I was a production designer on Forrest Gump, and I'm gonna give you one scene breakdown of when Bubba and Forests come to Vietnam.

My process, I would guess is, is a collage artist.

I do little sketches.

I do a lot of research for this particular movie.

This was a reflective of my own life and times.

I'm basically for a sage.

So I knew about the era that we told the story of the Vietnam era civil rights era, the growing up in the sixties.

The first thing is that you're getting a wide view of what you think is rice Patties and the silhouette of the Hueys, the Huey's air.

Very iconic.

You immediately know that you're in Vietnam.

The first thing that I would say about this frame is that it's an iconic image from Vietnam, because it basically gives you the silhouette of the Huey and Dale Dye was wth e military advisor on this.

He's the one who helped us set up the camp to be exactly the way it would be in this kind of context.

All of this kind of prop ege that you see here with equipment they have here.

Every aspect of this is based upon the way it would be in a riel camp in Vietnam, because Dale Dye it had that experience.

He'd also been the adviser on platoon, and the number of movies had portrayed the Vietnam War.

Up to that point, I think the main part that makes you feel like you are in a place that could be Vietnam is basically the horizon here of what you think is rice fields these air Not really Rice field.

This is a delta that actually floods so that it actually has this kind of look.

But the idea was to keep it very simple.

Now they told us that Vietnam was going to be very different from the United States of America, except for all the beer cans on the barbecue.

It what a joke is.

It looks like it could be a barbecue in South Carolina because it's actually what it iss.

Once we found where we could build for US House, then we had to branch out from that area, unfortunately, were able to find places even close to where the house was, and then many others in that local area that we could stage is Vietnam.

So Forest and Bubba have now landed.

And now we're in the camp.

And what's the first thing you see is the ultimate product placement hit nom Coca Cola, Budweiser, Falstaff beer.

And we've got a very basic situation here, where we're setting up things that you can identify with us an audience as little tableaus.

You know, the barbecue, the card game, the beer that hanging out, and these walkways which basically take you throughout the scene because his part would all be flooded and then in the background in addition to this was just like I think this is one of the outhouses with water would filter down here is actually then have these helicopters going through.

So there's a lot of activity in the frame.

But all of these, this one and all of these are actually put in later with computer graphics.

We had to actually bring in palm trees, tow the battlefield on this set so that there was Maur that would convey that tropical feeling of being in Vietnam.

And that's a big deal, actually, because you've gotta bring in, you know, full scale palm trees, either forklifts or a crane and then dig around for the base to get them in there and to make sure that they're going to stand up.

One of the things that is very important and it seems like this is to give a sense that this isn't designed.

It actually is, Ah, place that you really would see people in an organic way.

I immediately drawn, of course, to the characters, but also this sign here.

It's something that said specifically later, Forrest says.

I dont may not know a lot, but I think that we had some of America's best young men here, along with all the you know, just the setup of the camp with the you know you've got the tents and you got the radio here.

So everybody, you know it's a tableau on one level or another is actually relating to something, whether it's something they're eating, drinking plain or in this case, listen to music.

And remember, in this sequence you're hearing music in the background so that radio is actually giving you a source for that music you're actually hearing.

This is all.

If you've noticed so far from their point of view as they move forward.

So it's it's it's personal to us.

You're just moving into the scene towards the first encounter with someone who's gonna be as important as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest and tow us just truck all the time.

So much you must be Maya Fangio.

The most important thing in this frame is this.

It's the toilet paper now.

This is pretty important, too, because that that that Cigar sets up Lieutenant Dan's character.

But the toilet paper gives emergency.

I mean literally.

And now the first thing out he comes upon these two guys and this is the introduction, you know, obviously to Forest Bubba.

But the things that are really the details here are the cigar, the fellow paper, his dog tags.

And I think that that's what makes that shot actually work.

The rest of it is, you know, you know you're in a camp.

There is one item of G I gear that could be the difference between alive socks.

I'm very aware of the production designer that the reason people go to movies is who's in it, what's it about?

And the background actually is the background.

If you know that people are working hard to create a background that takes you out of the movie.

So actually, it's a magic trick to do something that people don't notice because it feels like it's the right thing to be.

There just happens to be the exact right place for those scenes to take place.

Otherwise, it could look like this could just be a blank wall.

But everything you see in the frame is actually either going out somewhere or putting something there.

Sometimes it's a small detail.

It could just be this guy reading the hot red magazine, having a beer.

You know, we do certain things we might bring in this palm tree.

We bring in this tropical foliage, but really the ideas to give a overall feel with the vehicles, the movement, the people that you are somewhere that you believe you're supposed to be.

He was from a long, great military tradition.

Somebody in his family had fought and died in every Sango.

So this is a four shot montage to depict what Forest knows later about Lieutenant Dan.

The simple way to do that, of course, is number one toe.

Have the person who is dying in each war look like Lieutenant Dan because it's played by the same guy.

But he's also falling in the ground and iconic locales that you actually could recognize as being part of the war that the people would actually know about sort of through collective memory.

This would be Valley Forge.

Washington crosses a villa where in the winner, And that's why it's no.

These were just actually shot, as it turned out, on a rooftop with four different tableaus where Gary could then fall into and actually die the four times that he does when he's representing his ancestors.

We move on to the next American War, which is the American Civil War, and Lieutenant Dan.

It's a Northern fighter, and he's dying of cannon down.

And here in this scene, you've got World War II and you've got the mud of the trenches in the battlefields in France.

And you've got always indications that there's other people around who who died, even though he's a very big quick hit, is a flame thrower.

There was a lot of interesting properties that went in just to give you a little hit, but none of it is actually designed to look absolutely real in this frame.

It's it.

It gets closer, and it's a bit, in a sense, more personal dine on the Beach D Day.

It's probably a stunt pad underneath.

This is I remember so that he could fall.

But you don't want everything shake like that.

It was very simple set up, and it was actually, I think all of these were done at night.

It's a a succession of images that are that are not designed to be so heavy that it takes you out of the movie.

It's a part of forests memory to tell you this, but it's actually something he could never visualize.

Other than this kind of very simple way like you, almost looking a textbook of somebody telling you that we fought in four wars.

What did they look like?

You boys are hungry.

We got steaks burning right over here.

Two standing orders in this platoon.

One.

Take good care of your feet.

Two.

Try not to do anything stupid.

Lieutenant Dan's gotten to where he needs to get its place.

It's totally open with center of this camp.

All the privacy is broken down between everybody, and that's part of this whole scene, which is?

These guys are all becoming friends.

We have the graffiti in the background.

I remember this flag here as the Vietcong flag.

So you know, Lieutenant Dan's point of view would be that belongs on the outhouse, and we have actually a Southern flag back here in this type of case, because we have so much research, we can get photographs of what things look like and then make them look very real to what they would have looked like, particularly this case.

So we do a lot of construction.

I don't personally do most the drawings at all.

There's great people know how to do that.

And then the carpenters are fantastic and being able to follow those and make it come alive.

And the painters bring it alive to make it look like it's old.

And it's got the graffiti and the touches.

It's really a step by step design process from an idea, too, then sketching it up, then drawing it up to something that could be built and then laying out in a location or on a sound stage, or perhaps in the digital realm.

If it's CG and that's essentially the components to go into the production design.

So after we've left the camp, this is our first major establishing shot.

We're following the river.

We're continuing on our path through Vietnam through forest life.

And what we did is, of course, we brought in the extras and the cow and the people are all here.

And all this has brought in to look like it's part of the farming.

Everything from here on up is actually digital.

So this is actually a village that was constructed by i'il em in the computer, as were the mountains give you a type of topography that actually looks like a part of Vietnam.

And overall, it's basically now bring you out from the position that we were in, which was a very intimate entrance into a camp.

And now, when you get out into this shot here in the rial country of Vietnam, water is basically this metaphor for the reflection that the entire story is because it's a reflective story about a personal life and a cultural history, and the river or water runs through it.

You see it it for us, house.

You see it?

Question.

Do you see?

And throughout Vietnam and all the sequences.

There's kind of a sense of being by and on the river of life to tell this story.

And so here it is in this particular shot right here.

So that's just, Ah, one scene breakdown for a scum pits.

One small part of obviously a big canvas tells a story of forests through those life and times.

Every single shot is created with the idea to tell a story, and this is just one part of it.