EDITOR TESTING

October 24th, 2024 by Claudia Bonfe SDSA

Set Decorator Claudia Bonfe SDSA

Production Designer Jess Gonchor

Columbia Pictures

From Columbia Pictures...
“The story of the young Lorne Michaels, his equally young, eccentric cast and crew, the myriad sets and the behind-the-scenes chaos that ensued inside the famed Studio 8H, as the minutes ticked down leading up to the first utterance of the immortal words, “Live From New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

Set Decorator Claudia Bonfe SDSA and Production Designer Jess Gonchor took a deep dive with their teams and cohorts into SATURDAY NIGHT and came up with such a complete reproduction that the audience is totally immersed in every setting of the moments leading to the final tick of the clock and first cue of the camera for the live premiere of Saturday Night.

The studio points out that they “built a full re-creation of the 8th and 9th floor of Rockefeller Center, including Studio 8H, so the actors could perform in an immersive environment, through doorways, up and down stairs.”...And the audience is taken with them.

Director Jason Reitman reveals...
“As we got towards the end of the shoot, we had a day when we had hundreds of background actors in the stands. The cast and crew were there, but also the entire audience. We’d fallen in love with the set. We’d been living in it for months.”

SET DECOR asked Claudia to take another dive, this time into her memories of the making of the film.

We know you’ll enjoy!
Karen Burg,
Editor

Stage 8H, Home base. “We re-created the unusual marine swivel boat chairs near the home base set. When I visited the actual SNL set in 2024, I noticed the current crew sitting in these chairs, just as you see in our movie when some of the craftspersons are discussing which union lays bricks. They still have them! We built the chairs by using an old schoolhouse seat cushion and back, which became our mold. We found the chrome bases online and bent metal for the frame to hold the chair together. Tom Zell and Caius Man from our SPFX department were the lead fabricators. Photo by Claudia Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The first dive, joining with Production Designer Jess Gonchor...
Jess and I have a lot of mutual people in common within the film community. We also use the same realtor! A few of the department heads on SATURDAY NIGHT had mentioned my name for this project. Our collaboration seemed very natural. We tend to gravitate towards similar design ideas, our color palette choices aligned and complemented each other. Jess is a hands-on, tactile person, and so am I. We threw ideas at each other and built on that.

Production Designer Jess Gonchor and Set Decorator Claudia Bonfe SDSA on the Jim Henson’s Muppets portion of the set. Jim Henson and his adult Muppets did appear on the very first SATURDAY NIGHT, and it was LIVE! Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Research
We had a sprawling amount of research to explore. Of course, we watched the first episode of SATURDAY NIGHT, but we also watched episodes from the entire first season. Jason Reitman, our director, would have lunch viewings with some of the department heads, where he showed SNL episodes. I learned a lot in those meetings, especially what Jason was expecting to see as “Easter Eggs” throughout the set.

There were loads of photographs for reference. In fact, during prep, I was invited to be on a zoom with Edie Baskin, the former head photographer of SNL. I turned on my computer and most of our main cast members were on the zoom! I believe this is the first time the actors were all together. The Edie Baskin photo research meeting was awesome, but we were not allowed to take screen grabs or record the zoom, so I had to sketch on a notepad anything that popped up in her photographs with relevance to the sets. It was a lot to take in, but it was exhilarating.

Rockefeller Center and stages...
Another cool research aspect is that I was able to do a tour of Rockefeller Center and the SNL stages. This was scheduled at the same time we did a technical scout of the exterior leading into the lobby at 30 Rock, and the iconic ice-skating rink. It was a smaller group of six people Jason took on the tour, which included Lorne Michael’s 9th floor office, multiple corridors and Stage 8H, where they have always shot SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

My favorite part of the tour was viewing underneath the bleachers and scaffolding in 8H. This was a big part of our set build at Trilith Studios. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, until I saw the space in real life. This is an area where most of the departments have their stage-adjacent annex workspaces. I retained a lot of ideas from that visit and went back to share with my crew. Within two days, those ideas were being incorporated into our set on stage in Atlanta.

Behind the scenes of the behind-the-scenes! These are Studio 8H, stage-adjacent annex workspaces being recreated under the scaffolding, below the audience seating, just as they were in 1975. Pictured is the “work in progress” set dressing and construction areas. Photo by Drew Monahan © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Editor’s note: To see additional fabulous niches, click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS at the bottom of the page!

Stage build...
We built a two-story set in a large soundstage at Trilith Studios. It consisted of the SNL Studio 8H stage with smaller sketch builds within, including the audience bleacher seating area, scaffolding workspaces and a freight elevator.

Connected to 8H, we built an 8th floor and 9th floor. Those areas consisted of Main Street and Broadway hallways, the Dressing Room, Hair & Make-up Room, Editing Bay, Control Room, George Carlin’s dressing room, Lorne Michael’s 9th floor Office, a connecting office for Lorne, the Affiliates Lounge, the random Green Room that Neil Levy hides in and two more offices, as well as the 9th floor corridors. The builds on this show were fully constructed without set extensions.

Since all of these sets were connected within one soundstage, we basically had to have them dressed and ready for camera a couple days before shooting. The Director and DP were blocking and rehearsing at the same time we were dressing.

Audience Seating...
The Audience Seating was the first set dressing entity that I tackled. We needed a total of 166 seats, according to our spatial floor plan. One of the many stories I was told about getting this show started was, at that time in 1975, Yankee Stadium was going through a major renovation. Someone with a connection to the stadium had allowed the production to “borrow” their wood and iron stadium seats, with the agreement to return them when the renovation was finished. It turns out that
Yankee stadium ended up changing over to plastic seats, so SAT NIGHT kept the wooden seats.

These stadium seats were used not only as dressing in our set, but they also served a purpose for when cast and crew wanted to watch filming from a distance. This happened quite a bit, and was encouraged by our director. A compelling example was when cast and crew were invited to watch and listen to Jon Batiste score the movie after company wrap. It was an intimate musical experience for all.

Stadium seats in 8H. “We painted some of the seat slats so you could see the teal color when the lights were dimmed.” Jess Gonchor, seated. Behind him, through the curtained glass, a glimpse of Lorne Michael’s office. Photo by Claudia Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lorne’s 9th floor office. “ I was told by Lorne’s assistant that he has a bowl of popcorn in his office every day.” Note: The room looks out over the audience seating seen the photo above. Photo by Claudia Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Color palettes...
For the color palettes, I leaned heavily into the ‘70s earth tones...browns, golden yellows, avocado green...with pops of brighter, more vibrant reds and teal colors throughout. Jess chose a beautiful muted blue hue for the Broadway hallway, a nice palette to tie my dressing into.

The Hair & Make-Up room was a peachy/pink wall color. I think the browns and greens were nice complementary soft colors for that space.

Two-shot of the Hair & Make-Up Room. The muted earth colors give balance to the stronger palette of the Dressing Room we see through the doorway. Who doesn’t love the brown sink! Photo by Claudia Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Dressing Room was wild. I loved how this space came together. The checkered floor solidified my decision to dress in the Danish sofa, where Belushi rested. Pulling the yellow from the floor, the plaid-on-checkers patterns and colors blended nicely.

The sofa originally had a tear in the vintage fabric. I intentionally wanted the audience to see the imperfections throughout the set. To me, this makes the set feel real and lived in. Fun note: Occasionally, a crew member upon discovering the tear, would turn the cushion over to hide it, thinking they were helping!

Editor’s note: Click on the SHOW MORE PHOTOS button at the bottom of the page to see more of Hair & Makeup, Dressing Room, and Wardrobe/Costumes!

Stage Equipment...
We had to do a lot of research regarding old 1970’s, and earlier, stage equipment... grip stands, lighting apparatus, the types of tools each department used, the CRT televisions and broadcast monitors. Accurate to the point of the TV studio cameras, we found four RCA TK44, the exact model cameras used the first year of SATURDAY NIGHT. Thank you to History for Hire and ISS prop house.

SNL had three floor cameras and one camera on the Chapman crane. [See photo at top of page.] For years, the crane at 8H has been the Chapman Electra 308. Ours was courtesy of Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment as product placement use of their same model Electra. Fun fact, it happened to be stored on the Trilith lot…how convenient!

Other important equipment pieces were our sound and lighting boards, one of each in Studio 8H for action shots. We created our largest lighting board for the long-running Milton Berle variety show, THE RUMPUS HOUR, from parts found at a small theater. [For photos of this colorful set: Click on See More Photos button at bottom of the page]

SATURDAY NIGHT 1975 Control Room. Set Decorator Claudia Bonfe SDSA had the custom monitor bezels and box surrounds built to match research photographs of several control rooms that existed in Rockefeller Center in the 1960s through 1975. Photo by Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Control Room...
We had 28 monitors in our control room, all broadcast CRT style, in various sizes. The existence of broadcast monitors from the 1970s, and earlier, was very limited throughout the states, and practical/working options are becoming obsolete. We were able to find multiples of a later version, Sony 20” and Sony 25” CRT broadcast screens. We built our own custom monitor bezels and box surrounds to match research photographs of several control rooms that existed in Rockefeller Center in 1975.

Large consoles were built to match the SATURDAY NIGHT control room research. The tops were populated with Grass Valley switchers, considered state of the art at the time. Gang Boss Kyle Howser worked many hours laying out the consoles, pulling apart and assembling found implements to make realistic control boards. Joy Britt, our fixtures foreperson, and her team illuminated most of the buttons.

Editor’s note: For the full Control Room experience, click on SHOW MORE PHOTOS at the bottom of the page.

Edit Bay...The Edit Bay set was another beast. Some of the equipment that would be appropriate for our show is hard to find and sometimes only seen in museums. This is when it gets complicated. We were fortunate to have great technical support throughout the broadcast community, specifically in New York...some of the technicians had actually worked at 30 Rock. Mark Cyr was one of our broadcast technical advisors. He was very knowledgeable when it came to the details. Mark eventually made his way on set as one of the actors in the Control Room scenes!

Writers room...
The Writers Room was on the 17th floor. Since there wasn’t enough space for this large set on the soundstage with everything else that was interconnected, it was built at the school across the street from Trilith Studios. Reitman described the essence of the Writers Room as “dorm room messy”. They would work, sleep and eat in this room, constant chaos.

I found a photograph of a 1970’s supermarket which had a persimmon-colored carpet throughout. I couldn’t think of anything else for the floors. It was a hard color to match, but the magician Jenn Sandel made that happen. Surprisingly, there was a stocked wooden blind ribbon in that exact color.

Writers room. We upholstered 80% of the walls in a woven contract fabric that was reminiscent of the ‘70s. The metal desks were painted brown and beige, and then covered with pop culture snacks, books and magazines for writers’ research. Photo by Claudia Bonfe © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This set was heavily influenced by NATIONAL LAMPOON MAGAZINE. I loved that we found a “Save Our Planet” poster for this room. It was dated in the early ‘70s and means so much now, due to what we are currently facing with climate changes. Most of the comments on the desktop pads of paper or crumpled pages were snarky jokes or future sketch ideas.

Lorne had a second office on this floor. [Editor's note: For a deeper look at the Writers Room and Lorne's offices, see the Show More Photos section below, or click through the gallery at the top of the page.] There were three run-of-show boards for the show breakdown, where the sketches titles were displayed, as well as musical guests and hosts. There were two smaller run-of-show boards, one in each of Lorne’s 9th and 17th floor offices. The main board is heavily featured in the movie. We see it on the wall of our Broadway hallway. Chance Satterfield was our Props liaison person. We worked together on the cue card colors and Set Dressing provided the boards.

Collaboration...Cinematography
Jess and I had a lot of communication with Eric Steelberg, our cinematographer. It was a great collaboration. When the Studio green lit to shoot in 16mm, Eric discussed colors and how we would see them on film. I discovered this when we looked at carpets for both walls and flooring. Jess and I chose brighter colors because they would end up a couple shades darker on film than digital. They also were heavily affected by the set lighting temperature.

All of the lighting throughout the interior sets were practical set dressing lights, which meant the stage lights needed to be period-correct as well. We ended up with exactly 413 stage lights in the hanging grid, which was choreographed by our DP and his Gaffer, Dan Riffel, the show’s lighting technician. Dan was a great go-to for lighting.

We also had hard ceilings to deal with. Our main ceiling lights consisted of cans, pendants, custom wood boxes with fluorescent styled LED tubes, track lighting, and bare bulbs with cages. We had a large number of accent lights with clip lamps, unique shaded lamps, up/down sconces and colorful light boxes.

Collaboration...Costumes
There were a multitude of costume racks in this film. The Costumes Department was located within our set dressing warehouse space, which was ideal! We were able to view pieces as they came through the warehouse. This made it easier for us to coordinate the colors and styles of clothes on our various racks.

Costume Designer Danny Glicker and team were so kind to loan us the Bee costumes and additional dressing on the hero racks. For the most part, Mallorie Coleman, one of my Assistant Set Decorators, took on the set dressing clothes shopping. Before heading out, Mallorie and I discussed what the needs were for each rack and theme. We had as many as 15 racks dressed at one time, a few also held set dressing textiles.

Collaboration...Graphics
This was also a fun graphics show and I was so lucky to work with Andi Denni, who was our local Georgia Lead Graphic Designer. We had a plethora of signage throughout the sets...stencils and labels on equipment, multiple large print photography images in the corridors, 8H graphics...and more. Andi also brought in an additional Graphic Designer, Kaylynn Farnan, who did some incredible hand drawn tutorials and sketches for the Costume and Hair & Make-Up areas.

*Ultimate collaboration
My team on SATURDAY NIGHT was an all-local Georgia crew. Mallorie Coleman and Jenn Sandel were my fabulous Assistant Set Decorators. Kyle Howser was my technical Gang Boss and Drew Huggins my key OnSet Dresser. I have worked with all four of them on previous projects and we have a shorthand dialogue that puts me at ease.

I also had some fantastic additions to my crew. Susan Tanner took on the job of my Lead person. She brings the most amazing attitude that is infectious. “Tanner” came with her team of set dressers. Everyone had specific talents that were essential when implementing the set dressing. We had carpenters, welders, upholsterers, pipe fitters, and all types of artisans on my crew. Through it all, Shelby Grzech was my Office Coordinator. She held down the office fort with Neva Knoll, and later Samantha Sudick as well, another great team!

Special thanks to Larry Clark and his talented Paint department, the Special Effects department for helping with fabrication of set dressing, as well as Joe Walsh and Adam Scarbough. NY Set Decorator Ashley Wellbrock and the NY Set Dressing crew. JoAnn Perritano for her endless support.

And shoutouts to these SDSA Business members who, as always, came through for us, no matter the circumstance: History for Hire, ISS/Independent Studio Services, Warner Bros. Property, Practical Props, Playback Technologies, Digital Image Associates, Universal Property, E.C. Prop Rentals, R.C. Vintage, Technical Props, DPM Props, Georgia Prop Source, LCW Props, and Visual Alchemy. Also: Central Atlanta Props (CAP), Biggar's Prop House, RJR Props, Kali Collection Costumes.

Editor's note: The SHOW MORE PHOTOS button is below!