\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div> \n\tAs part of the PaleyFest sequence, Tokarz and his team took a few pieces from the set dressing and built that out.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe didn\u2019t think the set walls would last, so we settled on photographing our set and blowing them up as photographic elevations,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the same scale as our set \u2014 just photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tTokarz took pleasure in creating factoids that were featured throughout the exhibit, highlighting details about where a decorator may have found an item or the estate sale the clock was bought at in 1965 -\u201clittle details like that you never see on camera,\u201d he says. They added gravitas to the history of the set.<\/p>\n \n\tThat set makes an appearance later on in the series finale, this time as Ava (Hannah Einbinder) walks around \u2014 but it looks very different. Tokarz updated it to make it feel contemporary, and approached it with realism.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe took the walls that we shot for \u2018Who\u2019s Making Dinner?\u2019 We got rid of the wallpaper, repainted over the wood finishes, which is something that probably would have happened if that were a real space,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have that shot where we\u2019re echoing the beginning of Deborah\u2019s journey. But now we\u2019re in Deb\u2019s legacy with Ava. Now Ava has her own legacy to build with her own show.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tAs it turned out, re-creating a set that paid homage to sitcoms of yesteryear was the least of Tokarz\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n \n\tIn episode 8, titled \u201cThe Cube,\u201d Deborah stages a publicity stunt to announce her Madison Square Garden show. She\u2019s still barred from performing due to the fallout from quitting her late-night show in Season 4, so she decides to have a magician suspend her in a Plexiglas cube above the Las Vegas Strip to announce the show.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tThe sequence required the entire creative team to help solve the problem of how to pull it off, so it was shot in pieces and out of order.<\/p>\n \n\tThe episode was, at its core, a story about a box and a lot of creative problem-solving across all departments. Tokarz needed the cube to play both on stage in Los Angeles and on the Strip in Las Vegas, so the sequence was broken into three bits and, with the magic of VFX and editing, seamlessly woven together.<\/p>\n \n\tThe cube itself was made of steel and Plexiglas. \u201cIt sounds simple, but the actual construction needed to be engineer-stamped and approved because we were going to lift Deb up in it on stage,\u201d Tokarz explains. \u201cWe had to get Plexiglas custom-made in Texas, and then make sure that all of the joints would work.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe cube also needed an eight-foot-wide door, which was engineered onto the structure with each pane weighing in at nearly 300 pounds.<\/p>\n \n\tConsidering the physics behind what happens when the door swings and the pressure it puts on the hinges, \u201cit was all about finding the right hinge that would be able to maintain that,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n \n\tBut that was just the cube. The team then had to figure out how to re-create a blackout on the Las Vegas Strip, which occurs as Deborah is hoisted into the air in the cube. While it could not be done practically, Tokarz and his team built 130 feet of the Las Vegas Strip on a stage.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t \n\tThe team spent a full day taking measurements, photographs, color samples and references. Making things even more challenging was that Formula 1 was setting up its Las Vegas circuit.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere were a lot of fences in the way, a lot of tape measures being thrown through chain-link fences to get measurements,\u201d Tokarz recalls. \u201cThen, we built it all on a soundstage.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFirst, the cube work on stage involved raising and lowering Deborah against a sea of solids to capture the visual effects elements, led by VFX supervisor Martin Hall.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe shot it in parts. We shot the visual effects elements of the cube on the soundstage, surrounded by solids. It was a really dark space with a lot of creative lighting elements,\u201d Tokarz says. \u201cThe helicopter was really just a light on a rig that circled around to make sure she was lit properly. We had it going up and down so that we could match the camera angles.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe team also built a softbox enclosure, which was the size of an entire stage in order to properly light the scene.<\/p>\n \n\tOnce they had that lit and built, the ambulance and news trucks were brought onto the soundstage.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the true star of the scene was Hall. \u201cHe was our visual effects supervisor who did a fantastic job stitching it all together because all that had to make sense, and it was shot in three different elements,\u201d says Tokarz. And it worked. \u201cYou just have to trust the process to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>
\u201cThey\u2019re not going to let you shut off enough lights, and there are way too many lights. Shooting on the actual Strip as a blackout wasn\u2019t going to happen,\u201d he says. So they found a solution. \u201cWe sent a team out. We matched every detail down to the joints in the sidewalk, the sprinkler heads and the balustrade on the wall. \u201cWe built olive trees from scratch so that they reflected the trees that they had at Caesars Palace.\u201d<\/p>\n