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Speaker 1: This is an R Media podcast.
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Speaker 2: One of the significant things about my brilliant career, you know, just in terms of the design is I really wanted a sort of arc, if you like, a sort of arc of the architecture that's really not only representative of the story, but very representative of Australia.
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Speaker 1: I'm Elle Lovelock, Editor-in-Chief of Home Beautiful. Welcome to The Edit, where we bring you into beautiful homes with the people who create them. Today, we're stepping inside a different type of home, the exquisite interiors and gardens that make up the backdrop of my brilliant career, Netflix's new Australian period drama, based on the novel written by Miles Franklin. The show captures the essence of what I imagine 1900s Victorian Australia would be like. Yes, it's a period drama, but it's not quite Downton Abbey, nor is it Bridgerton. It's something uniquely us. Our landscapes, our architecture, and our stories. Stories that still resonate today. One of the standout houses includes the Beecham Family Home, which was filmed at a beautiful location in South Australia. with parts of the house recreated on a soundstage. And then there are all those incredible period details, the furniture, objects, and antiques, many of which were sourced with the help of the National Trust. So today, I'm talking to a woman behind it all, production designer Felicity Abbott, about how you create a home that feels genuinely lived in, authentic to its time, and unmistakably Australian. Felicity, welcome to the edit.
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Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
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Speaker 1: It is so exciting to be having this chat with you because personally, what you've worked on recently is, I would say, an obsession of mine, and that is Victorian era music. architecture and interior design in Australia. Oh, perfect. I know. It's just something I'm so interested in. I live in a Victorian house. I love history. I love learning about how people lived and, you know, in a way that's why I became a journalist. But why don't you tell us how you came to be working on the project, My Brilliant Career?
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Speaker 2: Well, I feel the same way as you for different reasons. I mean, I absolutely love architecture. I love design. I love cinema. So it's a combination of all these things. I really love historical projects and I've worked on quite a few of them over my career. But this is one of my favorite periods also. And I think it's probably, there's only one or two times where I've got to design this particular period. And so it was a wonderful opportunity when I couldn't pass up. And also just because the scripts, the writing was just so powerful and so strong. You know, immediately I read the scripts that I was sent. I was like, yes, absolutely.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely. You were saying earlier we were chatting that you've been away for nine years out of Australia. Yes. But this is the project that brought you back.
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Speaker 2: It did indeed. I've been living in the States and in Europe for the past nine years. I left Sydney in 2017 just to explore different projects and different cultures and different countries to work in, which has been great. But yes, this drew me back mainly because of the people that were involved, because of the story. It's such an important novel and obviously a very important film. one that I studied myself at AFTRS when I was doing my master's. Oh, really? You know, it's a very important work. But this is obviously an evolution from that. It's a standalone piece. And the fact that it was historical was even more sort of attractive to me. So it was yes, a very loud yes.
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Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning of... creating the homes in My Brilliant Career. So set the scene for us. What was the brief to you? What was the period and what did they tell you?
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Speaker 2: My information first and foremost comes from the story, you know, from the writing and the characters. And I approach that before I even, you know, I sort of do a presentation, like a big sort of pitch visual document, if you like. to the director and to the producers and obviously to the creator, producer, Liz Doran. So after I was sort of hired on the job, a lot of my process is quite solitary at the beginning. So I really go into the script, you know, sort of do a deep dive into the period, which was, you know, approaching 1900, obviously. So approaching Federation in Australia. And so I spend sort of, you know, weeks and weeks just collecting imagery. I take a lot of reference from historical painting, historical photography, if there's photography at the period. You know, poetry, writing, could be anything, you know, anything that sort of inspires me to tell the story. And then I put together a very comprehensive visual treatment that really goes into quite a lot of depth with the palette. and tone and style primarily. So I suppose it's a real departure from interior decoration, interior design in that sense, because it's really responding to character.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the characters are a starting point. What is it that you need to know about a character to be able to build out their home, their look?
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Speaker 2: My way of approaching it is to, you know, I see the responsibility of the production design, you know, and generally I should say the production designer is obviously responsible for the visual narrative, you know, largely in consultation with the director of photography. And in my department, I obviously have, you know, art directors, a set decorator, set designers, you know, up to hundreds of people sort of implementing that whole process over a very long period of time. But collectively, I think we're responsible also for creating the kind of backstory of characters. So one thing I like to do in my process is get the, in this case, the creator, the showrunner, Liz Doran, and the director came to this as well. I like to have a sort of open session in the art department where all of my sort of key people are there and they can ask their own questions about character because, you know, obviously it's the set decorator and her team that have to put in all that sort of juicy detail, you know, into the drawers, into the sets. And it's not something that's in the script necessarily, you know. Obviously properties, which is the hand prop, something that an actor touches, that's usually written into the script. But a lot of the detail in set decoration is unscripted, you know. It's up to, that's our job really to tell that story. And I think, you know, actors have told me over the years, I've seen many times, and also watching projects myself, I think, you know, when you have that attention to detail, I mean, it really helps actors sort of ground themselves in the space. It really helps the work become more authentic, more believable, you know, that the person actually lives there. And you do notice when it's missing. I certainly do. But others who are not designers have also told me that, you know, you do notice, you have a sense of completion and authenticity and wholeness when it's that detailed. It's just like a real house.
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Speaker 1: It is. And a space makes you feel one way or another.
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Speaker 2: Particularly as we're building sets, they're fake for all intents and purposes. So they're temporary walls standing in a studio, and then there's all these layers of paint and scenic process and finish on them. And so everything within that space needs to feel solid and whole and and complete in terms of detail you know people have to stand inside it and really believe that they're in a you know a solid piece of architecture that joins to the exterior house that we've often filmed in so it's a big cheat really and I love it I've had directors say to me you know that a lot of directors aren't that that confident or they they prefer not to shoot in you know set builds on stage because often we'll have an exterior location as in the case for my brilliant career, we had some, you know, very, some very significant houses that we filmed in mansions, you should say, in South Australia. But then we'd build, I built the interior on stage, you know, with my team. So I think it, you know, it takes a lot of skill actually to sort of translate that and sort of make those join together seamlessly, if you like, the transition from the exterior property to the interior stage.
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Speaker 1: Tell us, Felicity, about working with the original buildings. How much are you allowed to do when creating the set that you need versus not doing anything naughty to a heritage building?
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's always a very tricky negotiation and it really... is a negotiation. In the case of my brilliant career, we had a wonderful supervising location manager who sort of takes care of all those discussions. I suppose for me, I'm very involved in location planning you know, selection, because it's obviously fundamental to my craft. And also I think in the most significant thing, one of the significant things about my brilliant career, you know, just in terms of the design is, you know, I really wanted a sort of arc, if you like, a sort of arc of the architecture that's really not only representative of the story, but very representative of Australia. Yes. So, I mean, you mentioned a Victorian architecture, which I also really appreciate. So Kattegat, which is, you know, obviously the, I suppose it's the connection to Europe in the story in some ways, because it's Mrs. Bossier's, you know, character home. It's sort of typically conservative of the period of the time, as opposed to Five Bob Downs, which is Augusta's home, which is a real departure, you know, it's very sort of heightened, very stylized. So, you know, we looked long and hard for the right category, because it's sort of the foundation of the entire story, really, in terms of grounding, you know, Sabella's journey. How do you go house hunting? Well, that's primarily, it's the sort of initial task of the location manager. You know, the location scouts go out and they sort of look, they looked across the entire state. And then we all, we look at a short list of photographs and then we all traipse around in a bus for days and weeks. looking at various properties. I mean, I can tell a lot by photographs. You know, I'm looking for particular things. In this case, I was looking for something that was typically Victorian Australian, you know, very iconically Australian for Kattegat. I was looking for sort of classical symmetry that was a little bit more European, if not Mediterranean for Five Bob Downs, you know, quite a sort of distinction in style.
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Speaker 1: And is that again because it relates back to the characters?
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Speaker 2: Yes, in some ways, but also to have a point of difference. But yes, it does relate back to the characters because obviously there's a sort of Augusta and Mrs. Bossy are sort of diametrically opposed in terms of their approaches to life and being women of the period. So yeah, very much so. The interior is more so, but I think, yes, you definitely see that reflected in the exterior houses.
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Speaker 1: The whole flavor, as you're saying, is really, really Australian and quite often period film, TV shows can be a bit British or European leaning. So what was it that you were looking for and how did you make this feel so Australian?
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Speaker 2: You know, across the, across the show, we had four significant environments. We had others, but the sort of foundational pillars, if you like, in terms of the homes. Our Kattegat, which is the Bossier, you know, this is Bossier's home, five Bob Downs. But then we also built completely from scratch, but in the environment and on the studio, Possum Gully, which was Sibylla's family home. So that was a complete build in the environment. And then we shot the interior actually on location, but it was a complete build. So that was a matter of selecting, you know, an environment that was... you know, it's all about the landscape. It was just, it was full of gums and we obviously had all those beautiful, uh, white cockatoos sort of, they were just sort of flocks of them, like dancing through the sky every afternoon. It was a spectacular location. And then we sort of pegged out the house to get the right sight lines. So the camera has, you know, beautiful angles from every approach. And then we built it as a house basically. I mean, it wouldn't last more than a few months, but we literally built it, uh, as a, as a house. in the location. So that was very much about the landscape. And it's your typical sort of, you know, stone, a South Australian stone house with the two windows at the front and the central door that looks a bit like a face.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
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Speaker 2: So that was a wonderful experience, building that in winter, a little bit of a challenge. And then Passamgali, which is where Sabella gets sent to teach the children, which is a really chaotic sort of contrast to Possum Gully. For that, I looked more into Australian sort of bush architecture, which has a whole history of, you know, since colonization really. So that was really looking into those kind of pioneer techniques of, you know, slab huts and bark roofs. And so that was a complete build also. They all have a very strong relationship with the landscape around them, these homes, which for me is very important in terms of the story.
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Speaker 1: In just a moment, Felicity shares why colour is the foundation of her work and how she chooses what makes the final edit of what you see on screen. Well, let's go inside the homes because what struck me is the use of colour. Shall we start with colour?
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Speaker 2: Always the best place to start.
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Speaker 1: I didn't realise that... there were so many blues in Victorian interiors. And see, this for me as well, it's in education. It is so exciting. Tell us about how you created the color palettes for Inside the Homes.
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Speaker 2: For me, color is everything. You know, I've often said in interviews, it's my first language. You know, it's a very intuitive response to story, to storytelling. And so... Color sort of arrives for me as I'm reading the story, usually. It's a sort of response that just kind of happens. And then I work a lot with not so much a primary palette, it's more the secondary and tertiary tones, which are sort of the subtle extrapolations of color. And it's very much also about texture. There's a direct relationship in filmmaking, obviously. The light is very significant. And it's very different from the way that your eyes look at colour on the walls of a home, for example, where you have to very much consider what the camera sees, what the lighting is going to be, whether the scenes are day scenes or night scenes. And so there's very specific considerations to what actually ends up on the walls of homes. And over the years, I suppose I've um, experimented a lot with their sort of emotional, um, responses to color and tone and texture, you know, and what, how they ascribe to particular scenes, you know, that might be very dramatic or, or very sort of happy typically. Cause I think in the past, you know, a lot of filmmakers have tended to, you know, to put cool tones, like the blues and greens that you're talking about, you know, sort of, um, paint environments that are typically, you know, they're very heavy emotional scenes or the tone of the, you know, the scene might be quite dark or the film as a whole. In recent years, I've sort of started to experiment with warmer tone colours, you know, for sort of very dramatic scenes and had very interesting results. So it's such a powerful language colour. I mean, for me, it's the sort of foundation of my craft. And I suppose that's not the way for all production designers. You know, I come from a fine arts background, so... For me, color is everything.
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Speaker 1: I really noticed the use of gold and those rich yellows. And for example, is it the guest room at Caddagat?
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Speaker 2: In Augusta's home, there's a lot of golds.
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Speaker 1: It sparkles. And that's something else that struck me. It just draws you in. It's delicious.
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Speaker 2: Oh, great. I'm glad you noticed that. Yes, that was quite a bold choice actually. It was for Augusta's Parlour, which is sort of the circular, the circular, it's the kind of heart of Five Bob Downs. And that was actually filmed on location just because the way things are scheduled sometimes and, you know, where things are in the story, we needed some, we filmed in two actual rooms at the Five Bob Downs location. Just because we had so much filming there, we built a barn next door for the workers' party on the same property. We did all the formal gardens. There was a lot of work at this property, probably the most work. And there were a lot of night shoots. There's New Year's Eve scenes with fireworks and stuff in the formal garden, quite a lot of scenes. So to make use of that and to have, we need to allow for weather. So we need to have interior spaces in case it pours with rain and we need to suddenly go inside and film. We actually filmed in two existing rooms there, which I did get permission to fully treat, which is my nature. I always have to sort of implement our palette, the palette for the show, which is obviously very different from what the location owners were living with at the time. So it was a complete transformation. We even had to cover white architraves that had been painted. gloss white, which is obviously a contemporary thing. Originally, they were cedar hardwood. They were exposed just plain varnished wood. We had to work out a way to carefully put a low-tech vinyl over all of their architraves and doors. sort of put a gold pinstripe on and this is the kind of thing we have to do and yeah and this is obviously a very significant home it's got a heritage listing it's very precious so there's a lot of care and detail that my team sort of puts into and then we obviously have to do the reverse on the end and sort of turn it back to modern day so yeah Augusta's that was a very bold choice um They were gold walls. I actually had a ruched silk blue, navy blue silk ruched wall over the fireplace, which is actually quite common, you know, to have fabric walls in the Victorian era. They were really into, you know, decoration and wallpapers and textures and anaglyptor and all that sort of stuff. So the set decorator, she managed that with her team. But it was a beautiful wall of ruched blue silk, shot silk, over a burnished sort of gold that had a very high sheen to it. And then the entire room was that sort of gold over it. And it had a very subtle stencil, which we did over the top of it. So it was quite beautiful. And I think it worked really well for the scene, which is obviously, you know, it's very heightened in there. It's Augusta. You know, they're very sort of liberated in that space. They're sort of just, they're really themselves. So yes, it's probably not your typical Victorian interior, but it was very much appropriate, I think, for the character and the scene and her environment.
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Speaker 1: Tell us about the furniture, the accessories, the layering. Where on earth do you go to find period pieces? And are they all original or do you have things made?
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Speaker 2: I should say that's primarily the role of the set decorator, who was one of my key collaborators and my sort of team. So in this case, it was Emma Rudkin, who's a Queensland-based set decorator, very talented. So she had a very large team. And of, you know, she has in her team buyers and dressers primarily, and also makers and sometimes soft furnishing experts who are just, their job is just solely to focus on things like the curtains, the cushions, the bed covers. So it's all the sort of soft furnishings. So, you know, I have many discussions with her. She's probably one of my key collaborators that I work most closely with in my own team. So she'll take my information as in my visual treatment and documents and everything and palette primarily and then brief her team. But it's them that sort of go out into the world led by Emma, the set decorator, to sort of find all these details. We did end up making a few key pieces. You always end up doing this, you know, because it has to fit in a particular space or it has to do, perform a particular function in a scene or it might have to break sometimes. So, Some things we create if necessary. We had a lot of original pieces. Sometimes they hire, sometimes they purchase. It really depends because we film over such a long period of time. In the case of Five Bob Downs, we filmed once and then we had to return at a later period. So we had a gap of about three months. But yeah, the furniture, it sort of comes from everywhere. It was across Australia and actually I think stuff came from the UK as well because... There are very particular things that sometimes you just can't find in Australia anymore.
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Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in the Caroline Simpson Library here in Sydney at the Mint, which for anyone listening who doesn't know, it's this fantastic resource of interior design throughout New South Wales from, I guess, the late 1800s. And.
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Speaker 1: I just think it's absolutely fascinating to go through these books. But you said you did a lot of research through paintings, artworks, poetry. What sorts of things are you looking for when you're uncovering details?
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Speaker 2: For me, I'm primarily looking for tone as an emotional response to what's written, basically, and to character. So, you know, because obviously... I mean, this is what the story called for in my sense, and it's the way I approach design. So I might find a reference, for example, I found a fantastic interior. It was a painting, European painting, that was sort of a very grand, I think it was a Georgian interior actually, but it was very heightened, if you like. It had tapestries on the wall. something you've probably seen a lot in your research. I mean, I've been to that library myself. It's a fantastic resource. But the Victorian period was full of cantier palms. You know, it was a thing, it was a real thing in the Victorian era. I love them myself, you know, like a giant cantier palm with its branches coming out. In fact, I found one photograph from the period of someone, a couple that had just got married. And so they're in the interior, in the lounge, And it was a real, someone's written a thesis actually about cantier palms in the Victorian era and interiors.
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Speaker 1: Really?
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Speaker 2: Because it was a sort of, yeah, it was ascribed to wealth. So it was like the more cantier palms, the more palms you had in your living room, the wealth, you know, it was a status symbol, if you like. So this photograph, you know, the couple are sitting on chairs and there's literally like a hundred cantier palms around them and it's like a sort of interior jungle. And I just thought, oh, that's just fascinating. So- then I kept finding more references for plants. It's something I really like to put in interiors, living things. I mean, you can see, this is Alice next to me. Oh, hi, Alice. It really sort of, you know, I like living things. I think nature's really important to have in sets. But in the Victorian era, it was absolutely appropriate. So yeah, for me, that's a really interesting character point. You know, it's also an element of visual humour because it just, it actually looks, it looks really funny. And it's also something that, we don't do, you know, they do things particularly, you know, very differently in that period. So it's things like that, but it's mainly about tone and style, whereas my palette is kind of very different. So I'm not looking for one reference per se of an interior that's going to sort of say, this is the decoration, this is the colour, you know, this is the mood that I want to create. I mean, that has to sort of be put together together. It's a very, it's a very... delicate balance, if you like, between things.
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Speaker 1: And now back to plants. Let's talk about the landscaping. Because I really was interested to see the gardens at Five Bob Down were succulents and like drought tolerant plants, but they looked like they were designed and planted in quite a formal arrangement. Is that something that is Victorian or is this a contemporary riff on formal planting?
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Speaker 2: That's a great observation. I mean, it's a kind of a bit of both, really. Formal gardens were very typical of the period, obviously. I suppose this is a kind of translation, if you like, of the Australian landscape. So it's typically Australian landscapes. but with a European approach to formal gardens. So, I mean, Kattegat has its own sort of gardens, which is more typically Victorian, which is, you know, the roses and the, you know, we had the yellow rose over the front of Kattegat right across the balcony. And, you know, those plants are more sort of, you know, they're not indigenous to the landscape. It's very much a European approach.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Five Bob Downs, I really played with that notion. You know, you've obviously noticed the big agave, the giant agave right in the middle of the formal garden. I mean, I had an absolutely wonderful lead greens person, Shona Hannigan, and her fabulous team. And when we had actually first looked at Five Bob Downs as a location, when the director and cinematographer and I turned up to look at it, It was sort of in full drought, you know, summer South Australia. It's very dry. And so Shona and her team actually had to irrigate. You know, we had to irrigate there for months before they could even start their kind of, you know, their actual work. Really?
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Speaker 1: So none of that was there?
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Speaker 2: There was sort of the basic outline of a– I sort of followed what the property has always had there. You know, I found in my own research– There's a lot of very interesting information on this house. It's, you know, there's a lot of stories. There's a lot of kind of oral history about the property. The other thing I introduced was topiary, which is obviously very Victorian and was not on the property, but it's something I really wanted for Augusta because she's out there sort of trimming it and turning it into strange shapes. So there's that sort of Japanese cloud topiary. And again, you may or may not have found that in the Victorian era, but you certainly would have found topiary. And for me, it's more about her character. She's a real, I'll just have a go. She's painted she's hand painting on the walls in, in one of, in Sabella's room. And, you know, she's just that kind of character. It's just, she's sort of very, very free and expressive and, and not going to be sort of bound by the, you know, the sort of social rules of the period. So that was really for her, all these sort of strange, um, strange topiary shapes dotted throughout the, throughout the property.
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Speaker 1: Who owns these houses? Um, And did you have to take the gardens out as you put the interiors back to the way they were?
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Speaker 2: The two main properties were privately owned. And I mean, in the case of Cadigat, you know, we had to film on the exterior and then we had to film on the stage. And we also built the exterior of the first level of the, so the whole sort of wraparound veranda was built on stage. because you need your entrances and exits for cast and some of the close to the door scenes. We actually film on a stage so we control the lighting, that sort of thing. The Greens team work with artificials sometimes that are supplemented with real foliage. Obviously, we're in winter, there's all sorts of considerations and they have to last for three months. all of those greens that were sort of key to the Cadigat property had to be transported five hours between the exterior location and the stage very quickly. So there's all sorts of crazy things we have to do just to sort of maintain a filming schedule. But those are things that I introduced for the character of the property, you know, for the character and the character of the property. So, and yes, at the end, we have to take most of that away. And in the case of the topiary, you know, they were hired from a, a topiary expert in Adelaide who'd prepared them especially for us so um yeah whereas some of the other things we left there in negotiation with the owner so it sort of depends it's always a kind of case by case basis.
00:31:58
Speaker 1: And now I just want to talk about how the characters live and how that might have influenced the things that they have in their home I noticed in Sabilla's family home, the dinnerware, for example, was quite decorative and not what, you know, I think modern day people would expect. But I have learned recently that in Victorian times, the more simple dinnerware was often held by the wealthier people because they didn't have to flaunt as much. Whereas if you were perhaps not as wealthy or didn't have means, then you wanted to show that you were, so your dinnerware, your homewares were more extravagant. And I don't know whether that was intentional, but I did notice that, that at Kattegat, the tableware dinnerware was a bit simpler compared to Sibylla's family home.
00:32:58
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a very good point. In the case of Lucy, Sibylla's mother's dinner set, that was written into the story. So that has a sort of story in itself. because it was part of Lucy's dowry, I suppose you'd call it in that time. So it was actually from Caddagat. It would have been from Caddagat originally. It's something that she took with her when she got married and they ended up in that home, which is actually rented, that property. I mean, this is sort of backstory, but that property which we built, which was an old stone cottage, you know, they're obviously in difficult financial times. So that's sort of a, it's like a cheap, you know, it's sort of a cheaper property. They may have been somewhere else before. So, and then the dinner set has its own sort of journey. So it really has to tell a lot of backstory, a lot of, you know, a lot of character detail that you might not know initially from watching it. But it's more about her connection, Lucy's connection to Caddagat, I suppose, you know, where she would have, where she's been. And then eventually it gets kind of sold to the McSwats, you know, when they come to sort of, or they're coming to repossess furniture because, you know, they have debt. And that's one of the things that goes. So it's quite an emotional thing, I suppose. Because obviously, you know, as you've pointed out, I mean, the objects have such a significance because we had way less things in that time, you know. And typically things... were passed on to different generations. And a lot of that would have come from Europe and kind of trunks and crates when people, you know, first settled in Australia. So they have a long journey and a real, you know, a real story for them. Obviously, most of it's British. In that period, it's largely British China, China ware, table ware. And so, yeah, that's the story of it. And then eventually it has to go out the door onto the McSwat's cart. heartbreaking it's very sad actually so in that case um that's kind of a because that sort of falls into the area of uh hero properties or properties um obviously because it's a key story point it's handled by actors so in that case it's usually a conversation between my set decorator my property master and myself in terms of you know what palette should it be what should it look like what should the decoration be So things like that have a sort of slightly more importance in the story.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Coming up, Felicity takes us inside the magic of how it feels to see actors inside her designs, and why the right lighting really is everything. How do you feel once the sets are complete and you see the cast, the actors, in there, in character. How does that feel?
00:36:05
Speaker 2: It's absolutely magical. I mean, it's hard to put into words. It's a very, sometimes I refer to it as a kind of alchemical kind of process, but it is magic. And I've heard other production designers say this because it's the, you know, it's such an emotional moment because it's the culmination of so much work. But it's a real collaboration, you know, and it's often the point for us where, you know, in my team where we see, you know, everything come together. And I think a really significant part of that, obviously cast is the most important part of it. When you see actors inhabit their space in character and it really comes to life, it just has a whole, it gives it a whole new level of meaning, you know, which again is very different from a domestic interior. But also lighting, I think, because the fundamental difference between a film set and an interior is that a film set is lit in a particular way. So a huge part of our job is lighting. And that is something that the set decoration or my department, you know, within the set decoration team is responsible for. You know, the cinematographer and the lighting team do their own sort of lighting, but things that you see on screen are our responsibility. So all the practical, you know, in the case of the Victorian era, it's obviously gas lighting because it's pre-electricity. So it's a whole new consideration and level of detail that you have to put in. And banquet lamps and candle lamps and, you know, even tallow lamps. So they actually, you know, with the, in like the McSwats case where they didn't have plumbed lighting, you know, gas lighting, gas into the house, they would often just have beef tallow or some kind of animal fat in a kind of container with a wick hanging out of it and that would be their you know, lighting, they would sort of have cast iron things or vessels kind of nailed to the wall, you know, very sort of rudimentary. So that's something that we have to explore, you know, like we'll make, we'll fabricate triple wick candles, for example, so you get enough light off them to go into the candelabras on the dinner table scenes. But yeah, it's a really magical moment.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Do you have a favourite home or space from My Brilliant Career?
00:38:28
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. I mean, I love all of them. You know, they're sort of, they're like, you sort of, they're in my mind for so long and there's such, you know, it's a kind of almost year long process and then seeing them sort of come to life and be built. There's something really beautiful about all of them. They all have a sort of different quality. I mean, I, you know, I, I really appreciate Victorian interiors. That set was beautiful. You know, it was a very big set. I absolutely loved Five Bob Downs just because it's more sort of my personal sort of eclectic taste with very saturated colour and also the gardens. But there's also something I really appreciate about South Australian stone architecture. I mean, I adore the stone buildings in South Australia. They're just really magnificent, some of them. But then I particularly love cabins and bush architecture and huts and shacks. I'm really fond of them. I've designed a lot of them over the years. um and there's something really nice about small intimate spaces that are lit by candlelight and open fires so I don't know I I love them all you know I'm I'm I'm often sad there's a moment of you know sort of sadness and melancholy when when they have to be taken apart or you know they're sort of recycled or got rid of um And then they only exist in our memories and on the screen. They exist for the work. So it's a very powerful relationship. But they have a sort of time limitation. They're ephemeral in some ways because they're not lasting.
00:40:06
Speaker 1: This has been an absolute joy. And I can't thank you enough for coming on and telling us about the backstory and the how and the challenges and the triumphs of creating this incredible world. Thank you so much.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: My thanks to you for having me. They're really wonderful questions, and I hope that they're interesting to your audience. And I hope that they enjoy the show, too.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: I think so, too. We will leave a link in the show notes, so everybody has to watch this. It is just divine. It was so lovely chatting with Felicity and getting a little glimpse behind the scenes of my brilliant career. I always think it's fascinating how much thought goes into the spaces we see on screen and how a house can really tell us so much about the people who live in it without saying a word. What I loved about talking to Felicity was how she described all those layers of detail from the architecture and the furniture to the smallest objects in a room and how together they They help create a really authentic sense of time and place. It's a wonderful reminder that good design isn't always about what immediately catches your eye. Sometimes it's the details you barely notice that make a space feel real. And you can watch the new series, My Brilliant Career, on Netflix right now. Thanks for listening to The Edit. If you've enjoyed this episode, follow along and leave us a review. It genuinely helps more people find the show. I'm Elle Lovelock. We'll see you next time. This is an R Media podcast.
Speaker 1: This is an R Media podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker 2: One of the significant things about my brilliant career, you know, just in terms of the design is I really wanted a sort of arc, if you like, a sort of arc of the architecture that's really not only representative of the story, but very representative of Australia.
00:00:30
Speaker 1: I'm Elle Lovelock, Editor-in-Chief of Home Beautiful. Welcome to The Edit, where we bring you into beautiful homes with the people who create them. Today, we're stepping inside a different type of home, the exquisite interiors and gardens that make up the backdrop of my brilliant career, Netflix's new Australian period drama, based on the novel written by Miles Franklin. The show captures the essence of what I imagine 1900s Victorian Australia would be like. Yes, it's a period drama, but it's not quite Downton Abbey, nor is it Bridgerton. It's something uniquely us. Our landscapes, our architecture, and our stories. Stories that still resonate today. One of the standout houses includes the Beecham Family Home, which was filmed at a beautiful location in South Australia. with parts of the house recreated on a soundstage. And then there are all those incredible period details, the furniture, objects, and antiques, many of which were sourced with the help of the National Trust. So today, I'm talking to a woman behind it all, production designer Felicity Abbott, about how you create a home that feels genuinely lived in, authentic to its time, and unmistakably Australian. Felicity, welcome to the edit.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: It is so exciting to be having this chat with you because personally, what you've worked on recently is, I would say, an obsession of mine, and that is Victorian era music. architecture and interior design in Australia. Oh, perfect. I know. It's just something I'm so interested in. I live in a Victorian house. I love history. I love learning about how people lived and, you know, in a way that's why I became a journalist. But why don't you tell us how you came to be working on the project, My Brilliant Career?
00:02:41
Speaker 2: Well, I feel the same way as you for different reasons. I mean, I absolutely love architecture. I love design. I love cinema. So it's a combination of all these things. I really love historical projects and I've worked on quite a few of them over my career. But this is one of my favorite periods also. And I think it's probably, there's only one or two times where I've got to design this particular period. And so it was a wonderful opportunity when I couldn't pass up. And also just because the scripts, the writing was just so powerful and so strong. You know, immediately I read the scripts that I was sent. I was like, yes, absolutely.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: Absolutely. You were saying earlier we were chatting that you've been away for nine years out of Australia. Yes. But this is the project that brought you back.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: It did indeed. I've been living in the States and in Europe for the past nine years. I left Sydney in 2017 just to explore different projects and different cultures and different countries to work in, which has been great. But yes, this drew me back mainly because of the people that were involved, because of the story. It's such an important novel and obviously a very important film. one that I studied myself at AFTRS when I was doing my master's. Oh, really? You know, it's a very important work. But this is obviously an evolution from that. It's a standalone piece. And the fact that it was historical was even more sort of attractive to me. So it was yes, a very loud yes.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning of... creating the homes in My Brilliant Career. So set the scene for us. What was the brief to you? What was the period and what did they tell you?
00:04:45
Speaker 2: My information first and foremost comes from the story, you know, from the writing and the characters. And I approach that before I even, you know, I sort of do a presentation, like a big sort of pitch visual document, if you like. to the director and to the producers and obviously to the creator, producer, Liz Doran. So after I was sort of hired on the job, a lot of my process is quite solitary at the beginning. So I really go into the script, you know, sort of do a deep dive into the period, which was, you know, approaching 1900, obviously. So approaching Federation in Australia. And so I spend sort of, you know, weeks and weeks just collecting imagery. I take a lot of reference from historical painting, historical photography, if there's photography at the period. You know, poetry, writing, could be anything, you know, anything that sort of inspires me to tell the story. And then I put together a very comprehensive visual treatment that really goes into quite a lot of depth with the palette. and tone and style primarily. So I suppose it's a real departure from interior decoration, interior design in that sense, because it's really responding to character.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: I mean, the characters are a starting point. What is it that you need to know about a character to be able to build out their home, their look?
00:06:18
Speaker 2: My way of approaching it is to, you know, I see the responsibility of the production design, you know, and generally I should say the production designer is obviously responsible for the visual narrative, you know, largely in consultation with the director of photography. And in my department, I obviously have, you know, art directors, a set decorator, set designers, you know, up to hundreds of people sort of implementing that whole process over a very long period of time. But collectively, I think we're responsible also for creating the kind of backstory of characters. So one thing I like to do in my process is get the, in this case, the creator, the showrunner, Liz Doran, and the director came to this as well. I like to have a sort of open session in the art department where all of my sort of key people are there and they can ask their own questions about character because, you know, obviously it's the set decorator and her team that have to put in all that sort of juicy detail, you know, into the drawers, into the sets. And it's not something that's in the script necessarily, you know. Obviously properties, which is the hand prop, something that an actor touches, that's usually written into the script. But a lot of the detail in set decoration is unscripted, you know. It's up to, that's our job really to tell that story. And I think, you know, actors have told me over the years, I've seen many times, and also watching projects myself, I think, you know, when you have that attention to detail, I mean, it really helps actors sort of ground themselves in the space. It really helps the work become more authentic, more believable, you know, that the person actually lives there. And you do notice when it's missing. I certainly do. But others who are not designers have also told me that, you know, you do notice, you have a sense of completion and authenticity and wholeness when it's that detailed. It's just like a real house.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: It is. And a space makes you feel one way or another.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: Particularly as we're building sets, they're fake for all intents and purposes. So they're temporary walls standing in a studio, and then there's all these layers of paint and scenic process and finish on them. And so everything within that space needs to feel solid and whole and and complete in terms of detail you know people have to stand inside it and really believe that they're in a you know a solid piece of architecture that joins to the exterior house that we've often filmed in so it's a big cheat really and I love it I've had directors say to me you know that a lot of directors aren't that that confident or they they prefer not to shoot in you know set builds on stage because often we'll have an exterior location as in the case for my brilliant career, we had some, you know, very, some very significant houses that we filmed in mansions, you should say, in South Australia. But then we'd build, I built the interior on stage, you know, with my team. So I think it, you know, it takes a lot of skill actually to sort of translate that and sort of make those join together seamlessly, if you like, the transition from the exterior property to the interior stage.
00:09:38
Speaker 1: Tell us, Felicity, about working with the original buildings. How much are you allowed to do when creating the set that you need versus not doing anything naughty to a heritage building?
00:09:55
Speaker 2: I mean, that's always a very tricky negotiation and it really... is a negotiation. In the case of my brilliant career, we had a wonderful supervising location manager who sort of takes care of all those discussions. I suppose for me, I'm very involved in location planning you know, selection, because it's obviously fundamental to my craft. And also I think in the most significant thing, one of the significant things about my brilliant career, you know, just in terms of the design is, you know, I really wanted a sort of arc, if you like, a sort of arc of the architecture that's really not only representative of the story, but very representative of Australia. Yes. So, I mean, you mentioned a Victorian architecture, which I also really appreciate. So Kattegat, which is, you know, obviously the, I suppose it's the connection to Europe in the story in some ways, because it's Mrs. Bossier's, you know, character home. It's sort of typically conservative of the period of the time, as opposed to Five Bob Downs, which is Augusta's home, which is a real departure, you know, it's very sort of heightened, very stylized. So, you know, we looked long and hard for the right category, because it's sort of the foundation of the entire story, really, in terms of grounding, you know, Sabella's journey. How do you go house hunting? Well, that's primarily, it's the sort of initial task of the location manager. You know, the location scouts go out and they sort of look, they looked across the entire state. And then we all, we look at a short list of photographs and then we all traipse around in a bus for days and weeks. looking at various properties. I mean, I can tell a lot by photographs. You know, I'm looking for particular things. In this case, I was looking for something that was typically Victorian Australian, you know, very iconically Australian for Kattegat. I was looking for sort of classical symmetry that was a little bit more European, if not Mediterranean for Five Bob Downs, you know, quite a sort of distinction in style.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: And is that again because it relates back to the characters?
00:12:13
Speaker 2: Yes, in some ways, but also to have a point of difference. But yes, it does relate back to the characters because obviously there's a sort of Augusta and Mrs. Bossy are sort of diametrically opposed in terms of their approaches to life and being women of the period. So yeah, very much so. The interior is more so, but I think, yes, you definitely see that reflected in the exterior houses.
00:12:38
Speaker 1: The whole flavor, as you're saying, is really, really Australian and quite often period film, TV shows can be a bit British or European leaning. So what was it that you were looking for and how did you make this feel so Australian?
00:12:57
Speaker 2: You know, across the, across the show, we had four significant environments. We had others, but the sort of foundational pillars, if you like, in terms of the homes. Our Kattegat, which is the Bossier, you know, this is Bossier's home, five Bob Downs. But then we also built completely from scratch, but in the environment and on the studio, Possum Gully, which was Sibylla's family home. So that was a complete build in the environment. And then we shot the interior actually on location, but it was a complete build. So that was a matter of selecting, you know, an environment that was... you know, it's all about the landscape. It was just, it was full of gums and we obviously had all those beautiful, uh, white cockatoos sort of, they were just sort of flocks of them, like dancing through the sky every afternoon. It was a spectacular location. And then we sort of pegged out the house to get the right sight lines. So the camera has, you know, beautiful angles from every approach. And then we built it as a house basically. I mean, it wouldn't last more than a few months, but we literally built it, uh, as a, as a house. in the location. So that was very much about the landscape. And it's your typical sort of, you know, stone, a South Australian stone house with the two windows at the front and the central door that looks a bit like a face.
00:14:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
00:14:25
Speaker 2: So that was a wonderful experience, building that in winter, a little bit of a challenge. And then Passamgali, which is where Sabella gets sent to teach the children, which is a really chaotic sort of contrast to Possum Gully. For that, I looked more into Australian sort of bush architecture, which has a whole history of, you know, since colonization really. So that was really looking into those kind of pioneer techniques of, you know, slab huts and bark roofs. And so that was a complete build also. They all have a very strong relationship with the landscape around them, these homes, which for me is very important in terms of the story.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: In just a moment, Felicity shares why colour is the foundation of her work and how she chooses what makes the final edit of what you see on screen. Well, let's go inside the homes because what struck me is the use of colour. Shall we start with colour?
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Always the best place to start.
00:15:30
Speaker 1: I didn't realise that... there were so many blues in Victorian interiors. And see, this for me as well, it's in education. It is so exciting. Tell us about how you created the color palettes for Inside the Homes.
00:15:49
Speaker 2: For me, color is everything. You know, I've often said in interviews, it's my first language. You know, it's a very intuitive response to story, to storytelling. And so... Color sort of arrives for me as I'm reading the story, usually. It's a sort of response that just kind of happens. And then I work a lot with not so much a primary palette, it's more the secondary and tertiary tones, which are sort of the subtle extrapolations of color. And it's very much also about texture. There's a direct relationship in filmmaking, obviously. The light is very significant. And it's very different from the way that your eyes look at colour on the walls of a home, for example, where you have to very much consider what the camera sees, what the lighting is going to be, whether the scenes are day scenes or night scenes. And so there's very specific considerations to what actually ends up on the walls of homes. And over the years, I suppose I've um, experimented a lot with their sort of emotional, um, responses to color and tone and texture, you know, and what, how they ascribe to particular scenes, you know, that might be very dramatic or, or very sort of happy typically. Cause I think in the past, you know, a lot of filmmakers have tended to, you know, to put cool tones, like the blues and greens that you're talking about, you know, sort of, um, paint environments that are typically, you know, they're very heavy emotional scenes or the tone of the, you know, the scene might be quite dark or the film as a whole. In recent years, I've sort of started to experiment with warmer tone colours, you know, for sort of very dramatic scenes and had very interesting results. So it's such a powerful language colour. I mean, for me, it's the sort of foundation of my craft. And I suppose that's not the way for all production designers. You know, I come from a fine arts background, so... For me, color is everything.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: I really noticed the use of gold and those rich yellows. And for example, is it the guest room at Caddagat?
00:18:11
Speaker 2: In Augusta's home, there's a lot of golds.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: It sparkles. And that's something else that struck me. It just draws you in. It's delicious.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: Oh, great. I'm glad you noticed that. Yes, that was quite a bold choice actually. It was for Augusta's Parlour, which is sort of the circular, the circular, it's the kind of heart of Five Bob Downs. And that was actually filmed on location just because the way things are scheduled sometimes and, you know, where things are in the story, we needed some, we filmed in two actual rooms at the Five Bob Downs location. Just because we had so much filming there, we built a barn next door for the workers' party on the same property. We did all the formal gardens. There was a lot of work at this property, probably the most work. And there were a lot of night shoots. There's New Year's Eve scenes with fireworks and stuff in the formal garden, quite a lot of scenes. So to make use of that and to have, we need to allow for weather. So we need to have interior spaces in case it pours with rain and we need to suddenly go inside and film. We actually filmed in two existing rooms there, which I did get permission to fully treat, which is my nature. I always have to sort of implement our palette, the palette for the show, which is obviously very different from what the location owners were living with at the time. So it was a complete transformation. We even had to cover white architraves that had been painted. gloss white, which is obviously a contemporary thing. Originally, they were cedar hardwood. They were exposed just plain varnished wood. We had to work out a way to carefully put a low-tech vinyl over all of their architraves and doors. sort of put a gold pinstripe on and this is the kind of thing we have to do and yeah and this is obviously a very significant home it's got a heritage listing it's very precious so there's a lot of care and detail that my team sort of puts into and then we obviously have to do the reverse on the end and sort of turn it back to modern day so yeah Augusta's that was a very bold choice um They were gold walls. I actually had a ruched silk blue, navy blue silk ruched wall over the fireplace, which is actually quite common, you know, to have fabric walls in the Victorian era. They were really into, you know, decoration and wallpapers and textures and anaglyptor and all that sort of stuff. So the set decorator, she managed that with her team. But it was a beautiful wall of ruched blue silk, shot silk, over a burnished sort of gold that had a very high sheen to it. And then the entire room was that sort of gold over it. And it had a very subtle stencil, which we did over the top of it. So it was quite beautiful. And I think it worked really well for the scene, which is obviously, you know, it's very heightened in there. It's Augusta. You know, they're very sort of liberated in that space. They're sort of just, they're really themselves. So yes, it's probably not your typical Victorian interior, but it was very much appropriate, I think, for the character and the scene and her environment.
00:21:44
Speaker 1: Tell us about the furniture, the accessories, the layering. Where on earth do you go to find period pieces? And are they all original or do you have things made?
00:21:58
Speaker 2: I should say that's primarily the role of the set decorator, who was one of my key collaborators and my sort of team. So in this case, it was Emma Rudkin, who's a Queensland-based set decorator, very talented. So she had a very large team. And of, you know, she has in her team buyers and dressers primarily, and also makers and sometimes soft furnishing experts who are just, their job is just solely to focus on things like the curtains, the cushions, the bed covers. So it's all the sort of soft furnishings. So, you know, I have many discussions with her. She's probably one of my key collaborators that I work most closely with in my own team. So she'll take my information as in my visual treatment and documents and everything and palette primarily and then brief her team. But it's them that sort of go out into the world led by Emma, the set decorator, to sort of find all these details. We did end up making a few key pieces. You always end up doing this, you know, because it has to fit in a particular space or it has to do, perform a particular function in a scene or it might have to break sometimes. So, Some things we create if necessary. We had a lot of original pieces. Sometimes they hire, sometimes they purchase. It really depends because we film over such a long period of time. In the case of Five Bob Downs, we filmed once and then we had to return at a later period. So we had a gap of about three months. But yeah, the furniture, it sort of comes from everywhere. It was across Australia and actually I think stuff came from the UK as well because... There are very particular things that sometimes you just can't find in Australia anymore.
00:23:46
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in the Caroline Simpson Library here in Sydney at the Mint, which for anyone listening who doesn't know, it's this fantastic resource of interior design throughout New South Wales from, I guess, the late 1800s. And.
00:24:09
Speaker 1: I just think it's absolutely fascinating to go through these books. But you said you did a lot of research through paintings, artworks, poetry. What sorts of things are you looking for when you're uncovering details?
00:24:26
Speaker 2: For me, I'm primarily looking for tone as an emotional response to what's written, basically, and to character. So, you know, because obviously... I mean, this is what the story called for in my sense, and it's the way I approach design. So I might find a reference, for example, I found a fantastic interior. It was a painting, European painting, that was sort of a very grand, I think it was a Georgian interior actually, but it was very heightened, if you like. It had tapestries on the wall. something you've probably seen a lot in your research. I mean, I've been to that library myself. It's a fantastic resource. But the Victorian period was full of cantier palms. You know, it was a thing, it was a real thing in the Victorian era. I love them myself, you know, like a giant cantier palm with its branches coming out. In fact, I found one photograph from the period of someone, a couple that had just got married. And so they're in the interior, in the lounge, And it was a real, someone's written a thesis actually about cantier palms in the Victorian era and interiors.
00:25:36
Speaker 1: Really?
00:25:36
Speaker 2: Because it was a sort of, yeah, it was ascribed to wealth. So it was like the more cantier palms, the more palms you had in your living room, the wealth, you know, it was a status symbol, if you like. So this photograph, you know, the couple are sitting on chairs and there's literally like a hundred cantier palms around them and it's like a sort of interior jungle. And I just thought, oh, that's just fascinating. So- then I kept finding more references for plants. It's something I really like to put in interiors, living things. I mean, you can see, this is Alice next to me. Oh, hi, Alice. It really sort of, you know, I like living things. I think nature's really important to have in sets. But in the Victorian era, it was absolutely appropriate. So yeah, for me, that's a really interesting character point. You know, it's also an element of visual humour because it just, it actually looks, it looks really funny. And it's also something that, we don't do, you know, they do things particularly, you know, very differently in that period. So it's things like that, but it's mainly about tone and style, whereas my palette is kind of very different. So I'm not looking for one reference per se of an interior that's going to sort of say, this is the decoration, this is the colour, you know, this is the mood that I want to create. I mean, that has to sort of be put together together. It's a very, it's a very... delicate balance, if you like, between things.
00:27:00
Speaker 1: And now back to plants. Let's talk about the landscaping. Because I really was interested to see the gardens at Five Bob Down were succulents and like drought tolerant plants, but they looked like they were designed and planted in quite a formal arrangement. Is that something that is Victorian or is this a contemporary riff on formal planting?
00:27:34
Speaker 2: That's a great observation. I mean, it's a kind of a bit of both, really. Formal gardens were very typical of the period, obviously. I suppose this is a kind of translation, if you like, of the Australian landscape. So it's typically Australian landscapes. but with a European approach to formal gardens. So, I mean, Kattegat has its own sort of gardens, which is more typically Victorian, which is, you know, the roses and the, you know, we had the yellow rose over the front of Kattegat right across the balcony. And, you know, those plants are more sort of, you know, they're not indigenous to the landscape. It's very much a European approach.
00:28:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, Five Bob Downs, I really played with that notion. You know, you've obviously noticed the big agave, the giant agave right in the middle of the formal garden. I mean, I had an absolutely wonderful lead greens person, Shona Hannigan, and her fabulous team. And when we had actually first looked at Five Bob Downs as a location, when the director and cinematographer and I turned up to look at it, It was sort of in full drought, you know, summer South Australia. It's very dry. And so Shona and her team actually had to irrigate. You know, we had to irrigate there for months before they could even start their kind of, you know, their actual work. Really?
00:29:05
Speaker 1: So none of that was there?
00:29:06
Speaker 2: There was sort of the basic outline of a– I sort of followed what the property has always had there. You know, I found in my own research– There's a lot of very interesting information on this house. It's, you know, there's a lot of stories. There's a lot of kind of oral history about the property. The other thing I introduced was topiary, which is obviously very Victorian and was not on the property, but it's something I really wanted for Augusta because she's out there sort of trimming it and turning it into strange shapes. So there's that sort of Japanese cloud topiary. And again, you may or may not have found that in the Victorian era, but you certainly would have found topiary. And for me, it's more about her character. She's a real, I'll just have a go. She's painted she's hand painting on the walls in, in one of, in Sabella's room. And, you know, she's just that kind of character. It's just, she's sort of very, very free and expressive and, and not going to be sort of bound by the, you know, the sort of social rules of the period. So that was really for her, all these sort of strange, um, strange topiary shapes dotted throughout the, throughout the property.
00:30:17
Speaker 1: Who owns these houses? Um, And did you have to take the gardens out as you put the interiors back to the way they were?
00:30:27
Speaker 2: The two main properties were privately owned. And I mean, in the case of Cadigat, you know, we had to film on the exterior and then we had to film on the stage. And we also built the exterior of the first level of the, so the whole sort of wraparound veranda was built on stage. because you need your entrances and exits for cast and some of the close to the door scenes. We actually film on a stage so we control the lighting, that sort of thing. The Greens team work with artificials sometimes that are supplemented with real foliage. Obviously, we're in winter, there's all sorts of considerations and they have to last for three months. all of those greens that were sort of key to the Cadigat property had to be transported five hours between the exterior location and the stage very quickly. So there's all sorts of crazy things we have to do just to sort of maintain a filming schedule. But those are things that I introduced for the character of the property, you know, for the character and the character of the property. So, and yes, at the end, we have to take most of that away. And in the case of the topiary, you know, they were hired from a, a topiary expert in Adelaide who'd prepared them especially for us so um yeah whereas some of the other things we left there in negotiation with the owner so it sort of depends it's always a kind of case by case basis.
00:31:58
Speaker 1: And now I just want to talk about how the characters live and how that might have influenced the things that they have in their home I noticed in Sabilla's family home, the dinnerware, for example, was quite decorative and not what, you know, I think modern day people would expect. But I have learned recently that in Victorian times, the more simple dinnerware was often held by the wealthier people because they didn't have to flaunt as much. Whereas if you were perhaps not as wealthy or didn't have means, then you wanted to show that you were, so your dinnerware, your homewares were more extravagant. And I don't know whether that was intentional, but I did notice that, that at Kattegat, the tableware dinnerware was a bit simpler compared to Sibylla's family home.
00:32:58
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a very good point. In the case of Lucy, Sibylla's mother's dinner set, that was written into the story. So that has a sort of story in itself. because it was part of Lucy's dowry, I suppose you'd call it in that time. So it was actually from Caddagat. It would have been from Caddagat originally. It's something that she took with her when she got married and they ended up in that home, which is actually rented, that property. I mean, this is sort of backstory, but that property which we built, which was an old stone cottage, you know, they're obviously in difficult financial times. So that's sort of a, it's like a cheap, you know, it's sort of a cheaper property. They may have been somewhere else before. So, and then the dinner set has its own sort of journey. So it really has to tell a lot of backstory, a lot of, you know, a lot of character detail that you might not know initially from watching it. But it's more about her connection, Lucy's connection to Caddagat, I suppose, you know, where she would have, where she's been. And then eventually it gets kind of sold to the McSwats, you know, when they come to sort of, or they're coming to repossess furniture because, you know, they have debt. And that's one of the things that goes. So it's quite an emotional thing, I suppose. Because obviously, you know, as you've pointed out, I mean, the objects have such a significance because we had way less things in that time, you know. And typically things... were passed on to different generations. And a lot of that would have come from Europe and kind of trunks and crates when people, you know, first settled in Australia. So they have a long journey and a real, you know, a real story for them. Obviously, most of it's British. In that period, it's largely British China, China ware, table ware. And so, yeah, that's the story of it. And then eventually it has to go out the door onto the McSwat's cart. heartbreaking it's very sad actually so in that case um that's kind of a because that sort of falls into the area of uh hero properties or properties um obviously because it's a key story point it's handled by actors so in that case it's usually a conversation between my set decorator my property master and myself in terms of you know what palette should it be what should it look like what should the decoration be So things like that have a sort of slightly more importance in the story.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Coming up, Felicity takes us inside the magic of how it feels to see actors inside her designs, and why the right lighting really is everything. How do you feel once the sets are complete and you see the cast, the actors, in there, in character. How does that feel?
00:36:05
Speaker 2: It's absolutely magical. I mean, it's hard to put into words. It's a very, sometimes I refer to it as a kind of alchemical kind of process, but it is magic. And I've heard other production designers say this because it's the, you know, it's such an emotional moment because it's the culmination of so much work. But it's a real collaboration, you know, and it's often the point for us where, you know, in my team where we see, you know, everything come together. And I think a really significant part of that, obviously cast is the most important part of it. When you see actors inhabit their space in character and it really comes to life, it just has a whole, it gives it a whole new level of meaning, you know, which again is very different from a domestic interior. But also lighting, I think, because the fundamental difference between a film set and an interior is that a film set is lit in a particular way. So a huge part of our job is lighting. And that is something that the set decoration or my department, you know, within the set decoration team is responsible for. You know, the cinematographer and the lighting team do their own sort of lighting, but things that you see on screen are our responsibility. So all the practical, you know, in the case of the Victorian era, it's obviously gas lighting because it's pre-electricity. So it's a whole new consideration and level of detail that you have to put in. And banquet lamps and candle lamps and, you know, even tallow lamps. So they actually, you know, with the, in like the McSwats case where they didn't have plumbed lighting, you know, gas lighting, gas into the house, they would often just have beef tallow or some kind of animal fat in a kind of container with a wick hanging out of it and that would be their you know, lighting, they would sort of have cast iron things or vessels kind of nailed to the wall, you know, very sort of rudimentary. So that's something that we have to explore, you know, like we'll make, we'll fabricate triple wick candles, for example, so you get enough light off them to go into the candelabras on the dinner table scenes. But yeah, it's a really magical moment.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Do you have a favourite home or space from My Brilliant Career?
00:38:28
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. I mean, I love all of them. You know, they're sort of, they're like, you sort of, they're in my mind for so long and there's such, you know, it's a kind of almost year long process and then seeing them sort of come to life and be built. There's something really beautiful about all of them. They all have a sort of different quality. I mean, I, you know, I, I really appreciate Victorian interiors. That set was beautiful. You know, it was a very big set. I absolutely loved Five Bob Downs just because it's more sort of my personal sort of eclectic taste with very saturated colour and also the gardens. But there's also something I really appreciate about South Australian stone architecture. I mean, I adore the stone buildings in South Australia. They're just really magnificent, some of them. But then I particularly love cabins and bush architecture and huts and shacks. I'm really fond of them. I've designed a lot of them over the years. um and there's something really nice about small intimate spaces that are lit by candlelight and open fires so I don't know I I love them all you know I'm I'm I'm often sad there's a moment of you know sort of sadness and melancholy when when they have to be taken apart or you know they're sort of recycled or got rid of um And then they only exist in our memories and on the screen. They exist for the work. So it's a very powerful relationship. But they have a sort of time limitation. They're ephemeral in some ways because they're not lasting.
00:40:06
Speaker 1: This has been an absolute joy. And I can't thank you enough for coming on and telling us about the backstory and the how and the challenges and the triumphs of creating this incredible world. Thank you so much.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: My thanks to you for having me. They're really wonderful questions, and I hope that they're interesting to your audience. And I hope that they enjoy the show, too.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: I think so, too. We will leave a link in the show notes, so everybody has to watch this. It is just divine. It was so lovely chatting with Felicity and getting a little glimpse behind the scenes of my brilliant career. I always think it's fascinating how much thought goes into the spaces we see on screen and how a house can really tell us so much about the people who live in it without saying a word. What I loved about talking to Felicity was how she described all those layers of detail from the architecture and the furniture to the smallest objects in a room and how together they They help create a really authentic sense of time and place. It's a wonderful reminder that good design isn't always about what immediately catches your eye. Sometimes it's the details you barely notice that make a space feel real. And you can watch the new series, My Brilliant Career, on Netflix right now. Thanks for listening to The Edit. If you've enjoyed this episode, follow along and leave us a review. It genuinely helps more people find the show. I'm Elle Lovelock. We'll see you next time. This is an R Media podcast.
