"Dani" played by Ferin Bergen, and "Styx" played by Hunter McCoy
Logline
With the help of a deity, a young, headstrong intellectual must let go of her life’s dedication and pass on to the afterlife.
Production Designer's Lookbook
Staging the Warehouse Location
Impasse was the first television episode to shoot in the Winston Salem warehouse location during Winter of 2023. All four episodes shot at this location were required to use plastic tarps that were suspended from rafters, an aspect that you can also see in Lovesong. Learning to rig and decorate the space was a new experience, granted that the set design was mysterious and spectrally unembellished. The story and characters required a sole memory to focus on and emphasize as the afterlife set.
Mayra and I visited different art galleries to seek out a dozen varying pedestals, finding them at Sawtooth School for Visual Art. They were kind enough to let us borrow them, and from there, we used set dec from our prop house and created set dec when it was required. The real hunt was for the "hero vase," a large vase that would depict "Styx" ferrying "Dani" across to the afterlife. It was a several day process documented below.
Scenic Work
"Hero vase" - covered in papier-mâché and painted over with terracotta craft paint. Collaborated with property master to stencil in the main graphic. Muddied to produce an aged look
Graphic for hero vase created by Ari Cordero Rojas and turned into a die-cut sticker by property master, Thomas Day
Hand-made clay figurine and carved wood token kept in shadow boxes at the impasse
Inspiration for figurine set dec examined by production designer at museum