GIVING LIFE TO THE AFTERLIFE
The Good Place creator Michael Schur confers with Producer David Hyman.
first six episodes of Parks and Recreation,” recounts Sackett. “We thought, ‘Can we go to Larchmont, can we go to some real little town?’” Picking up the creative baton, Hyman continues, “‘Can we go to The Grove?’ At one point, we thought we could shoot at The Grove and that would be the afterlife.” Sackett explains, “But we couldn’t go to these places that have, y’know, parking meters and so many terrestrial things that would have to go away.” Turning their attention from earthly limitations to studio Shangri-La, the production team finally arrived at the Little Europe section of the Universal backlot, which was a fixer-upper at the time. “It was certainly a long process, because we didn’t have enough money Season 1 to buff it out the way we wanted to, but every year we would do more,” says Sackett. With their HQ firmly established, the creative team quickly got on the same page. “One of the many great things about Mike Schur is that we would have scripts way in advance,” says Hyman. Schur also planned ahead when he enlisted his trusty producing team to
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help bring his ambitious vision to life. “Integrity, unmatched professionalism, unflappable calm, generosity of spirit, a tireless commitment to getting it right. These are the adjectives Morgan and David told me to use when describing them, and I’ve learned it’s always best to do exactly what they say,” quips Schur. “Following their suggestions to the letter is honestly the only way I’ve survived in Hollywood to this point.” Hyman also looked beyond Hollywood, moving Heaven, Earth and everywhere in between to evoke The Good Place. “We scoured locations for days and days and days and came up with Huntington Gardens, which we used a lot.” Paradise percolated from several corners of SoCal. “We went to the beach because the ocean is beautiful and perfect,” beams Sackett. “We had a great visual effects guy who just cleaned everything up, this guy David Niednagel.” Hyman exclaims “Just amazing!” at the mere mention of Niednagel’s name. “He would just buff it out,” continues Sackett. “He would just take all the power lines out and make the skies blue.” Hyman adds, “He was the reason why
we could shoot a lot, because we could turn around and see the buildings, but he would make them all go away or make them look beautiful. Having him was our secret weapon because we could shoot anywhere, and he could fix it.” Concurring with his partner’s assessment, Sackett interjects, “I feel like a lot of our success is the people we gather along the way.” Flipping through the call sheet in his mind, Hyman declares, “We’re only as good as the people we hire. David Miller, who is our Director of Photography, I knew from West Wing and thought he’d be great. He met everyone, and they fell in love with him. He was really great about using additional cameras for coverage. He was kind of the secret sauce to our success, in terms of how we moved quickly.” Time and timelessness were of the essence for The Good Place, a surreal exploration of candy-colored purgatory and the endearing characters who inhabit it. “A lot of the things we do, we do to get the maximum amount of acting per hour,” says Sackett. “When you get more cracks at it with funny people, you get