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VLife

Beale Street, Memphis

It was incredibly important for my team and I to become
familiar with Elvis’s Southern experience. We visited both
Tupelo [Presley’s birthplace] and Memphis, and also
followed Elvis’s touring itinerary to absorb the topography
of the landscape. We were particularly sensitive to
re-creating an environment that wasn’t culturally our own.
Travelling to Beale Street to experience it firsthand was
invaluable. Nothing replaces actual experience when trying
to tap into the spirit of a location. While Baz is always
meticulous with research and detail, it was especially so
with Beale Street. He wanted it re-created truthfully but
also in a way that amplified its part in Elvis’s story.
My team delved through countless Memphis archives to
ensure every detail of the set was as historically accurate
as possible. We analysed each block in terms of businesses
and their shopfronts, everything from signs, street lights
and cornice details. It’s rather like being a detective.
Beale Street needed to be pieced together, not only from
photography, town-planning documents and written
history, but anecdotally from documentaries and video
interviews of people who experienced it in the ’50s.
One of the highlights of going to Memphis was
meeting Hal and his daughter Julie Lansky, the son and
granddaughter of Bernard Lansky who famously fitted
Elvis for many of his clothes during this period. The
Lansky clothing store on Beale Street started as an army
surplus store after World War II. It pivoted to become the
pre-eminent clothier to the extraordinary Black musicians
that frequented Beale Street.
Baz wanted us to reflect a thriving cultural mecca of
blues, rhythm and blues and jazz, and the profound
influence these Black musicians had on America’s cultural
landscape as well as on Elvis. The set had to illustrate his
delight and fascination not only with the musical influence
of Beale Street but also its style, embodied in Lanksy’s
shop window and also the people, none more so than his
musical idols like BB King and Big Mama Thornton.
One of the challenges is finding the right topography.
We were lucky at Suntown on the Gold Coast that it met
not only the sun-path requirements of Beale Street but
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ELVIS SENIOR ART DIRECTOR DAMIAN DREW
also director of photography Mandy Walker’s lighting
needs. The collaboration with Tom Wood (visual effects
supervisor) on the digital extension of the street was truly
exciting and the combination of the built set elements are
absolutely seamless in the film.
The most satisfying thing about the Beale Street set is it
represents how filmmaking is an art form entirely reliant
on collaboration. Art director Damien Drew oversaw the
creation of almost 90 metres of road including 11 sets
with 17 different shopfronts where we had more than
400 background players
and 150 period-correct
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP vehicles on rotation.
the interiors of Busch’s Bar
on the Beale Street set for Elvis. Walking from one end to
The coloured-only drugstore the other was a totally
on the Beale Street set. immersive experience. ››

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