Madonna, Rhianna, Ilana + Fruit Cart!

On last night's Broad City one of the funny little joyful sequences was Ilana's little jaunt arriving at Madison Square Park. 

For this sequence, one of the key pieces of set dressing was a classic NYC fruit cart.  

There are many ways to go about finding the right fruit cart, but in this situation we decided approaching a working fruit cart nearby and negotiating a rental deal was the ideal choice for ultimate authenticity. 

The fruit cart we used in its natural habitat on 6th Ave in Manhattan

So I walked up and down 6th Ave approaching different fruit vendors. As you can imagine, most of the guys working a fruit cart are not interested in entertaining little requests like this + many don't have the authority to ok a non-traditional request like this. 

But I finally found, Helal, who was willing to do it.  Finding out he was a Bangladeshi immigrant, I talked him up in Bangla which I learned while living in Bangladesh for two years when I was a Foreign Service Officer--who knew speaking Bangla would turn out to be so useful for set decorating in NYC? 

Here is the fruit cart in question on set, Helal on the right in the brown shirt, and the actor who plays him on the left in the maroon shirt. Hilarious right? oh also, Ilana on the right. 

I thought Helal and I talked about him bringing another plain umbrella for the shoot, but when we got to set we realized the only two umbrellas he had were all marked up with company brand names. In the future, I will always bring an extra back-up umbrella-lesson learned. 

So then it became an issue of finding the right matching blue tape nearby to do the best "Greeking" job we could on short notice. 

It isn't the greatest color match, but it was the best we could do on such short notice. 

I'm sure when you watch that sequence for the first time your attention was focused on Ilana and her unique blend of charming and irreverent joyful charisma.  I, however, was watching the blue tape. 

You can watch the whole episode "Burning Bridges" (Season 3, Episode 8) from Broad City here 

Broad City's Warehouse Sale

The crazy warehouse sale Abbi and Ilana come upon in Season 3, Episode 1

In Broad City's Season 3 premiere Abbi and Ilana go on one of their signature NYC epic days and one of the fun scenes they come upon is a crazy NYC warehouse sale. 

Finding enough clothes to fill a store size space with a limited budget to sustain the wear and tear required for the chaotic and vicious action required in the scene, was a challenge. 

a hilariously exaggerated representation of how competitive NYC Warehouse Sales can be

We had to get resourceful so we asked some local fashion brands for product placement, hit up our favorite by the pound thrift store, bought some discounted high-fashion clothes, and lastly rented racks of clothes that were actually part of the location's actual pop-up sale inventory. 

But renting clothes at this quantity from someone can be tricky because they need it all back, and if you watch the sequence you see there is a lot of intense movement of clothes with lots of opportunity for confusion and mix-up.

So one of my jobs was to take a detailed inventory of all the clothes we were renting so that we could be sure we returned everything after shooting. 

Since I didn't have my computer with me, it had to be a good'ol handwritten list.  A list like:

And it worked.  It allowed us to start the day dressing the set like this:

fill it up like this in a day

then have it look like this at the end of filming:

And have each piece of clothing back where it belonged. 

You can watch the whole, super fun, hilarious, and full of Broad City charm episode here. 

My first IMDB Credit!

woooooo hooooooo!

I feel so legit now.  Though, how do I get all the other credits of things I worked on up there?

SWATCHING!

spent the rainy humid morning swatching it up at Mood Designer Fabrics of Project Runway fame.  These were the original colors they wanted to upholster some panels. 

And then the direction changed to: 

where I had fun exploring the old school upholstery and fabric stores of the Lower East Side and returned to the production office with bags full of fun swatches.  

And now also an Art Dealer

We recently filmed an Art Gallery scene which of course we needed to fill with art. 

So I called up some NYC artists I know whose art was the right style for the vibe they wanted. One of these artists is a friend from high school Crys Yin who has a studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 

At the end of the shoot, the director liked one of Crys' paintings so much she bought it!

So during the one-day fake art show, we sold a piece! Does this make me an art dealer now???

busting out my Bangla skills for a Fruit Cart

We needed a fruit cart for an exterior shot, and the ones at the prop houses we looked at weren't cutting it. 

So the Production Designer asked if we could find a guy on the street and just rent from him. 

So I walked up 6th Ave and started asking guys.  Many were skeptical and couldn't be bothered.  

Quickly I realized they were all Bangladeshi and since I lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh for two years and learned Bangla I realized I could use a little bit to ease in the ask. 

So I busted out my latent Bangla skills and found a guy, Helal who worked out great. 

When I gave him the check two days after filming he even asked me if I wanted a piece of fruit for the road. 

Making a Tex-Mex Joint an Art Deco Bar

When I was the Production Designer* on a silly web series "Put it On the Table" and one of the challenges we were given was to transform a contemporary Tex-Mex restaurant into an Art Deco vibe.

I'm proud of finding that sconce lamp and think it really made this shot. 

Now I love Art Deco period design. like LOVE. As in, I'm a member of the LA and NYC Art Deco Societies, go to the annual Jazz Age Lawn Party, (so in other words I'm a little nuts) and my dream is to work on a period piece film or TV series set in the era. 

Considering this, it was both a fun challenge and a frustrating experience to work with a micro-budget to capture the essence of the Art Deco aesthetic (the era in which Monopoly was designed) on a set that wasn't suppose to be a faithful and historic Art Deco interior but rather a surrealistic and disjointed fever dream suggestion of the Art Deco aesthetic. 

Additionally, the location they found for us to use for these shots was a Tex-Mex restaurant and we would have 20-30 min to dress the set in between other scenes shot there. 

Considering this, I think we got the job done for under $30:

*I mean I was Production Designer, Set Decorator, Set Dresser, Props, and On-Set....you know for these small things you are basically the whole Art Department.  In this case it was my talented friend Eimi Imanashi and I who were the Art Department for the whole shoot. 

Searching for the Perfect Cake

I love nothing more than being on a quest for that *perfect* item (which is why I find Set Decorating work so fun). And once I'm on the hunt it is hard to temper that impulse to check "just one more store."

Sometimes you have to go through a lot of options (see the range of options I scouted above) until you find that perfect one that the Production Designer (in this case Angelique Clark) had in mind.

and we all know *perfect* means available right away, right size, and good price

you can watch the whole funny promo spot for Odd Mom Out below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dioLWF6oLL4