Tom Hanks' "Larry Crowne" and Chris Weitz's "A Better Life" couldn't be more different, yet each mines the bleak cityscapes of Los Angeles as backdrops for tales firmly set during the Great Recession.
Hanks' dark romantic comedy takes place among the strip malls, cul de sacs and nondescript institutional buildings of the San Fernando Valley. The drab locations complement the story of a divorced middle-aged everyman, downsized out of his job and foreclosed out of his home.
Weitz's earnest Latino father-son drama was shot in the rough, impoverished neighborhoods of South Central and East L.A., where kids often join gangs and many people live in fear of arrest and deportation.
On "Crowne," which Hanks directed and stars in opposite Julia Roberts, production designer Victor Kempster and art director Carlos Menendez were tasked with turning the ordinary into the evocative. They worked with location manager John Panzarella to find the ideal spots.
"It was like caffeinating the commonplace," said Menendez. "Parts of the Valley are among the ugliest things on the planet. You capture them because that's where the film takes place, but at the same time you're trying to make them graphic and spot-on… It's a challenge."
Source: Twilightish
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