‘Wonder Wheel’ Production Designer On The Artist Who Has Breathed New Life Into Woody Allen’s Films
Having worked with the prolific Woody Allen on over 30 films since 1980’s Stardust Memories, three-time Oscar-nominated production designer Santo Loquasto is well-acquainted with the writer/director’s likes and dislikes, his aesthetic preferences, and his general approach to storytelling—which has made the introduction of a new collaborator in recent years all the more exciting.
With Café Society, released last year, Allen brought three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (of Apocalypse Now) into the fold, which has only increased the theater and film designer’s desire to up his game with each new film.
With Wonder Wheel—one of Allen’s period films, which Loquasto relishes—the production designer was tasked with recreating the Coney Island of the filmmaker’s younger days, a place that, due to time and weather, no longer exists. Below, Loquasto discusses his collaboration with Allen and his new Italian DP, and a film involving more green screen than any Woody Allen film ever has.
What aspects of Wonder Wheel were attractive to you?
It’s an area we’ve delved into over the years, but never spent such a concentrated period of time in—Coney Island, specifically. That was a fascinating problem. Although I haven’t shot there since Radio Days, you’re somewhat familiar, and then of course there’s the hurricane, so you knew that much of Coney Island had been altered in the last five or six years. We knew in advance that that was going to present a problem, which it did. Many things had changed anyway, let alone simply washed away.
It was a wonderful project, and these projects in the last few years with Vittorio [Storaro, DP] have added such another dynamic to them, just his approach to filmmaking. While it varies according to the material, he invests in it in a very particular and personal way, and it’s always fascinating to observe that.
Broadly speaking, what has Storaro brought to the experience?
I think in the past, Woody has had a recognizable style and palette, an area that he is comfortable in. Those of us who have worked with him for a long stretch, while we know our way around that, we also know that we’re obliged to try to make it a little more interesting, or a little less predictable.
Vittorio is aware of Woody as a filmgoer, and had only done one film [with Allen] prior to this. Although it was a beautiful project, he had his ideas, separate from the predictable route that Woody might take. Woody was excited about it, and it wasn’t so much that we had to have his approval, but we certainly wanted him to be in agreement with all of us when we would be looking at things, and predicting how to approach it.
There was a great deal of trust that had to be made on the part of everybody, because we’ve never done anything that had so much green screen, where the backgrounds out the windows were all added in post. But I think it was Vittorio that’s made it as exciting as it has since become. It’s sort of an added bonus that suddenly you have the parachute jump a hundred yards away and functioning. We’ve seen all this over the years, but we don’t do that—we do what I call “domestic dramas.”
So, Humpty’s apartment, looking out on the carnival area, was built on a soundstage?
Yes. Whenever you have those panoramic views of the beach and the boardwalk, very little of it existed. Some of it does, like the Wonder Wheel and the roller coaster, and the relic of the parachute jump, but the big bathhouse and all of that was long gone. All those opening shots are manufactured.
That opening shot of the beach, packed with people, is really something to behold.
Yeah, they do this process where we shoot maybe five hundred people, and they replicate those people over and over again, but you don’t perceive it. I’ve looked carefully to see if I could find the pattern, but I couldn’t. I know I didn’t buy that many umbrellas, though.
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