Fog of War

A Feature Documentary about William McNamara, who was the secretary of defense during the Kennedy/Johnson era.

Not a genre that one would expect to find a Designer credited, but Errol likes to re-create certain environments for visual storytelling, which intercut to underline the sub-text, and illustrate some of Mcnamara's lessons. While the film is mainly interview footage of McNamara and a wealth of archival footage, there are many set pieces that were done in the studio, some of which never made the final cut of the film.

 
Designer:
Decorator:
Propmaster:
Construction:
Cinematography:
Music::
Editor:


Producer:
Director:

Steve Hardie & Ted Bafaloukas
Liz Chiz
Gary Shartsis
Dan Turk
Robert Chappell & Peter Donahue
Philip Glass
Karen Schmeer, Doug Able, Chyld King


Julie Ahlberg & Michael Williams
Errol Morris
 
 
 

 Sketch of period set. The room corner was recreated in various period styles
each having a radio and/or television of the period. The rooms were to be cut
into the film at appropriate moments where that period had audio/visual material.
Each room was stylized to be typical of the period. Unfortunately none of these
made the final cut.

  
   
   1920's 1930's  
   
1940's 1950's    
   
The dominoes falling across S.E.Asia sequence was originally worked out on paper and in 3D computer. I did this to determine the best sizes
for the dominoes and maps. The map was a period map, reproduced as a digital enlargement in scale to a regular sized domino. For the
last falling dominoes over Hanoi, we cut to an oversized domino and an enlarged section of the map keeping the scale consistent with the smaller
dominoes and map. The oversized domino allows for a more dramatic up angle, shot with the revolution lens system, slow-mo with dust.		    
   
For insert shots of Johnson on the phone in the Oval office, we built
the desk end of the room, with careful attention to dressing of that period
based on original photographs.		 A small set to house the telex machines that were receiving the communications from Russia during the "Cuban missile crisis". These working telex machines, and the original punch card machine in the film were generously made available to us through the Computer museum in San Diego.    
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