Set Decorator Regina Graves SDSA and Production Designer François Audouy take us through the challenge and delight of re-creating the moments when the legendary songwriter came to NY and began his musical career. In conversation with Claire Kaufman SDSA, they reveal the depth of research and joyful commitment to accuracy that flowed throughout the making of the film. Click on the video here! Below, Regina graciously shares some of the experience...Enjoy!
Insights from Set Decorator Regina Graves SDSA... “I feel like I say this on every project I’m on, but this really was a special production to be a part of. I had the privilege of working with François Audouy and other incredibly accomplished storytellers. While we knew the challenges of recreating such storied and important spaces when we began, I could have never predicted the efforts and contributions required on everyone’s behalf to pull this off. As a result, it was magical to watch the sets come to life as the music radiated off of them.
These five sets pay homage to the world of the 1960’s folk scene which has captured our imagination for decades.
The Seeger Cabin... We shot on location in Stillwater, N.J., but basically stripped the log cabin to the bones and started from scratch. It’s based on some photos of the real Seeger cabin that Pete actually built on his own in the Hudson Valley.
Seeger cabin, Pete’s work area in the cabin he built by hand. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
There is a funny story behind the cabin set...all of the research photos we referenced were in black and white. A couple of days before we shot it, Ed Norton, who brilliantly plays Pete Seeger, took a trip up to the real cabin with Seeger’s daughter and came back with a lot of information for us. One being that since the Seegers were activists, they always had red appliances - the stove and the refrigerator in the kitchen were red. We had maybe 2 days to source and get the period appropriate red appliances to fit perfectly in our set!
Seeger cabin. Set Dresser Vince Bonomolo helps with the last-minute set changes! Images courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
We could have left the white, but the red felt so much better. We got extremely lucky and found a restored red Chambers stove from a NJ collector. We ended up painting the white refrigerator that I had originally purchased to match.
Seeger cabin. The interior was gutted and replaced by hand-made cabinetry, just as the Seegars had, including those red appliances! Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
I really wanted to create a family home that reflected Pete and Toshi’s no-frills lifestyle. Most of the furniture was mismatched or secondhand...
Seeger cabin living room... Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
We filled the set with musical instruments and handmade items that we purchased or rented from places like Eclectic Encore and Everything Props. Visual Alchemy supplied the television and playback. We even dressed the exterior and a little shed filled with Pete’s construction materials, as he was working on the cabin for years. I was really happy with the outcome. It felt warm and inviting but not too precious.
Seeger cabin, Pete’s desk... Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Bob’s Apartment... My favorite set: Bob’s apartment. Once again, we had so many reference photos, but most were in black and white or were negatives. His 4th Street apartment was photographed and published so many times over the years. At first, we really wanted to duplicate it but we knew that would be impossible, so we tried to recreate what it felt like. If Bob was ever to watch the film, I wanted him to feel as though he stepped back in time.
Bob Dylan’s apartment, accurately and lovingly re-created by Regina and her team. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
His apartment was built almost exactly to scale on our stages in New Jersey. The only difference was that we created a larger opening to the small room connected to the living room. I read that in Bob’s real apartment, the small room was the bedroom but he moved his bed into the living room because he wanted a larger sitting area for when friends came over.
Bob’s apartment. “The walls are peppered with various doodles and sketches that Bob and Sylvie drew. A painting of “The Old King” by George Rouault hangs over his bed, a Chinese proverb over the fireplace,” Regina lets us know. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
A little known fact is that Bob built a lot of the furniture in his apartment himself...the bookshelf behind his bed, his desk, the shelves above the sink, his platform bed, the daybed, and the marble top coffee table. We matched those items identically. This was his and Sylvie’s first apartment - they were about 18 and 20, just starting out and neither had much money. I figured most of their items were thrifted, used, or found. Some items like the stuffed dog, the vintage bowlers hat, and the wine bottle lamp pay tribute to their youth.We turned the smaller back room into a painting studio art area for Sylvie; after she moves out, it becomes a forgotten storage space for Bob’s stuff. Kerouac, Ginsberg, poetry, and political books of the time fill the bookshelves.
“Bob’s desk, where he writes many of his songs of the times on his Olivetti Laterra 22, is a layered mess of notebooks, journals, ashtrays, coffee cups, beer bottles, and ephemera.” Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
He has a working record player and record collection, a working TV, and full practical kitchen and bathroom. Every single piece of furniture, book, plant, chotchkie was chosen with Bob and Sylvie in mind. Amanda Finnegan, my assistant set decorator, made a big score when she found an almost identical match to his famous gold wingchair. Amanda and I had the most fun shopping for this set. I don’t think there is anything as fulfilling as shopping and dressing a really detailed, layered, organized mess of a main character’s set.
Bob built a lot of the pieces in the apartment, including the shelves above the kitchen sink. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Timmy really appreciated the realistic vibe in his set and I feel like it became an extension of his performance. He often hung out, played records, and moved around the space as if he lived there. This set was also shot in multiple years, so again it was dressed and redressed at least 50 times. Our OnSet dressers Adam Goodnoff -Cernese and Kyle Chiofolo really did an excellent job working with our OnSet props making sure to mix things up and always staying on top of the redress.
MacDougal Street/Greenwich Village Hub... Turning Jersey City and Paterson into 1960’s Greenwich Village was no easy feat.The street scenes were larger than what you actually saw in the movie; in both areas, we dressed almost 4 blocks of storefronts. But I think that’s what always happens - a lot ends up on the cutting room floor and you don’t see half of what we dressed.
MacDougall Street, Greenwich Village, New York. Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan arriving for his first major gig at Gerde’s/Folk City. Photo by Macall Polay ©2024 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
My assistant Chuck Potter led all of those sets and did an amazing job. They were very detailed, layered, large period appropriate sets. He put so much love and work into them. Chuck dressed all the street exteriors and I dressed the interiors of the bars, nightclubs, and cafes. It worked well and gave me more time to concentrate on the interiors and the stage sets we were building simultaneously. Cafe Wha, Village Bazaar, Cafe Reggio, The Gaslight, The Kettle of Fish, Gerdes Folk City were just some of interiors and exteriors we recreated. [Editor’s note: Click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS below!] It was surreal walking down the dressed streets, especially at night. It really brought you back to the era.
Gerdes/Folk City... This is where Bob first sees Joan sing live. It looked so rich in color, so moody. I loved the way our cinematographer Phedon Papamichael shot this, and I loved the lighting.
Gerde’s /Folk City. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
We shot this in the Elks Hall in Hoboken, N.J. We also shot The Gaslight in the basement of the Elks Hall, as well as Joan’s Dressing Room. All were full dresses. We built into and altered a large room on the main floor of the hall to create our set which consisted of a front entrance, a stage and dining area, a bar, a coatroom and a back hallway. [Editor’s note: Click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS below!] Gerdes was an Italian restaurant by day - hence the ode to red sauce dining with the red and white checkered cloths. Phedon expressed early on he wanted a lot of down light as well as an amber glow coming from the tables. We had custom mid-century overhead light fixtures fabricated for us and City Knickerbocker supplied the perfect amber tulip table lamps. We lined the walls with old black and white photos of early musicians and strung old album covers across the room, which matched some of the research we found. We hung velvet curtains (fabric from Fabric City) in the doorways to section off the bar from the stage area and to also make it feel more intimate. The room came alive with the extras in their period correct attire, the food and drink, and of course the cigarette smoke. You could smell 1961 Greenwich Village in the air. [Editor’s note: So evocative! Click on the video above for much more!]
Columbia Studio A... Columbia Studio A was built on a soundstage in Kearny, N.J. We had over 400 photos of the actual Columbia Recording studio from their archives, so we felt we needed to build and dress this as accurately as possible. We built an exact replica of the recording studio floorplan and copied all the details we could right down to the hardwood floors.
Columbia Studio A, New York. Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan preparing to record his song ‘A Complete Unknown”. Photo by Macall Polay ©2024 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
The recording studio itself consisted of a lot of movable parts: curtains on tracks, sliding/rotating wall baffles, large speakers, and a separate sound proofed control room. [Editor’s note: Click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS below!] Our prop master Michael Jortner took the reins in getting the recording equipment, microphones and instruments together. He worked with Sonic Circus in Vermont who built the working recording console for us as well as supplying most of the period correct recording equipment. History for Hire and Fennick Props supplied many of the working microphones and musical instruments musical instruments. All of the period microphones, speakers, and recording equipment were all made to work as our actors sang everything live - no playback. Our construction department built all of our custom furniture pieces. I found an actual Columbia Studios music stand and our scenics made a stencil from it to use on all the other period stands that we purchased.
The studio is seen throughout the film during different times in Bob’s recording history, so the set was dressed and redressed to show the passage of time. It was really important for us to get it right as there were many musicians on set and we were building and decorating it to work as a functioning studio. We wanted everything on set to be interactive.
One of my most gratifying days on the job was when Timothée sang “A Complete Unknown” on that stage set. It was electrifying. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
As they say, it takes a village and in this case it’s literally true - I’m in disbelief of what we pulled off for the budget we had. I’d like to thank my team:
Amanda Finnegan - Assistant Set Decorator
Chuck Potter - Assistant Set Decorator
Kate Stewart - Buyer
Ramsey Scott - Set Dec Coordinator
Jamie Leigh Moore - Assistant Set Decorator/pre-Strike
Corndog - Set Dec Mascot
Jerry DeTitta - Leadman
Nick Tsiolis - Shop Manager
Tim Joliat - Foreman
OnSet Dressers: Adam Goodnoff Cernese & Kyle Chiofolo
Set Dressers: Sean O’Connell, Vincent Bonomolo, Keith Morrisey, Winfield Dominguez, Jolie Ruhe, Catriona Crosby, Christa Kelly, Josh Clark
Set Dressers/Festivals: Chris Vogt & Bryan Cantwell
Set Dec PA: Alyssa DeRosa
*There were over 50 set dressers at any given time, I can’t name everyone, but you know who you are, and I thank you ALL for your hard work and contribution. Thanks to our Local 817 Teamsters who transported our set dressing with undeniable care, especially Nick Tsikitas. I also want to thank our supervising art director Chris Morris and his team of set designers. Our Graphics Department led by Will Hopper, our construction and scenic departments as well as our Prop department, SPFX and locations. Also our shop electrics led by Chris Lombardozzi who rewired the multitude of our period lighting with smiles on their faces.
Special shout out to Prop Master Michael Jortner, whom I love collaborating with...
OUR SDSA BUSINESS MEMBERS from whom we rented or purchased items to make our sets come alive:
ACME Brooklyn
Aero Mock Ups
Alpha Companies Motion Picture Rentals
Amsterdam Art Gallery
Arenson Props
Astek Wallcovering
Bridge Furniture and Props
City Knickerbocker
Eclectic/Encore Props
Everything Props
Fabric City Inc
Fennick Studio Props
Found Collectibles
Furnish Green
History for Hire
IATSE Local 52
Kravet Inc
LCW Props
Lost and Found Props & Surface Achive
Newel Props
Omega Cinema Props
Practical Props
Prop N Spoon
Remix Market NYC
Visual Alchemy
Thank you, all!
[Editor’s note: Don't Forget to Click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS below and the video above!]
