The Stephen David Company (2013) / Director: Patrick Reams / Production Designer: Ernesto Solo
I art directed the mini-series Gold Fever for production designer Ernesto Solo. It centered around the agony and the ecstasy of the California Gold Rush of 1849. This is a shot of the grim camp along the American River.
Built on the Upper Provo Falls, this brand new lumber camp was the setting for the original discovery of gold in the American River.
A fine example of the dozens and dozens of encampments we built all over northern Utah.
This was the setting for an outbreak of cholera in a particularly luckless camp.
This is a goldwashing machine, a device we extrapolated from just a few meager images. Extremely expensive contraptions such as these promised to do the work of hundreds of men panning for gold but ultimately didn't work.
This is our version of the deadly quicksilver machine. We were unable to find any good visual research on this one. So we made our best guess from written descriptions. It essentially used a reservoir of mercury to separate gold nuggets from silt, which miners then cleaned with their mouths.
Some of the many hand-painted signs we prepared waiting to go to set.
