House of Spoils is a well-realized world. While the horror movie is contained, it’s also lush and full of life. It’s a colorful horror picture that’s kind to the eye. Production designer, Alexandra Schaller, wanted to help create the feeling of a culinary fairy tale for filmmakers Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy.
Previously, Schaller worked on acclaimed films such as After Yang and Maggie’s Plan. With House of Spoils, she created heightened yet authentic environments for the protagonist, the Chef (played by Ariana DeBose). Recently, the production designer spoke with Immersive Media about how she did just that.
[Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length]
With your first conversations with filmmakers about the chef, how did you want the environment to kind of be an extension of her mental state or transformation throughout the movie?
Well, when I read the script, the first thing that came to mind was actually a painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, because it felt like a feast — an alien feast — and it’s kind of dark. But if you look more closely, it’s also sumptuous and full. The whole design of the movie and the way we wanted it to look and feel was kind of based on that painting and a lot of Bosch’s work.
I was just looking at that painting earlier today when I heard that reference. I still don’t know how I feel about it.
Yeah, yeah. Well, what’s really cool about it is it’s in three different panels. You have the super scary panels and then the more delightful ones, so we tried to strike that balance.
How did you want nature to influence the interiors? What colors were you thinking of there?
Well, I wanted the movie to feel very lush, and I really wanted the food to pop. So, we started creating the menu based on what we would put in the garden. We wanted the colors of the garden — greens and reds — to come into the house. What’s reflected in the food is also reflected in a lot of the artwork and wallpaper; everything is botanical. We wanted to feel the presence of the witch, even when she wasn’t in the scenes. We wanted to feel that she was a cultivator, a botanist, a gardener. So, we kind of wove that throughout.
Let’s discuss food. How was that process just talking with Eric, the cinematographer, and figuring out how to not only make this menu but also what would pop cinematically and how it was going to get lit?
What’s so interesting is that there are a lot of beautifully done food documentaries — like Chef’s Table — and it’s all about making the food look delicious. Our challenge was that some of our food looks disgusting, but we wanted it to still look delicious. So, I worked closely with a food stylist, and we designed the menu together based on the chef’s emotions and where she was mentally.
We looked at the colors and did a lot of tests with Eric to figure out the balance. Eric and I worked really closely. It was a very fulfilling production designer-cinematographer relationship. We worked out the color palette and the LUT really early on, testing colors. We even used a lot of paintings as references, so we were really on the same page about how everything would ultimately look.
Was that your first time working with a food stylist?
I work a lot in commercials, and in commercials, we work with food stylists all the time. I’ve worked on movies where, for example, if you have a big wedding scene and you want to feature the wedding cake or the food, you work with a food stylist. But this particular food stylist, her name is Zoe Hegedus is truly a food artist. She’s a trained chef, but she’s also into beautiful styling. By the time Zoe came on, I already had a good sense of the color palette and references. We came up with the menu together, but the credit goes to her for making all this incredible food.
How was it building a garden for a movie? What is the trial and error of making an authentic garden?
What’s difficult about gardens in movies is that we don’t always do it for real. The challenge was talking to landscapers and explaining that we wanted certain plants or flowers in a place, even though it wasn’t the correct season. So, everyone had to figure out how to make it work.
This movie was particularly challenging because it was a big greens job. We had a secret garden we had to make from scratch — it was on an empty plot of land. It was the first time I did real garden design. We also built her vegetable garden with raised beds, and we had to cover the exterior of the mansion to make it look overgrown and decrepit. So, I had a big greens team working with me.
When working with the greens team, what references were you sharing with them to emphasize that fairytale quality of the movie?
I make a lot of mood boards and reference decks. I get super specific. I’ll circle a plant and say, “This plant here, but in that color.” Our food stylist, Zoe, actually made custom fruits and vegetables to put in the garden because we couldn’t find exactly what we wanted. There were scenes where the chef was eating directly from the garden, so it had to be edible. It was a cross between the food and the greens world.
Did you and Zoe also talk about the kitchen itself — what a restaurant like this would have versus what the chef would want? How did you work with Zoe and the props department to make it feel authentic but also true to the character?
Yes, definitely. It was really important to the directors for it to feel like a real kitchen. Even though the movie is a fairytale and somewhat elevated, it’s also psychological, so we wanted it to feel believable. The kitchen had to be fully functioning and realistic, especially because we wanted to see the chef cooking. What’s interesting is that the kitchen in the movie was actually a bedroom that we turned into a kitchen. It was kitchen design for the first time, and that was really interesting.
Were there examples of places that did turn houses or bedrooms into kitchens that you could follow?
I follow a lot of upstate New York restaurants on Instagram — some of which were converted, some weren’t — but nobody would send me pictures of their kitchen. I think they were nervous about the health code. So, no, the transformation was just what we do in the movie business. But I scouted tons of restaurants and kitchens in person, and I did go into Michelin-star restaurants to see how they function differently. That was pretty cool.
How was the experience of going into a Michelin-star kitchen? What did you take away from it?
Oh my gosh, what’s so interesting is that we’re all conditioned to think that people are screaming at each other in the kitchen and that it’s super high stress. But a lot of the Michelin-star kitchens I went to were silent. Absolutely silent. It was very peaceful, and they don’t like that high-stress environment. Scouting locations is my favorite part of the job. You get to see backstage at all different kinds of places — homes, kitchens, underground cellars, the back of a castle. It’s really cool.
House of Spoils is now available to stream on Prime.
