Set director Julietta Alvarez remembers first entering the prison which was to become the set of Mel Gibson’s new movie ‘Get the Gringo’. “Actually, we had to add everything. We had to take everything out because it was in complete in really, really bad conditions [...]; we had to throw everything out,” she said. “When my team came already half of the prison was cleaned out of things that were left behind like TV sets and their things. And the other half was with some things and in really bad conditions so we couldn’t use it for putting people inside and things like that.”

The construction, art and set dressing departments created every detail that you see,” said production designer Bernardo Trujillo. “You walk into each one of the cells you see things that look and smell real because they had the privilege to walk in the prison when it was recently emptied so you could still see traces of the real life, how the inmates lived here.

So they got to see pretty amazing stuff of how people could actually make a house out of 4 feet by 2 feet space. All the love you can put into a small bunk to create universe that represents your small space. We had a lot of inspiration definitely but what you see is a lot of work form a lot of people. The spontaneity of people even in the worse conditions is amazing. They make a house out of the most depressing space you can imagine and that is to me beautiful even in the saddest place in the world which I think is jail,” he concludes.

“All the paintings on the wall, we did it. You have to do it new and then we have to go through them and make them old, to make to rundown,” said Ms. Alvarez.

There were a few graffiti drawings on the walls but not even 5% of what you see in the production’s set,” said Mr. Trujillo. The production hired mural and graffiti artists to create all the art seen throughout the prison in the film. “Everything was created. It’s hard to find the originals here. It’s been amazing and tremendous work from a lot of people,” he concluded.

“Adrian [Grunberg, director] said just go real and that’s how we researched it, looking at different videos at different jails similar to this one, talking to people who were here. I am not sure what the camera will be seeing so I want to cover as much as I can. Everything is a set. And that’s why it’s a big challenge because it’s huge and it has a lot of details.”

“A lot of what we do is for environment for the crew and the extras to feel as if they are in jail or in a real place, not a set,” said Art Director Jay Aroesty. “A lot of the decoration of what we do is for the crew, for Adrian to feel in a real place, for the extras not to feel like extras but really in a jail. “

“Basically the aesthetic was to have enough authenticity in the film so people could actually witness what had happened in this prison but also enhance it in such a way that it’s interesting for the audience meaning the real place actually had a chaos of colors and a chaos of textures and a chaos of everything – and in film’s that’s too distracting,” said Mr. Trujillo. “You have to narrow it down to a smaller color palette and those sort of decisions but definitely based on some sort of reality.  It’s like an enhanced reality from a film perspective but it’s definitely based on reality.

“How would the people and the production design blend together in a believable way without creating such a chaos that the audience would be too distracted,” he continued.  “It’s a thin line between becoming too stylized and becoming too realistic. You have the find the right spot in the middle. We all saw a very sweaty, a very colorless space even though color is there – there’s a hint of color everywhere but it’s sort of faded away.

And it’s allowed in certain items but only in little details but not in the overall look of the walls or the wardrobe. And in reality we’re stretching it a little bit because in reality someone could wear a fluorescent color t-shirts and still be in jail but we decided to stay away from those colors; I think it’s too distracting for the audience. We pretty much narrow it down to a small color palette and started working with those limited colors to try to create chaos out of that. And I think that’s more interesting.

“And there was humor everywhere in the prison,” reflected Mr. Trujillo. “All the research we’ve done — from Mexican prisons to Latin American prisons to African prisons – one of the things that was repeated over and over was exactly that – how people find humor in every situation and how people find beauty in the hardest situations that you can imagine.

And in a way, the Third World is very similar whether you’re in Africa or in Indonesia or Central America or in Mexico – there are so many similarities, especially like in jails, in jail life, in what people ending up doing trying to lead a normal life even in those conditions is actually beautiful. They find a way to make their monotonous life not so monotonous and beautiful and colorful. “

Following filming in Veracruz, the production then moved to the town of Perote, 90 minutes outside Puebla and half-way between Veracruz and Mexico City. Salado, a dry lake bed in the municipality of Tepeyechualco just on the borderline of Perote, was the isolated and barren setting for the high speed car chase and heart-pounding crash through the US-Mexico border wall. Solado is surrounding by mountains and lies at an elevation of 7875 feet or 2400 meters.

Following, the cast and crew moved to Mexico City for locations around the city and stage work at the Churabusco Studios. Production’s final wrap location was Brownsville, Texas, seconding the border area of between San Diego and Tijuana in Baja California.

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About the author

Claudia Sondergaard
Specialised in American foreign policy media discourse, I have a real passion for media and writing and feel comfortable in subjects such as human rights, politics, environment, social issues, movies, TV and books. Reporting from Denmark. Follow me @swirlgirlversus

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