" The first thing he starts asking me is, 'How's your back? How are your knees?'" set decorator reveals about his first meeting out in the field with American Primeval director . As Hack explains in Gold Derby's Meet the Experts: TV Production Design panel, " I expected to get questions about my process and all," he smiles, adding that Berg wanted to shoot as much of the show in the elements as possible, emphasizing that "we're gonna be outside, we're gonna shoot this thing all outside in the weather, up in the mountains." (Watch our full interview above.)
Netflix's American Primeval, created and written by and directed by Berg, is set in 1857 during the Utah War against the backdrop of the wild American West and the bloody and brutal clash of civilizations between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Indigenous nations of the Utah Territory. The six-episode survival thriller stars , , , , , , , Preston Mota, Shawnee Pourier, and Shea Whigham.
"When you get out there at this point, it's like you're on another planet, at the mercy of the weather and your health. The fort developed as a one-stop shop of everything that you could possibly need, because we were on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in theory," Hack explains. "And then it's the trek over the mountains, down into Oregon or Northern California to the gold rush and all that kind of thing. It's where people would come to reset and rebuild, fix their wagons, resupply, and then the next hard trek over the Rocky Mountains through the passes, down to the west."
"The crew that I worked with, we bonded in a way that I don't generally think you do on most films. We were literally, physically fighting the elements together in the snow and the ice," Hack recalls. " I got just a taste of what it must have been like for these people that actually made that trek. I got to go home every night, you know? To think I was so exhausted just by the weather and the physical exertion it took to move around in these places," he says. "So much of it is helping each other in that way to not let someone try and be a tough guy or an overachiever in any way, as we really were in situations that could have gotten very dangerous for someone."
This article and video are presented by Netflix.
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
