A Clear and Dangerous Presence

While Warner Bros. is pinning its hopes on “Disclosure’s” star power, in the form of Michael Douglas and Demi Moore, as well as author Michael Crichton’s provocative, steamy story line, it may be the film’s set that eventually steals the show.

For at fictional DigiCom, where Douglas and Moore play out their passions and anger, employees work in a multitiered, open-floor complex of glass-walled offices as aesthetically appealing as it is ultimately chilling.

Just as one man plunges into doubts about who his allies really are, so the pleasing confines of DigiCom serve to create a growing sense of paranoia--who is watching whom?--as employees go about their daily routines, taking phone calls, greeting each other on walkways or typing messages on their computers.

The “Disclosure” set was the creation of production designer Neil Spisak, who along with a crew of 350 carpenters, welders, painters, draftsmen and others, transformed Stage 16 at Warner Bros.’ giant Burbank lot into an office complex so spectacular that even some Warner employees conceded they were saddened when it had to come down.

“Everyone who went onto the set got a good feeling out of it,” Spisak recalled. “They’d all say, ‘We’d love to work here.’ Ultimately, that was the goal. The point of the story is that this is a desirable corporation. They are very solvent and a very important commodity in the computer world. You get a sense of worth from the corporation.”

At the same time, he said, the employees all seem to be working together, not in some pecking order.

“There are open floors,” Spisak said. “You do see through everybody’s office and everybody in it. But as things sort of sour, rather than have all that working toward your advantage--it starts to work on your paranoia.”

One of the key scenes in the movie occurs when Moore’s character, Meredith Johnson, engages in a steamy seduction scene with Douglas’ character, Tom Sanders, with a view of the nighttime Seattle skyline in the background.

Spisak, 38, who has had a double career as a costume and production designer, initially hoped to find a building in Seattle that would have a period architecture to it that he could then work with, but none was available.

Using 147 tons of steel I-beams to support the structure, crews worked around the clock for eight weeks. When it was completed, DigiCom was 200 feet long and rose 3 1/2 stories, or nearly 50 feet inside the 60-foot-high soundstage.