So, my husband and I are major pop culture junkies.  We frequently “movie-tv show-song lyrics” speak to one another…as in, if one of us is going on a quick errand he/I may say “I’ll Be Back” and the other may follow up with “May the force be with you”. Or, if we find ourselves with something too small for our purposes, we’ll look at each other and say “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”.  I won’t even bother you with the “Oops, I did it again”, “Let it be” and “No Soup for You!” scenarios — you get the picture.  At the very least, now you know who to call when you need to know the name of the actor who was in that movie with the cute little monster who wasn’t so adorable if you broke those three rules.  Can’t wait for the televised World Series of Pop Culture to start again! We seriously dominate that game…from the couch, of course.

Anyhoo — this leads to my looking forward to receiving our Entertainment Weekly magazine every Friday.  There I am, perusing its pages at my leisure, when lo and behold they do this nice little piece on one of the sets of the movie Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

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The cool thing is that the Oscar-nominated production designer, Sarah Greenwood, is talking about the finishes!  She calls the movie “a purely decorative event”. And how! The elevator on the right is fully gold-leafed. (Wha…?? Serious decadence.) The curved wall area above the piano has metallic reliefs and some glazing.  The banister is custom-made and it looks like some decorative metallic accents were added to the iron.  Even the angels in the back have their own story.  The set was for the luxury apartment of a character and they wanted to make it look like a “complete jewel box”.  Ms. Greenwood also did the design for 2005’s Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Darcy, sigh…..) and I truly loved the sets and the artistry in that movie as well.  I’ll have to check out her other works.

The production design element in films holds a very dear place in my heart since it, in essence, is what started me on this career path.  Although the Miss Pettigrew set does have an over-the-top fairy tale feel, it’s still amazing to see the places where you can find design ideas…who knew an afternoon at the movies could be so inspiring?