Set Dressing on the Cheap

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

So earlier in the week we had to film a scene in the ballroom of an abandoned mansion. Pretty easy in a sound stage but pretty impossible for a found location. Brad (director) had the crazy idea to film in his old elementary school, which he remembered had an auditorium we could use.

Now if we had lots of cash and time we would prep the location for a couple days before shooting. What happened was we showed up at call time and found the auditorium filled with junk. Files, toys, equipment, etc. It ate about 3 hours of prep time just emptying the room but we had to keep it organized because the room needed to go back to the way it was.

Before the shoot Brad had gone to some rummage sale and bought a lot of random items that might be found in an abandoned house. Once again we don’t really have a dedicated production design person, so set dressing is pretty much the hardest thing ever. But we pulled it off I think: