American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 45

building, you can do it without
spending $20,000."
Heinrichs describes the film's
architectural

style as "colonial
expressionism. The look is not
historically accurate, it's more a
mish-mash of various styles. Since
the story of the Headless Horseman
takes place in a Dutch farming
community in upstate New York, the
film has

a

lot of Dutch architectural

touches, but

we

also built

some

English Tudor half-timber structures
with thatched roofs. We wanted

Sleepy Hollow itself to seem like a
insular community, as if the
residents and even the buildings were
huddled together in fear, almost like
a herd of sheep."
The project's construction

very

crew

included

as

many as

80-100

artisans

during periods of peak activ¬
ity. The production took up every
free inch of space at Leavesden,
where

sets

included the Van Tassel

Manor House and other

dwellings, a
portions of the
Stage H at
Shepperton housed the rest of the
Western Woods, including a witch's
creepy cemetery, and
Western
Woods.

and the Tree of the Dead, a

huge
the
Headless Horseman's gateway to hell.
cave

gnarled landmark that
Heinrichs

designs

notes,

serves as

"Some of the

reminiscent of the old
expressionist films The
Cabinet ofDr. Caligari and Nosferatu,
which have a very strong, graphic,
are

German

two-dimensional

three-dimensional
That's

look

within

a

environment.

something Tim and I have
always liked to play with in the films
we've done together."
The production designer's
biggest task was the construction of
Sleepy Hollow's town center in
Marlow. Nestled in a hunting
preserve that came complete with a
duck pond, the faux village included
everything one might expect from a
turn-of-the-19th-century storybook
setting: a covered bridge, a church, a
blacksmith's shop, a farmer's union, a
notary public, a halfway house and a
general store. During ACs nocturnal
visit to the production in February of
1999, a freezing rain had turned the
town's dirt road into a muddy ankledeep soup, adding further authentic¬
ity to the tableau but causing Burton

to

catch

nasty cold. Surveying the

a

while

applying a handkerchief
to his reddening nose, the director
seemed like a man who might be
happy to lose his head to the
Horseman's axe. "Happens to me on
every shoot," he moaned.
The crew's grim slog was
brightened a bit by Lubezki's lighting
setup, which comprised three giant
softboxes suspended from a trio of
scene

250-ton construction

cranes.

The

roof of each unit contained six 24-

light (Par 64) Dinos aimed down¬
ward, while three of the sides
contained

trio of

A view from

the main road
in

Sleepy

Hollow,

on

location in
Marlow.

Production

designer Rick
Heinrichs
describes the
film's
architectural

style

as

"colonial

expressionism,"
noting that he
and Burton

agreed that the
village should
seem

like "a

9-light MaxiBrutes
angled at 45 degrees.
According to gaffer John Higgins,

very

"Our initial idea for that

buildings

have
set,

a

a

tank-track road

and

we

set was to

ringing the

did tests with various

lighting rigs at the positions we could
access

from the tracks. That idea

proved to be impractical for
reasons.

Instead,

we

insular
community, as

if the residents
and even the
were

huddled

together in
fear, almost like
a

herd of

sheep."

many

decided to

suspend these very large soft sources
rotating bases that could be posi¬
tioned at any point above the set and
still be kept hidden. The art depart¬
on

ment

built

a

fantastic scale model of

American

Cinematographer 41
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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