'Barbie' Production Designers Reveal Hardest Part About Creating Barbieland  | THR Video - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

As 'Barbie' continues to take the box office by storm, moviegoers are wearing their favorite shades of pink and immersing themselves in the toy world. The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Production Designer Sarah Greenwood and Set Decorator Katie Spencer, the Oscar-nominated team behind movies such as 'Darkest Hour,' 'Anna Karenina,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Beauty and the Beast.' They opened up about the creation of "Barbieland," including the dreamhouse, from which Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and the cast filmed the Greta Gerwig-directed hit.

Transcript

00:00I have a real passion for Weird Barbie and the Weird Barbie house.

00:05I love that.

00:07As Barbie continues to take the box office by storm,

00:11moviegoers are wearing their favorite shades of pink

00:13and immersing themselves in the toy world.

00:15To learn more, we spoke with production designer Sarah Greenwood

00:18and set decorator Katie Spencer,

00:20the Oscar-nominated team behind movies such as Darkest Hour,

00:23Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice, and Beauty and the Beast.

00:26They opened up about the creation of Barbie Land,

00:28including The Dream House, from which Margot Robbie,

00:31Ryan Gosling, and the cast filmed the Greta Gerwig-directed hit.

00:34Can I come to your house tonight?

00:36Sure.

00:36I don't have anything they planned,

00:38just a giant blowout party with all the Barbies

00:40and planned choreography and a bespoke song.

00:41You should stop by.

00:43So cool.

00:44One of the first things we did was go out and buy a dream house

00:46and a couple of Barbies.

00:49Yeah, and that's...

00:49It's such a playing.

00:50It's such a playing.

00:51It wasn't recreating a dream house from any particular era,

00:54but it was an interpretation of a dream house

00:57that hopefully encapsulated the whole feel of them

01:01so that when people do say,

01:02oh, that's my dream house...

01:04It feels like the dream house.

01:05It feels like it is, but it's nobody's dream house.

01:07Well, it's Barbie's dream house.

01:09Well, it's Barbie's dream house.

01:10And Ken.

01:11And also, it's Barbie Land.

01:12It's a world that doesn't exist.

01:14So you had to create the world and what the world was,

01:18and you had to create the world in a world

01:20that has no elements, has no air,

01:23has no water and no electricity.

01:27And you're kind of going, well, what does it have?

01:29You know, so you're trying to work it out,

01:31you know, and what makes it toy

01:32and what makes them dolls, you know?

01:35So what you might see is something quite simple,

01:37but to arrive at that simplicity,

01:40I found very, very philosophically

01:43and intellectually challenging.

01:44Yeah, actually, it was really hard.

01:46The reason why we built everything

01:51is because it's, and built everything

01:53as opposed to doing a lot of CGI

01:55when we built miniatures as well,

01:58which gave us our outer worlds.

02:00You know, it was because Greta very much

02:02wanted the tangibility, you know, of it.

02:05You know, that what children,

02:06when they play, they touch, you know?

02:09And it's like everything, you can feel it.

02:12You can feel that it's in camera

02:13and it wants to feel like a giant toy.

02:16And also, it helps, it helps the actors immensely,

02:19I think, as well, and everybody else, yeah.

02:21Hi, I'm Weird Barbie.

02:23I am in the splits.

02:24I have a funky haircut and I smell like basement.

02:26Oh my God, I had a Weird Barbie.

02:28I have a real passion for Weird Barbie

02:32and the Weird Barbie house.

02:34I love that.

02:35And if I were to take something home

02:37from Weird Barbie's house,

02:38then I would be taking home her cat.

02:40One of the specific references for Weird Barbie

02:43was a literary reference.

02:46So, you know, when they're describing

02:47in Kill Your Mockingbird,

02:48the Boo Radley house,

02:50you know, and don't go near the Boo Radley house.

02:52And you get the feeling that

02:53if the Barbies were walking past Weird Barbies,

02:55they'd be going,

02:55don't look over there,

02:56don't look, don't look, you know?

02:58And then, you know,

03:00one of the other things was like the psycho house,

03:02you know, that's on the top of the hill

03:04with that, you know, it's looking up

03:05and it's got that shaped roof and everything.

03:07And then that led on to...

03:10Are you going to take the whole house?

03:12I'm going to take the whole house.

03:13And then it led on to Weird Barbie's ambulance,

03:16which to my mind was like the creepy coop

03:19out of the Wacky Races.

03:21And I think that when they designed

03:23the creepy coop out of the Wacky Races,

03:24they looked at the weird,

03:25they looked at psycho.

03:26So you've kind of got this full circle.

03:28So I would take home Weird Barbie's ambulance.

03:31I said, hey, check me out, yeah, I'm just kidding.

03:37Well, I'll tell you what was difficult

03:39was the swimming pools, right?

03:41So the swimming pools,

03:44and it's like, you know,

03:44like David Hockney's swimming pools

03:46and all the lovely pools you have in LA

03:47that we never have in London

03:48because we're all indoors.

03:50You know, so it's this beautiful painted,

03:52scenically painted,

03:53and then we poured on this resin,

03:55this kind of clear resin

03:57that would give us our undulated surface.

03:59And the first time we did it,

04:01it looked great.

04:02We poured on the resin,

04:03and the resin, when it reacts with itself,

04:05got so hot,

04:07it kind of bleached and burned

04:10all the scenic art underneath,

04:12so we had to chip it all out and stuff again.

04:14That was a pain.

04:15Humans only have one ending.

04:17Get that Barbie!

04:21Ideas live forever.

04:22One day you're all blinded.

04:25One day you're all blinded.

'Barbie' Production Designers Reveal Hardest Part About Creating Barbieland | THR Video

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