00:00Hey AD, my name's Kate Quinn. I'm the production designer on Bridget Jones' Mad About the Boy.
00:06Come and have a look at the set.
00:16Oh goodness, where did we leave Bridget last?
00:19Well, she was getting married.
00:21She just had her son and she was beginning her happily ever after with Mark Darcy.
00:29And when we catch up with her this time, things didn't quite turn out like she'd planned.
00:36Bridget is a single mom and she's raising her two children and she is trying to figure out how to begin again.
00:47The reality is suddenly completely terrifying and Mark and insane and flabby and oh god, oh god.
00:52I can't. I really can't.
00:55What?
00:56No, I just can't.
00:57It really is a collaborative effort to make a film.
01:00The costumes along with the set design, all of the elements come together to bring her to life
01:07and make her world that magical place that we like to revisit.
01:19So let's go and have a look in the kids' bedroom.
01:21So this is Billy and Mabel's bedroom.
01:23So I wanted to make the bedroom feel as though it was in two parts.
01:27Billy's is kind of a more serious part.
01:30He's into astronomy, he's into building Lego, he's into chess.
01:35So everything about Billy's sort of side of the room reflects that side of his creativity.
01:41And then you've got the crazy Mabel and she's younger as well.
01:44It's more disorganised and cute.
01:47Bridget has painted her bed, so you've got a lovely painted bed here.
01:51And then she's also painted Billy's but done it much more formally
01:56with the galaxy and different stars painted on the bed.
01:59Mabel's also painted a little bit on the floor with her mum.
02:02And then we have a wallpaper which is a bit like Bridget's wallpaper in her bedroom
02:07but a more Mabel version.
02:09And then this window is really, really critical because Bridget, Mabel and Billy
02:14all see this lovely owl in the garden who's watching them at various times in the film,
02:19keeping an eye, so they feel as though Mark is still there in their life
02:23but he's embodied by this lovely barn owl.
02:25This whole room is structured around all these scenes where they're looking out the window
02:30as well as all the other important scenes that happen in this room.
02:33There was a lot of thought put into the design to enable these rituals
02:38that Bridget shares with her children, bedtime rituals.
02:42And they've become really important in Mark's absence
02:46and how the children show their grief.
02:50Retrospectively, it's really clear that a lot of thought was put into these very important story points
02:55and subtext to give, especially the children, a safe place to play
02:59which enables them to be more open or to feel less vulnerable.
03:09This is Bridget Jones' new kitchen, her new house that she bought with Mark Darcy
03:14when they got married and where they had their children.
03:16As you can see, it's very fun and colourful, very Bridget Jones in its fun and cheekiness
03:23but it also has the serious Mark element.
03:26So it's a combination of their two characters, this house.
03:29The colour of the kitchen, which is this beautiful bright yellow,
03:32actually on camera it will feel a lot softer
03:36because of the digital in-camera LUT that we're using on the film.
03:40So it's all slightly faded back and will have much more of a filmic quality
03:44rather than a very vibrant bright yellow.
03:47I find when filming on digital, it's very difficult to make everything look real if you do fake.
03:54So I try to use real as much as possible.
03:56For example, the marble here, I used real floorboards which are reclaimed floorboards
04:01like an old house would have had a little bit of subsidence and settling in it.
04:05So I tried to put those elements in the set.
04:08The ceiling mouldings, I didn't want them to feel too crisp and new.
04:11I wanted them to feel as though they'd been overpainted.
04:14So we chipped away at them a bit, rubbed them down, added layers of paint
04:18just to kind of give that feel as though it'd been here for a long time.
04:22What a complicated challenge it must have been to find a nice mix
04:27between the styles of Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy to create that space
04:32because we know how very different they are and how they present themselves
04:36and how they dress and, well, in their personal styles.
04:40So I think they found a really nice mix.
04:43I love that she isn't precious about certain things
04:46and I love that what she likes, she likes and it's very charming.
04:50Please enter along.
04:53Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.
04:55Please enter along.
04:56No, don't put a blade down. We can save Josmelo.
04:59Please enter along.
05:00Please.
05:01Oh!
05:12I wanted to make something that was true to Bridget's character
05:15and she's now got children, so things have changed.
05:19There's all these details that kind of make it feel real.
05:22She doesn't mind the children drawing on the walls.
05:24There are everywhere, messing up the whole environment
05:27and then there's elements of Mark here, like, for example, this sofa,
05:30which is quite traditional, and then we've got the more playful,
05:33kind of fun Bridget elements dressed on top.
05:36The same with these very kind of simple chairs,
05:39which have a throw over, which is very Bridget.
05:41And then within this set, we've got, like, pictures of Mark and the children
05:46and then we've got, like, pictures which Mark might have bought in,
05:50like these Japanese prints.
05:52So the other key thing that we dressed in the set
05:54was obviously the iconic Bridget diaries.
05:57They're up here on the shelf here.
05:59These are all the old diaries from previous films
06:01and then we had to recreate a diary for the new film,
06:05which is sitting here over on the table.
06:07It's very important to Michael Morris, the director,
06:10that the diary had to be virtually identical
06:14to the original Bridget Jones diary, which is very, very beautiful,
06:18the colour, the ribbon, the way it was bound.
06:22They all slightly changed over different Bridget Jones films,
06:26so we tried to go back to the original first Bridget Jones film
06:30when Mark first bought the first diary for her.
06:33The chimerical qualities of that space,
06:35of the living room and the kitchen, which is the heart of the home,
06:38that opens out into this beautiful play space for her children
06:42just exemplifies the importance of her children in her life.
06:46It's vibrant and alive and it's a fun place to be
06:49and everything has been altered in some way to accommodate the kids
06:53and to put them as a central focus in the home
06:55and you can see it in both Mila and Casper's performances,
06:59the way that they integrate the space into their performances,
07:02up and down and climbing on this and that and throwing things over here.
07:06It's just a beautiful sort of space for Bridget to raise her kids
07:11in a way that's quite different than maybe Mom was, you know,
07:15raising Bridget back in the day.
07:17Now, what are you going to put on?
07:19This.
07:20Oh, don't be silly, Bridget.
07:22Go upstairs, lay out something lovely on your bed.
07:32So here we are in Bridget's bedroom.
07:35Bridget obviously is more grown up now, so I went for a wallpaper
07:39but something with a bit of fun in it and also a bit of tradition
07:43so it kind of fits with Bridget's character and Mark's character
07:46and this is the wallpaper we landed on.
07:48On this side of the room is kind of what was Mark's sort of side of the room.
07:54This would have been his chest of drawers that he might have had his clothing in,
07:58some books of his up here, and then there's layers of Bridget.
08:01She's not keeping it as a shrine, but she's got like the feeling of Mark here.
08:06Within the bedroom, it's kind of a little bit of fine-tuning dressing
08:09in as well as general dressing.
08:11Like there's a coffee here that's been left and a mug of tea.
08:15It's kind of this level of detail is really important for the believability of the characters,
08:20especially with somebody like Bridget's character, which everybody knows and loves.
08:30This is the bathroom, but I wanted like a flow of space between the two rooms
08:35so that you could get a real kind of moving in and out of, you know, characters here.
08:40We could have put a cupboard in the bedroom, but the space then wouldn't have been so dynamic.
08:45It made it more interesting to go in the bathroom.
08:47The other thing that we did, we put pocket doors in here
08:50and we found some amazing kind of antique glass
08:53and we got it properly leaded to kind of just give it a bit more character detail.
08:57So again, it lets the light through.
08:59It's just another little detail within the set that's really beautiful
09:03and it gives the set more space having the pocket doors.
09:06And then in the bathroom, it's very traditional, but it's also quite fun.
09:11It's got a really lovely cast iron bath near the fireplace here.
09:14Bridget's just used it, you know, as a ledge for her bits and bobs, which is really lovely.
09:20And then we've got a really kind of traditional chair, which is far more marked.
09:23And it feels very modern as well. It doesn't feel too old fashioned in those traditional.
09:27And then over here we have the double sink unit, which, you know, they bought together.
09:32His and her kind of sides and mirrors.
09:35We've got a few scenes with Bridget's trying on clothes to go on dates.
09:38So we created these louvered cupboards, which are full of Bridget's kind of mess of clothing.
09:43And then we have the camera trap. The back of the cupboard comes off.
09:47So when they're filming the scene with Bridget getting all the stuff out,
09:50the camera's behind the cupboard looking at her as she's doing it.
09:56Hello, old friend.
10:05It was quite a challenge for me to make a new set for Bridget Jones.
10:15You've always seen her in her lovely flat in the Borough Market,
10:18which Gemma Jackson designed back in Bridget Jones 1.
10:21I had a lot to live up to from all the other films. It's obviously got a massive fan base.
10:27It's just so warm and familial and familiar.
10:32It's Bridget as a mom at her finest, you know.
10:37And you can see the love between Bridget and her children.
10:41One of the things that I find so special about the experience of making the Bridget Jones films
10:49is that there's an opportunity to reconnect with this character, this person that I love,
10:57and just to check in with her and be immersed in her world once again.
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