TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: SEEING THE FILM THROUGH THE LENS OF MEDIA LITERACY
© 2006 Frank Baker
SETTING, PRODUCTION DESIGN & ART DIRECTION
Watch an edited two minute highlight reel from TKAM here; notice the set design. (Real Player required)
Frame (above) taken from opening scene; showing homes on street, part of exterior set for TKAM.
Publicity still photo also showing exterior set, same scene.
FROM THE 1963 PROMOTION KIT
“One of the largest outdoor sets to be built in Hollywood in recent years is $225,000, 15 acre southern village built for use in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’….to avoid taking an entire production company into the deep south for exterior sequences in the picture, (producer) Pakula and (director) Mulligan decided to ‘bring the south to Hollywood.’ Under the supervision of art directors Alexander Golitzen and Henry Bumstead, a complete southern village was erected on the Universal back lot. The set contains more than 30 buildings and is divided into two principal sections—a downtown area with courthouse and surrounding stores and a residential street. This town actually duplicates sections of Monroeville, Ala., present home of Harper Lee…………Cost of the set would have been at least $100,000 more had it not been for the ingenuity of Golitzen and Bumstead. Learning that a number of clapboard houses of the same general style as many Monroeville homes were being demolished to make room for a new Los Angeles Freeway, Golitzen and Bumstead made arrangements to buy a dozen of these houses. After they had been moved to the studio back lot and slightly remodeled to match specific Monroeville houses, the total cost to Universal was approximately $25,000. To have built them from the ground up would have cost close to $125,000, according to Golitzen.” 6
” You know something strange is that the world that production designer Henry Bumstead had created not only the street but here on what is the square on the backlot at Universal, I had people for years after the movie opened, come to me and say ‘I know exactly where you shot that,’ and they would mention some town in the South…..and they were very dismayed when I said ‘I’m sorry, but it was done at Universal Studios.” (Robert Mulligan, Director, TKAM) 7
