- but this time it's closer instead of farther-off (the producers cite a surge of demand unleashed by these latest trailers, but who knows what that means in concrete terms, if anything; I'm just happy to get to see the movie a week sooner).

June 11, in theaters and on HBO Max.

In other news, it was announced last month (https://variety.com/2021/film/news/jon-m-chu-wicked-movie-1234898316/) that ITH's director Jon M. Chu has been tapped to direct the Wicked movie.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Apr 16, 2021, 09:57 AM
https://www.variety.com/2021/film/news/in-the-heights-tribeca-film-festival-1234949514/
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: Bobster on Apr 17, 2021, 11:03 AM
Yes, it will be interesting to see how "our neighborhood" is portrayed (I'm just South of Dyckman).
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Apr 17, 2021, 08:51 PM
Early reactions:

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2565939/lin-manuel-miranda-in-the-heights-what-people-are-saying-hbo-max-film-anthony-ramos-john-chu

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on May 21, 2021, 09:39 AM
https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/in-the-heights-movie-review-hbo-max.html
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on May 21, 2021, 11:31 PM
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-05-21/in-the-heights-review-lin-manuel-miranda

Oh heck, let's just do this:  https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_heights_2021/reviews
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on Jun 01, 2021, 08:58 PM
I am excited! I just ordered my ticket for 5:30 pm on Thursday, June 10. (Yes, I want to see this so badly that I'm willing to miss Jeopardy!)

The one thing that's not cool is the theatre in which I'm seeing the movie, but it was the most convenient in terms of location and show times, and I need to get over my apprehension at going to a movie at That Particular Theatre.
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 02, 2021, 10:15 AM
I trust that your apprehension is not related to the Covid safety measures, or their likelihood of being adhered-to, at That Particular Theatre?

Earlier today I got a confirmation email for a cast/crew screening on the evening of the 10th -- so, adjusting for our timezones, I'll be watching right along with you, @KathyB !

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on Jun 02, 2021, 10:53 AM
No, the apprehension is due to being in a theatre where a mass shooting took place and 12 people were killed.
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 02, 2021, 04:35 PM
Quote from: KathyB on Jun 02, 2021, 10:53 AMNo, the apprehension is due to being in a theatre where a mass shooting took place and 12 people were killed.

:-[  
Your proximity to THAT theatre had gotten so entirely lost in the murk of my brain that I couldn't put two and two together.  Deepest apologies, I'm an idiot.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on Jun 02, 2021, 09:47 PM
:-* :-* :-*
I actually saw one of the Star Wars movies at That Theatre in 2016 or so, and nothing happened to me, and although I admit to not feeling entirely comfortable with being there, the experience was... well... nothing happened.

P.S. I think the theatre has a good COVID policy because when I bought my seat, they automatically excluded seats to either side of it, so those are seats that can't get sold now.

But back on topic, I am still very much looking forward to seeing In the Heights, regardless of where I see it.
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 03, 2021, 02:01 AM
That thing of excluding seats to either side must be nationwide theatre-chain policy, it's what they're doing here too.  Front and back too, maybe?  If I were Sondheim, I'd have intuitively grasped the pattern of existing X's on the seating chart, mosaic'd around other people's previously-purchased seats, and thereby immediately deduced the "game" rules; but I didn't look that hard.

Quote from: KathyB on Jun 02, 2021, 09:47 PMBut back on topic, I am still very much looking forward to seeing In the Heights, regardless of where I see it.

Me too!  :) :-* ;D

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 07, 2021, 01:06 AM
17-minute "Behind-the-scenes" featurette with book/screenwriter Quiara Alegria Hudes, producer Scott Sanders, and cast members:


Also:

Cinematographer Alice Brooks:
https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/in-the-heights-cinematography-opening-shot-1234990444/

Production Designer Nelson Coates:
https://variety.com/2020/artisans/production/in-the-heights-production-design-1203492934/

Costume Designer Mitchell Travers:
https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/in-the-heights-mitchell-travers-costume-design-1234988252/

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 08, 2021, 11:48 PM
Sneak preview of the entire title number:


Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 09, 2021, 08:54 PM
And, at long last:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/movies/in-the-heights-review.html

The question now is, can I wait nineteen more hours for tonight's screening, or will I give in to temptation and watch it on my laptop as soon as it drops on HBOMax three hours from now?  I'll undoubtedly watch it there at some point (probably more than once), but part of me really wants to hold out and see it first on the big screen with an audience.  On the other hand, paciencia has never been my strong suit.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on Jun 10, 2021, 07:52 PM
Wow! I have more to say than that, but I have some work I need to get done. :( I am very glad that I stuck around to see the credits for the scenic artists  :-* (which nobody else in the theatre did--not that it mattered much, because I think there were fewer than ten people in the theatre).
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 10, 2021, 09:18 PM
Their loss: they missed the post-credits scene!

But seriously: thank you, Kathy.  I was astonished and tickled when my name scrolled up -- I've gotten so used to working in television, where listing entire crews is almost unheard-of, that I don't even bother hoping for screen credit anymore.  But unlike TV, movies can afford to have endless credit-crawls -- and making it into this one, in particular, has me giddily happy.

What tickled me even more was that my favorite mural made it, briefly but prominently, into several scenes -- once even before the opening number: a smaller-scale re-creation (https://app.photobucket.com/u/scenicdesign71/a/9e10064d-76a9-4da4-8eb9-d799526c8b3b/p/5d4e6dcf-b4a7-4a78-8a51-a1232550f3d3?mode=zoom)-from-scratch (no digital printing involved) of three iconic (https://www.instagram.com/p/BmRK5a8lwQp) "curler girls" from original (https://www.instagram.com/p/BckceR7lKLP) street murals (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw17NWogV2J) by the brilliant Dominican artist Evaristo Angurria (https://www.instagram.com/angurria/) (we even replicated his signature).  Painted in just under a week by me and two other scenic artists, if I had to pick just one single project as my happiest and/or proudest professional experience to date, this mural (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5986430.jpg) might well be it.

That, and just seeing scene after scene that I had worked on in one capacity or another: most of the street locations, all the principal apartment interiors, the "Carnval del Barrio" courtyard, the bodega, salon and car service interiors and exteriors, even (briefly) the crazy gravity-defying fire-escape set.  In the end, sets/locations that I wasn't somehow involved with were a slim minority (including, sadly, the subway for "Paciencia y Fe" and the pool for "96,000" -- but the former was hellishly hot and the latter cold and wet, so maybe I'm not too sorry to have missed out on those locations).

I'm in too much of a happy daze to say much else about the movie itself right now... except that the dancing-on-the-side-of-the-building sequence is even more breathtakingly lovely than I'd hoped.  Beyond that, I'll just say that A.O. Scott's NYT review (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/movies/in-the-heights-review.html) (glowing, despite caveats) is dead-on, and beautifully-written to boot.  I will be watching this again (and again) on HBOMax in the coming days, and probably seeing it at least once more in the theatre too.  Tonight's screening was in an IMAX theatre, and I got there early enough to nab an ideal seat -- not a bad way to see this film, especially after fifteen months of watching things on small screens!

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: KathyB on Jun 11, 2021, 09:09 AM
I loved, loved, loved it. I am saying this as someone who is medium-familiar with the music and lyrics, zero-familiar with the book, and who has impatiently waited a year to see this. Unfortunately, I had no idea of an audience reaction to any of the movie, because there were so few people in the theatre, and no others in my row--it was as if I was isolated and seeing the movie by myself. Which is not necessarily a bad thing (especially since I spilled my drink around my seat).There were at least a couple other people whom I could hear talking--I guess they felt that if there weren't other people there, they could comment on the movie as much as they wanted. :( Fortunately, they weren't all that loud.

I noticed the beautiful murals right away, maybe because I had been somewhat conditioned to pay attention to them. :)

It was--well--exhilarating to see the music and choreography come alive after only hearing the score before. I was wondering how certain moments worked on stage (I thought the dancing wigs would be terrific onstage), and also wondering how the fire escape set was constructed and how that number was filmed. When I was leaving, the usher asked me what my favorite number in the movie was. I couldn't think at the time, because I enjoyed all of them so much, but looking back, I would say "Paciencia y Fe," which is also my favorite song on the cast recording--but now I know what happens during that number.

I definitely want to see it again, although I don't have HBO Max, and my list of friends who (1)might be interested in seeing this and (2) are in town this summer is small to nonexistent, so I will probably go see it solo again. At a different theatre. (I was unnerved by, of all things, the standard movie announcement to look for the exits and remember where they are in case of an emergency.) The weather is supposed to hit triple digits next week, which might be a really good excuse to see it again.
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 12, 2021, 09:37 PM
There's been a common criticism (even in otherwise favorable-to-glowing reviews) about the film's framing device, set on a postcard-perfect beach in the D.R.  I might have agreed with the charge that it's superfluous (and even that the kids in those scenes, serving as a surrogate audience for Usnavi's narration, risk becoming "oppressively cute," as Anthony Lane opined in New Yorker)...

I might have agreed, that is, until:
Spoiler: ShowHide

...the payoff at the end. (As A.O. Scott observes, the name of Usnavi's [dad's] beachfront watering hole is "at once a spoiler, a clue, and a key to the themes" of the film).

[Sidebar: those child-actors, including the little girl who played Usnavi's daughter, were sitting directly in front of me at the cast & crew screening the other night; they're just as impossibly cute in real life, and clearly very excited to see the finished film, but thankfully also very well-behaved].

Maybe I should have seen it coming, given Mr. Chu's well-established-by-then affection for movie-musical magic realism, but the ending actually took me completely by surprise -- despite having worked on or around most of the sets involved: the reconfigured "bodega boutique" showcasing Vanessa's creations; Graffiti Pete's beach mural; the "El Sueñito" palapa, playing both inside the bodega-interior set and on the real beach (Long Island, digitally Caribbean-ized in post-production).  But without having read the screenplay, I never fully grasped what all these elements were meant to add up to. (Nor did I try especially hard to find out, figuring that it might be classified information anyway, and that it would be more fun to wait and see; who knew that wait would balloon from nine months to twenty-one?).

In the end, Ms. Hudes's epilogue landed for me with such emotional force that I almost wonder whether the complainers had stopped paying attention by then, or whether they were just too jaded to take its full measure.  The final tableau of sunset celebration in the streets isn't exactly a jolt of brutal reality, but it's a far-enough cry from the fantasy of white-sand beaches and endless summer to bring a catch to your throat -- just as Vanessa displaying her designs in the bodega is beautiful and moving both despite and because of being such a far-distant echo of the glamorous life she had dreamed of.

The clincher is the kids' begging to "go in the water," threaded through the seaside framing sections and finally granted at the end, when the water in question turns out to be not those sparkling Caribbean waves lapping at Usnavi's vividly-remembered beach, but just a quenching summertime hydrant-spray en el barrio.

Cue the waterworks:  in its insistence on honoring not just the "big dreams" (in Busby Berkeley Technicolor, gravity optional) but also "the little details" (photographed no less gorgeously, and with palpable love and respect) that dignify apparently ordinary lives, this movie touches a nerve and makes my eyes all leaky.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 13, 2021, 02:59 PM
After several viewings of the movie, and granting both my built-in bias and my therefore immoderate excitement now that it has finally opened... I'm think I'm gonna withdraw my earlier semi-agreement with Mr. Scott (among others) that In The Heights is a great time (and perfectly-timed, re: cinemas reopening) without actually being a great movie. His review remains the loveliest and most perceptive of the many I've read, but I'm starting to think ITH might in fact be a great movie, deserving of major awards, of "classic" status, of academic study, the whole nine yards.  The more I watch it, the more its intricacies -- of writing, direction, and performance -- reveal themselves, and the more respect I'm developing for a screenplay some have viewed as baggy and uneven (and I had initially been inclined to agree, however reluctantly).  Turns out, it's actually -- unless I really am completely delusional -- a whole lot tighter and more focused than it might appear on first viewing.  I suspect it of being the best movie musical in years, perhaps even decades.

During production, I kept my growing excitement partly in check by focusing on the experience of simply being there: however good or not the movie itself might eventually turn out to be, it was clearly being made by exceptionally talented creatives whose passion, artistic ambition, and love for the material was infectious, trickling hierarchically all the way down to my level as sixth-painter-from-the-left.  (Seriously, almost everyone I met on the job that summer, from the greenest PA all the way up to our illustrious Production Designer, made a point of mentioning how lucky they felt to be working on this particular movie; that's unprecedented in my experience).  Though I didn't yet understand exactly how the fantasy elements fit into the story structure, they at least suggested an exuberant embrace of movie-musical spectacle; and [what very little I understood of] the plot changes intrigued me.  But without reading the screenplay -- or even being present on these sets during the actual filming, except in a couple of very brief and not very informative instances -- I just didn't know enough to get a really clear sense of what the finished picture would be like, never mind whether or not it would succeed, either artistically or at the box office.  Still, despite my long-cultivated skepticism, by the end of production I had an inkling that there was at least a non-trivial chance that we had been making something kinda special.

When the first trailer was released, I got goose bumps. Maybe "something kinda special" had been too modest a hope... notwithstanding my still-relatively-minimal knowledge of both the original show and Ms. Hudes's adapted screenplay, I started to wonder whether Mr. Chu's film might possibly stand as a worthwhile companion, on Mr. Miranda's growing list of achievements, to the Hamilton phenomenon.  Not that it would top or even equal that juggernaut, but that it might prove that Hamilton was not a fluke-ish brush with greatness by a writer who had never before (including with the stage version of Heights), and would likely never again, be touched by real genius.  The trailer left me only a little less vague about what to expect from the movie than I had been while working on it, but it suggested thrilling possibilities (as any good trailer, of course, is meant to do).

For me, the finished film surpasses those hopes.  If it took me a second viewing to fully appreciate the movie's artistry on every front, that may have been because I had become so habituated, over the past two years, to tempering my expectations as a hedge against possible disappointment.  No matter what he does now or in the future, LMM may well remain best-known and -loved for Hamilton, and perhaps rightly so.  But the movie of In The Heights is a supremely graceful addition to his oeuvre, the furthest thing from a sophomore slump or an embarrassing bit of juvenilia brought to the screen as a vanity project or a cash cow (or even as a sincere but clumsy valentine to his multicultural upbringing) -- all plausible dangers after such a meteoric rise as his.  And that, in turn, gives me hope that he might have more wonders in store for us.  (It also makes me very curious indeed to see what's next for Hudes, and what Chu will make of Wicked).  Sooner or later, LMM will presumably have to stumble at least once (and at this point, he does have a worryingly long way to fall).  But I think this film should dispel any lingering concern (if any exists) that Hamilton was a flash in the pan.  It was almost certainly a once-in-a-generation (or -lifetime?) revelation; but what it revealed was indeed -- again, if there was any doubt -- a dazzlingly original and important voice, not just a single lucky inspiration.

I'm sure the film (of Heights) will accrue a contingent of haters, if it hasn't already.  But my hope is that once the hype and the inevitable backlash both settle down, it might come to be regarded as LMM's second-greatest achievement (so far, anyway) -- by a not-so-very-wide margin.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jun 23, 2021, 06:06 AM
https://www.indiewire.com/2021/06/in-the-heights-behind-the-scenes-dance-up-side-of-building-1234645393/

Check out the "Toolkit video" about a quarter of the way down the page, directly above the section headed "The Anti-Gravity Concept".  (If this were viewable on YouTube or Vimeo, I'd embed the video directly here, but it seems to be viewable only on the IndieWire page).

It shows stage footage of the fire-escape wall in action as the cast and crew work on and around it -- very cool stuff. 

There's also some discussion about selecting the background location for the VFX plate.  I believe "When You're Home" would have been filming around the time that plate was shot, and I remember noticing Manhattan-henge somewhere around that same time, and wondering whether it was making the magic-hour light even more ravishing.  But it wasn't until I saw the completed "When The Sun Goes Down" sequence that I noticed how perfectly the setting sun is framed by the GWB.

Nelson also talks here about the intricacies -- collaborative as well as visual and technical -- of designing the wall itself:
https://www.btlnews.com/commentary/making-the-scene/in-the-heights-dance-scene/

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jul 07, 2021, 03:22 PM
I'm not the first to note that no elevated trains exist in Washington Heights proper: Vanessa's reference to one outside her window in "It Won't Be Long Now" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2AcTFu3rOs) has reportedly been an acknowledged "oops" ever since those lines were written in the early aughts.  The 1 train emerges aboveground briefly at 125th St in West Harlem, then plunges back underground and doesn't come up again until Dyckman St in Inwood, where LMM grew up: technically Dyckman itself is the northernmost border of WaHi, but it's a good thirty blocks uptown from the intersection where the bulk of the film is set.

I don't know whether or not the Inwood apartment of LMM's childhood had a view of the el which he then bequeathed, consciously or otherwise, to Vanessa.  But its questionable existence in ITH's fictionalized Heights doesn't bother me because, as a trope (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DingyTrainsideApartment) of picturesque urban shabbiness (something for her to escape, however much she insists it "doesn't faze" her), it's too effective to lose for the sake of mere geographical accuracy.  In fact, I guess you might almost say the movie manages to raise her stakes even further by suggesting that she's only a denizen of the Heights at all by virtue of commuting -- from even further uptown -- to her day-job there.

Vanessa's apartment interior was shot in an unoccupied apartment on 172nd St, in the heart of the Heights, with nary an el train to be seen (the one we do see passing outside her windows was CGI'd-in later on, and the apartment made to tremble, as if from the passing train, by the ultra-high-tech movie magic of -- I'm guessing -- crew members just out-of-frame rattling stuff around).  With her flair for fashion, Vanessa (by way of our set decorators) has furnished the place with budget-conscious yet breezy charm; we repainted the walls, among a few other temporary modifications including -- brilliant production-design touch -- a "built-in" sewing nook, actually custom-designed and installed by our carpenters; then carefully aged, by me, to look like a "well-loved," somewhat dilapidated pre-war feature.

The ostensible exterior of her building (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8634552,-73.9208137,3a,75y,65.38h,102.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5CFBjxbjeCbuWgMrbvnoRw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) -- where Usnavi will later tell Vanessa he's always wanted "to see the whole world through her eyes," while she demurs bitterly that she's "just the girl who paints nails" -- was filmed on 204th St (unambiguously in Inwood), with the real elevated #1 train overpass clearly visible just down the block.  (The el stop right around the corner is where Nina earlier met her father for lunch at the end of "Breathe"; the restaurant where they eat, Floridita (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Floridita/@40.8638314,-73.9193768,3a,75y,298.79h,92.43t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sadILKSEmj4BZYovAP6WI-g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x89c2f409ef5c1cf5:0xdbf63171f0d62796!2sFloridita!8m2!3d40.8639914!4d-73.919553!3m4!1s0x89c2f409ef5c1cf5:0xdbf63171f0d62796!8m2!3d40.8639914!4d-73.919553), at 206th St and 10th Ave, coincidentally shares its name with another restaurant (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8472744,-73.9381573,3a,37.5y,95.88h,88.36t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4KFmUIY0t7nbpyuzJlnkWA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D4KFmUIY0t7nbpyuzJlnkWA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D13.690085%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192) located just two blocks from the movie's main "neighborhood" intersection (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8448437,-73.9351764,3a,75y,248.75h,97.98t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTeyv0EUVsfMFQFJ4eqp1IA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) at 175th and Audubon).

Back to "It Won't Be Long Now": Vanessa's trip downtown to see a realtor includes a quick stop-off at the Fashion Institute of Technology -- here renamed "NY Fashion Design College" -- to scavenge some discarded fabric samples from a dumpster in an alleyway adjoining the school building. (This alley also looks onto a tall vertical billboard advertising "Downtown Living," the name of the real-estate agency that's about to reject her rental application on grounds of insufficient credit).

This scene was actually filmed just a few steps east of Fifth Ave (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7332145,-73.9949511,3a,75y,269.57h,99.68t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZvqRjDIUZoI4zg7z-4ta1A!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DZvqRjDIUZoI4zg7z-4ta1A%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D105.47202%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192) -- the "NYFDC" building (in real life, a fancy apartment building) faces my freshman-year NYU dorm directly across 10th St, as it happens -- rather than on the F.I.T. campus, which, in any case, is quite a hike from the Astor Place (#6 train) subway stop (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7301074,-73.990656,3a,75y,270.35h,101.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2laQh0Tb9BVB5iqRXXEDSw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) from which Vanessa has inexplicably just emerged.  (The subway-map graphic illustrating her journey seems to sort of split the difference, at least crosstown-wise, designating Washington Square as the epicenter of "downtown").

Apart from the establishing shot of the building's NYFDC-emblazoned awnings (with shrewdly matching dumpster lid, in the ensuing aerial shot (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5987470.jpg) as Vanessa slips into the alley to claim her castoff treasures), the resemblance to F.I.T. hangs largely on a single production-design choice that will ring a subliminal bell with many New Yorkers even though it flashes by in a foreshortened blur: the phalanx of slim vertical-panel murals lining the side of the building, inspired by similar murals which adorn 7th Ave for months each year, an annual student project (https://patch.com/new-york/chelsea-ny/photos-fit-students-turn-seventh-avenue-public-art-gallery) since 2013.  In order to mimic this smartly-observed detail of the downtown streetscape, we were given a stack of reference images to draw from, with each scenic artist creating a single panel, about a dozen in all.  Mine, shown below, evokes a rather old-school, costume-y, midcentury illustrational style; the cartoonish figure (who must be on stilts beneath that voluminous skirt!) could be a Disney princess-themed Drag Race contestant, but the rendering is more wannabe-Bob Mackie.

FITpanel.jpg        VanessaFIT_small.jpg
L: several panels in the shop, before their final arrangement on set had been determined;  R: screenshot detail, with groups of panels flanking the building entrance at left.
Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jul 17, 2021, 09:42 PM
I was going to bookmark these, then figured I'd post them here in case they're of interest:

ITH Workshop Demo (2000):
https://soundcloud.com/alilmads/sets/in-the-heights-workshop-demo

ITH Demo Lyrics:
https://genius.com/albums/Lin-manuel-miranda/In-the-heights-demo-workshop

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jul 20, 2021, 01:30 PM


I dunno whether you guys have seen the movie more than once already, or have any desire to, or even whether it's still playing in a cinema near you.  But I'm not alone in the opinion that (a) obviously it needs to be seen on the big screen (https://www.indiewire.com/video/in-the-heights-big-screen-screen-talk-337-1234643921/), and also (b) it gets even better with repeat viewings (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=in+the+heights+%22see+it+again%22).

Director Chu and his creative team have embraced LMM's brand of what seems to me a particularly modern style of geek culture ("Easter eggs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4owL3DaTg)," with which any self-respecting film, TV show or IP "universe" must now be stuffed unto bursting, and the Genius (https://genius.com/artists/Lin-manuel-miranda) website, a wiki for annotating song lyrics, jump to mind among the very many wide-ranging avatars of this phenomenon) to cram the screen with interconnected details that belie the impression some have gotten of ITH's ostensibly loosely-plotted, even meandering quality.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Note, for example, the contents of Usnavi's island palapa from the very first scene -- which, not long thereafter, we are tacitly led to assume is a latter-day reincarnation of his late father's beachfront bar.  But this isn't a bar at all, or even any plausible kind of snack bar; it's a surreally tiny open-air bodega (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5986397.jpg) stocked entirely with items from his Washington Heights store which, on second viewing, suddenly look oddly -- and revealingly -- incongruous on the beach.  And note, especially, the little green crab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraculus_sculptus) seen scuttling among those provisions in a throwaway insert shot (https://www.reddit.com/r/InTheHeights/comments/ogo0mx/the_crab_in_the_corner_i_thought_this_exchange/) (he gets his own close-up) during another of the beach scenes early on in the film.

Or the unremarked but poignant implication -- setting us up for the revelation of Abuela Claudia's lottery win? -- that she ended up splurging to have her mother's intricately hand-embroidered napkins dry-cleaned after all, at a cost (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5987970.jpg) we'd been been led to assume was well beyond her means, before bequeathing them to Nina in what now looks like crisp, snowy-white (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5989271.jpg) restored-to-mint condition.  (Earlier in the story, they appeared to have mellowed with age to a soft, gently-rumpled, distinctly off-white patina).

Or the graffiti tag ("Archangel") that appears behind Claudia in the 191st St pedestrian tunnel near the end of (https://youtu.be/KpWKROw83H4?t=229) "Paciencia y Fe".  The lights even gently pull focus to emphasize this particular tag -- lest we miss it amid all the other artwork vividly wallpapering the entire 900-foot passageway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/191st_Street_station#Pedestrian_tunnel_2) -- as she turns, hesitating, from one end of the tunnel to the other ("Now do I leave or stay?"): behind, her colorfully illuminated past; ahead, the bright white light flooding in from above and beyond the Exit stairs.  (For further emphasis, these lights at both ends of the tunnel also subtly brighten, each in turn, as the camera shifts to follow Claudia's questioning gaze).

The film is packed with stuff like this: not what you'd call earth-shattering narrative twists, but more than just nifty staging concepts, or even just shrewdly-gauged atmospheric flourishes; these kinds of densely-layered and meaningful choices, big and small, in a sense are the film's story.  And while it could be argued that obsessive patterning and detail-orientedness do not, in principle, automatically equal emotional or thematic depth, as Sondheads we might agree (https://genius.com/artists/Stephen-sondheim) that they suggest, at the very least, a certain type of intense authorial devotion to one's material.  (It's almost as if Team Miranda/Chu/Hudes had taken a few pointers from Team Sondheim/Prince/Lapine about how plot, as such, needn't be the only -- nor even always the most important -- approach to story structure).  Such details certainly make this movie even richer on subsequent viewings, in ways that, much as with Sondheim's shows, go far beyond mere Easter-egg-hunting geekery (though that's always fun, too).  Perhaps the filmmakers' biggest achievement here lies in somehow getting such pointedly deliberate (but not fussy or preening) storytelling choices, in all their tightly-woven profusion, to live comfortably and coherently in a recognizably naturalistic world.  From tiny gestures like the noticeably-clean napkins to extravagant conceits like suspending gravity (https://time.com/6072445/in-the-heights-stage-screen/), this virtuosic balancing act -- which, in its carefully-managed artifice, also of course permits seamlessly-integrated singing and dancing -- is actually what I think makes In The Heights a strong contender for best movie musical of the 21st century.


Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jul 24, 2021, 01:20 AM
Quote from: KathyB on Jun 11, 2021, 09:09 AMIt was--well--exhilarating to see the music and choreography come alive after only hearing the score before. I was wondering how certain moments worked on stage (I thought the dancing wigs would be terrific onstage)...

I believe the wigs (along with all the other magic-realist moments, and the beachside children's-storytelling frame that supports them) were an invention of the filmmakers; I've never seen the show onstage either, but as far as I'm aware, its only explicitly non-naturalistic elements consist of... well, the copious non-diegetic singing and dancing.

But I do have a funny story about the wig heads and how I first learned, to my astonishment, that they weren't just ordinary wig heads.  I was dying to tell you guys about it at the time, but if I had... then, according the standard NDA that Warner Bros. had us all sign, I would have had to kill you.

[TL;DR: It was stiflingly hot inside the salon set that day, and I was completely unaware that the wig heads were being rigged to "dance".  So when I happened to glance up from my work and saw them briefly swing into action -- just for a second or two (they were being tested by a prop person, who was controlling them from somewhere behind the wall and out of sight) -- I wondered for a moment whether I might be having a heatstroke-induced hallucination.]

So one day in July 2019, a good two months into production, I was working inside Daniela's salon, on the soundstage in Brooklyn.  Having originally been built as an armory, that stage is gigantic (https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/368522/photo-essay-satmar-williamsburg-marks-kuf-alef-kislev-5776-at-the-marcy-avenue-armory.html), not only in terms of its square footage but its height as well.  To give you some idea: the salon and bodega interiors were built there in their actual relation to one another, along with, eventually, their exterior façades and sidewalks and the entire "street" between them; with the addition of trees, cars, hydrants and lampposts, we ended up recreating an entire half of the intersection (https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/in-the-heights-production-design-nelson-coates-1234992389/) in addition to the fully-furnished interiors of the two businesses facing each other (https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ITH-Stage-view-1.jpg) across the "street".  All of this took up less than half of the floorspace in the armory drill hall (and less than a fifth of its height, since we didn't build any upper storeys).  At the other end of the stage, the 60'x60' gravity-defying fire-escape erector-set and its greenscreen surround occupied another chunk of real estate, but in the end, all of these sets still "floated" within the enormous, wide-open drill hall with ample room around and between them.  (I believe there was even enough space left over to eventually also build Kevin's back office onstage, and maybe one other small set -- the lawyer Alejandro's office, perhaps? -- but I was off on location when that happened, so I'm fuzzy on the details).

A space that size -- built half a century before indoor climate control, as we know it today, existed -- is obviously very difficult and very expensive to air-condition.  The producers did so anyway (union contracts require it), though I'm sure the A/C was more thorough and effective once shooting began and it was the Important People's health and comfort at stake -- actors, dancers, directors, and camera crew of all stripes -- as opposed to us build-crew peons.  But at this point in the summer the VIPs hadn't arrived onstage yet; they were still out shooting exteriors in the actual Heights.

To be fair, the enormous drill hall overall wasn't actually so bad; during the workday they would crank up these giant rented A/C units and bring the temperature down to a reasonable coolth.  But, weeks away from shooting here, none of this cooled air had yet been specifically routed into the interior bodega and salon sets, which at this point were nearly finished, and which both had full (as opposed to partial), hard (as opposed to stretched-muslin) ceilings.  There may have been one or two "wild" walls (removable as needed for wider camera angles) on these sets, but for now they were shut up tight, trapping -- and stubbornly retaining throughout the day -- all the sweltering July heat that would gather during the 14 hours every night when no one was around and the A/C was off.  The salon set had no open-able windows and very few doors: just the "street" entrance at one end, and one or two crew-access doors at the other; opening those doors and plugging in a few box fans helped bring in a little of the cooled air, but not enough to have any significant effect.  Daniela's was basically a sweatbox for those of us working in it that day, so we drank lots of water and stepped "outside" onto the air-conditioned stage for periodic breaks from the soupy "indoor" heat.

The salon interior was pretty close to being complete.  Except for one or two guys finishing a few trim details, the carpenters had moved to other sets-in-progress elsewhere onstage, or in the large adjoining construction-shop space, or out on location.  The set dressers had already done a good deal of their magic, installing salon chairs and mirrors and window treatments and lighting and outlets/switchplates and at least some of the everyday small-proppage one would encounter in a real salon.  This set ultimately had a lot of mobile furniture for the choreography of "No Me Diga" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrFH772ytzM), and I don't think absolutely all of that was there yet -- shelves and displays and countertops weren't yet fully stocked with shampoo and towels and scissors and curlers and whatnot -- so it remained as yet uncluttered-enough to allow us painters handy access for our own finishing touches.

Paint, wallpaper and floor tile had all been finished prior to dressing, along with any general overall aging glazes to tone them down from "we-just-built-this-yesterday" freshness.  Today's task was to go back over everything in more granular detail: to push more "age" into corners (of walls, floors, steps, shelves, and any other nooks and crannies); to dull down all the brand-new metal hardware (door hinges, drawer pulls, brasstone outlets and switchplates); to knock down any other shiny or bright-white surfaces with more tinted glaze; to make the furnishings look well-used, where appropriate, by lightly sanding down pristine factory-sharp edges and corners; to scuff up the floor in what would presumably be highly-trafficked spots around the entrance, the salon chairs, the steps, and add subtle grime around light switches, door/drawer/cabinet knobs and other high-touch areas; and to generally make the place feel lived-in.  Per the Production Designer's instructions: Daniela and Carla take proud care of this place, but it has been around for quite a number of years without major renovation.*

It was in this context that I first noticed a large, mauve, Miami Deco-style shelving unit full of wig-heads (along with some random hardware and electrical gack someone had left lying around).  Because someone from the prop department was supposedly going to be doing some kind of work on these shelves, we couldn't age them for the time being, and would have to circle back around to them later -- to our mild annoyance, since it would delay the moment we could consider the salon set 100% finished, and get out of this sauna for good.  There were only three or four of us scenics in the entire salon; plus a carpenter, who finished installing some baseboard trim and then left; and that prop person, who kept to himself and only ever seemed to make very brief intermittent appearances, futzing with who knows what on the wig shelves, before leaving again.  I didn't really pay any attention to the mannequin-head armatures themselves, but I remember thinking it odd that at least some of them seemed to have separate, squishy covers -- made of latex or something? -- that I had noticed lying on a nearby counter as soon as we arrived in the salon.  They looked like accurate castings of the classic (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0861Z9S6F) soft-featured, long-necked wig form in a variety of grayscale values.**  But why not just use the real thing -- and why make them of soft latex?

Heat and/or tiredness might account for my not having pursued these questions and either formed my own hypothesis (in 20/20 hindsight, the explanation seems pretty obvious) or else just asked someone.  But for whatever reason, those options didn't occur to me; it wasn't my department, and I was focused on my own work: making this newly-built set look real enough that you'd never guess we hadn't simply filmed in an actual decade(s)-old-but-still-working salon.  So when, fairly late in the morning, I thought I heard sounds coming from the general direction of the wig shelves -- subtle, indescribable, but suggesting muffled mechanical movement of some kind --  and glanced up from where I was scuffing the freshly-installed baseboard, maybe ten feet away, I was totally unprepared for what I saw.

I kinda wish there were candid-camera video of my reaction.  Saucer eyes?  A literal jaw-drop?  I think an actual double-take may have occurred.  However I may have looked at that moment, I remember feeling for a second as though someone had perhaps spiked my morning coffee with something very strong indeed -- or was the heat just getting to me?  The bizarre spectacle lasted for two or three seconds, tops, and compounding that head-swimming sense of doubting my own eyes was the fact that no one else had seen it: my co-workers either weren't around, had their backs turned, or just weren't looking up at the right moment.

To cite a different "magic" moment from the finished movie: when I eventually saw it, I knew precisely how that kid felt during "When The Sun Goes Down," gaping from inside his apartment at weightless Benny and Nina dancing across the window while his oblivious family enjoyed their dinner.

The heads had no actual wigs on them yet, so their movements were all the more unmistakably clear, and I recall them as even more dance-like than they appear in the quick cutaway shots that ended up in the film.  They were like three trios of girl-group backup performers, all in perfect synch, with a shocking fluidity and grace that could never have been achieved using real, rigid-styrene wig heads.  Gazing out from the shelves, chins cocked insouciantly, they swiveled up-to-the-left, then up-to-the-right, then back to neutral-resting-face where they froze once more, innocently symmetrical, as though nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.  The initial hair-raising have-I-been-drugged? cognitive dissonance resolved almost instantly (latex, random wiring gack, the rarely-there prop guy: mystery solved) into a flush of tickled, childlike wonder: do it again!! please? (They didn't, at least not for quite awhile, long after I'd regained the ability to speak and alerted my co-workers to be on the lookout for the coolest thing ever).

...Tickled, and in a strange way, warmly reassured: in direct and thrilling juxtaposition with our everyday work of making artificial worlds look meticulously, unquestionably (indeed, more often than not, unremarkably) "real"... if what I just saw makes it into the final cut, I have a feeling this movie just might turn out to be pretty amazing.

____________________
* I'm fascinated by just how much lighting, framing and color-correction can do to emphasize -- or de-emphasize -- this kind of lived-in texture; in the finished film, Daniela's salon takes on two subtly-different atmospheres during the two scenes set there.  In "No Me Diga," indirect-lighting practicals (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5987363.jpg) impart a spiffy retro sheen, as in the recessed ceiling (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5987399.jpg) and the wig shelves (https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/5987354.jpg); and the warm pink-and-gold color scheme is foregrounded and enhanced, giving the environment a slightly "sweetened" movie-musical quality.  (Mr. Chu's camera angles heighten this effect, using the proscenium-like draperies and the raised, stage-like area at the far end of the salon to frame his wide compositions and show off all of the set's niftiest features).  By contrast, later on, at the end of "It Won't Be Long Now" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE60JmWi5Jk), the visual mood is more sober and realistic, reflecting Vanessa's perspective: harsher daylight floods the salon's front windows, with noticeably less fill light and cooler tones predominating, while the camerawork stays tighter and more strictly-functional (the "freeze" moment, with Daniela's spray-mist hovering in midair, is a beautiful touch, but the arguably-slickest "magic" in this shot is literally invisible: the digital erasure of the camera (https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/mirror-shot-filmmakers-make-cameras-disappear/) itself, as it faces a row of mirrors while tracking alongside Vanessa from her chair, near the center of the salon, all the way to the front door).  It's the same actors wearing the same clothes on the same set as before, but shrewd adjustments by cinematographer Alice Brooks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyI0IVu0aBw) lend everything an emotionally resonant new sense of unsweetened naturalism: the room itself feels more real and workaday, less punchy and highly-designed (in effect, less like a studio set -- though it is one -- and more like a real location) than it did in "No Me Diga".  For a much more extreme example of the same general principle (https://www.vulture.com/article/how-kevin-can-f-himself-was-made.html) at work, see AMC's new show Kevin Can F**k Himself.

** Even the unexceptional decision to make the wig heads in various shades of gray rather than, say, a range of brown and beige skin-tones, makes more specific sense to me in retrospect: it allows the wigs themselves to stand out, but it also mitigates the risk, however remote, of any accidentally-grotesque shock when we first see them in motion.  We don't want to perceive these disembodied heads, even momentarily, as being so uncannily "alive" that they might, for instance, start singing along -- a bridge too far, fantasy-wise -- or worse, so uncannily "not alive" that they might, for instance, start bleeding.  (Or worst of all -- watch out, Little Shop (http://gcam.org/data/upload_pictures/Little%20Shop%20of%20Horrors%20Photo%203.jpg) -- both at once.) Indeed, I wonder whether their apparently simpler, jerkier movements in the film, and their audible mechanics (left in, or deliberately added to, the finished sound mix), might be there for the same reason: to keep them as far away as possible from the realm of creature-FX ickiness and closer to that of magically-kooky wind-up toys -- unreal in any case, but unambiguously cute and fun, not uncanny-valley creepy.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Aug 06, 2021, 09:37 AM
One more (briefer, I promise) production memory.

Up here on 175th St, the Santo Domingo bodega (whose exterior, along with that of the nail salon next door, became Usnavi's) remained open for business throughout production -- even during filming, when shoppers would only be allowed to enter or exit the store between takes.

Before then, we were there for several weeks transforming the entire intersection, all four corners, for a block in each direction on both sides of the streets: every storefront got new awnings and signage, walls and stoops and doors/windows were repainted, street furniture (payphones, hydrants, trashcans) brought in or rearranged, and murals added (one painted onsite, directly onto an existing brick wall; another pre-painted on plywood panels and installed in sections; and a third printed and wheatpasted onto the side of a building like wallpaper, its outer edges blended into the brick with washable spraypaints).  And the exterior of Daniela's salon -- a wholesale fabrication bearing no structural relation to any existing architecture at that location -- was brought in pieces from the scene shop in Brooklyn and assembled on a steel-truss skeleton erected at the intersection's southeast corner.

At some point during all of this bustling activity, word spread that the Santo Domingo -- a tiny hole-in-the-wall establishment, a quarter the size of Usnavi's bodega-interior set and distinctly less photogenic, but run by the sweetest Dominican family -- sold homemade virgin piña colada slushies every afternoon for three or four bucks, which quickly became a favorite way to beat the heat during our daily 3pm coffee break.  (Indeed, these frosty treats became so popular that, on particularly heavy crew days, they couldn't always keep up with demand -- which would mean a deliciously anticipatory wait for the slushie-machine to churn up a new batch).

Ice-cold, sticky-sweet and insanely (coconut-)creamy, I'm sure they were approximately half a million calories apiece, even at a moderate serving size (they were served in what I'm guessing was a 12oz cup, perfectly just-shy of "too much" for something this overpoweringly rich and sweet).  But boy, were they tasty; I should wander back over there one of these days...

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Aug 22, 2021, 04:54 PM
Our production designer has written a lavishly-illustrated cover article about In The Heights for Perspective (https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1400113-july-august-2021/0), the journal of the Art Directors Guild:

https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1400113-july-august-2021/83


Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Sep 05, 2021, 10:58 PM
It's now out on DVD, Blu Ray and 4K UHD (in addition to having been available for rental or purchase on many of the major streaming services for the past month or so).  I bought the Blu Ray and haven't yet watched it all the way through, but I did watch the main extras, which comprise a roughly hourlong multi-part making-of featurette.  For such length, it's not especially informative; mostly a protracted actor-director-creator love-fest, of which a little goes a long way (even for me, notwithstanding all my own proud burbling-on about the movie here on this thread).

Or maybe I've just been watching so much similar stuff online for the past few months that I'm burnt-out.  Regardless, I'm super happy to finally own the movie itself on disc.

Title: Re: In The Heights (movie)
Post by: scenicdesign71 on Jan 28, 2023, 12:08 PM
The 191st St pedestrian tunnel featured in "Paciencia Y Fe" (https://youtu.be/KpWKROw83H4?t=214) was painted-over last week -- "white: a blank page or canvas" for artists and taggers to start over from scratch (https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/transit/2023/01/24/city-promises-new-murals-for-pedestrian-tunnel-after-sudden-paint-job), with attendant conflict over which qualifies as what, art or vandalism.

https://gothamist.com/news/unexpected-cleaning-of-graffiti-covered-tunnel-spurs-controversy-in-washington-heights

The original murals (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/nyregion/bringing-a-little-color-to-a-passage-at-the-191st-street-station.html) were commissioned (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2x7GWkluHA) by the city in 2015, but had since accumulated layer upon layer of unsanctioned additions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbzxG16yNy4) by graffitists of varying abilities.  Just about halfway between then and now, in the summer of 2019 when we were there filming, this was already very much in evidence, as can be seen in the finished scene -- though we also added a few (removable) tags of our own.

It's hard not to wonder whether this tunnel's existence mightn't have played a part in Mr. Chu's and Ms. Hudes's decision to set "Paciencia" on a sort of subway-time-machine.  (The idea of filming it in a more abstract, theatrical black limbo had previously been considered, to no one's real excitement).  Hudes and LMM, who both still live in the neighborhood, would already have been aware of the tunnel, while I imagine Chu and Coates likely encountered it while scouting around here in 2018.  But the shrewdness of choosing it for the song's final section may also have been helped along by lucky timing.  A few years earlier in 2015, it might merely have read as what it was, at the time: a colorfully-trippy MTA public-art project, brand-new, squeaky-clean and a bit on-the-nose for an upbeat movie musical set in a thereby-sanitized WaHi.  Conversely, buried entirely under tags a few years later in 2022, it might have suggested 1970s-style decay, graffiti-as-inner-city-horrorshow.  But in 2019 (and with spiffily-enhanced lighting), it was a perfect balance, gritty and celebratory and also something more: a fantastic urban tapestry resonating with the other murals shown throughout the film, "official" art in rowdy conversation with improvised self-expression; a slightly-unreal piece of production design that lands perfectly, in part, because it is in fact real; and, in bringing the song's dreamlike historical travelogue right up to the present in pre-pandemic Washington Heights, the perfect "final passage" for Claudia.