Visiting Mark at Third Rail Studios

June 20, 2019

Mark has been working about three weeks straight, so we decided to go out to Third Rail Studios where he is working as Construction Foreman for Netflix, preparing for the first shooting of a new television series. Security is tight, so he had to meet us in the parking lot and take us through the heavy security gate. Lunchtime is about the only time we could spend time with him, so we took lunch along for him. Jordan had cooked the lunch.

Mark led us in past the offices to the shop and supply area, which is always interesting to me.

The high-ceiling building space where they construct the sets is called the "stage" if I understand correctly. Under construction is a reproduction of the inside of a mansion that is a couple of miles away. All the inside shots are made in these sets.

Mark leads us through a kitchen set that is under construction.

A living area construction has cover on the carpet, and no ceiling. Most of the rooms have no ceilings so they can position lights and cameras. Even if there is a ceiling, it is built so that it can be lifted off for filming or lighting needs.

This is part of the bottom floor set, and it includes a partial stair. Shots which make use of the upper part of the stair are in the separate top-floor set.

As we enter another set, we see some of the large lift equipment used to position material over the sets.

We got to see different stages of construction in the upper floor set. Later, in Mark's office, we got to see some of the drawings they were working from. Leaving one set, we got a good view of the outside of another. It appears that several sets will be available at the start of shooting.

These high lifts are used to handle the electrical feed wires which come in at the top of the tall building.

One of the sets represents a sizable school. Apparently all the shots are planned as low shots since there are no ceilings anywhere visible.

Jordan had cooked lunch for all of us, so after our tour we went to Mark's office for lunch and further visiting. We very much enjoyed the tour and talking with Mark about the job and the building process. But he had a crew of 70 people working, nine of whom he had just brought in from California. So we had to let him get back to work.