This season True Blood went to Mississippi to film and they used Longwood Plantation as the location for the King of Missisppi’s home which The Vault reported on last April.  The King, Russell Edgington, played by Denis O’Hare is a vampire antiques dealer, but we know that he’s got bigger plans and wants Bill Compton to help him attain his goals.

The show’s set designer, Suzuki Ingerslev found the location of Longwood when she decided to take a trip to Mississippi while shooting in Louisiana.

“My art director and I, Cat Smith, knew the next book series took place in Mississippi, so we wanted to see Mississippi before we built a set around it,” she said. “We had always heard Natchez was beautiful.”

Ingerslev toured the city’s historic homes and discovered Longwood.

“We were drawn to the grandeur, the timeless elegance and the unusually octagonal architecture,” she said. “As far as we could see, Longwood was the most unique antebellum home we’d ever seen.”

“There’s something about the land that surrounds Longwood that made it a little foreboding, but at the same time, it was absolutely lovely. It had to be the king’s house.”

Read the rest of this article by going to The Clarionledger.com

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During this week hiatus of True Blood, in order to keep us all interested while we waited for the next episode, EW.com asked the show’s production designer, Suzuki Ingerslev, to answer some fan questions and to talk about the inspiration for some of the sets (and their hidden gems).

I was fascinated from beginning to end while reading this interview as it answered many questions I had about certain things you see on the True Blood sets.  For example, I have noticed that Jason always seems to have order-in pizza at his house and I’ve always wondered why we haven’t yet seen Lafayette’s bedroom. These and other interesting trivia is revealed in this very interesting and informative interview.  We have taken a few pieces for you to read below:

Welcome to the King of Mississippi's house. The house has 99 hand-carved Corinthian columns.

The King of Mississippi’s Mansion: Ingerslev and her art director took a little side trip to Natchez, Mississippi last year, and found Longwood, a National Historic Landmark and the largest remaining octagonal home in the U.S., which she was told had never been filmed before for TV or features. “The interior was never completed. After the Civil War, they walked away from it,” she says. “But we just needed it for the exterior, because there’s nothing like it in the whole world. So we convinced our producers, begged and begged, and they let us go down there and shoot it.” As for the interiors, they were created from scratch after studying the furniture, chandeliers, and wallpapers in plantation homes. “The wallpaper in the King’s dining room is completely Mississippi wallpaper,” she says. “It’s got the river, it’s got Spanish moss and alligators. It’s really amazing that we found that in a wallpaper book.” Click here to read more about the Longwood mansion in our previous article written by special reporter for The Vault Lisafemmeacadienne .

When it came time to acquire Bill’s much-storied bed, Ingerslev admits she felt some pressure to find one that would live up to those expectations. ”That kind of a bed is probably $20-, $30-, $40-, $50,000. Our producers wouldn’t have liked that,” she says. They settled on a rental from Warner Bros., which was probably used in a lot of old studio films. Another decision that required some thought: How to decorate the table. “At first, we were like, ‘Let’s get all this great silver,’ and then we realized we couldn’t use silverware in there because vampires can’t touch silver. So we ended up going with a gold flatware. We used a lot of glass displays and crystal. Waterford was kind enough to loan us some pieces because apparently, they’re fans of the show.”

Lou Pine’s: The wolf-related signage in the bar — e.g. Howl and Red Wolf beer — is an obvious homage to what lies beneath in its werewolf patrons, but for a more subtle clue, check out the table lights. When they couldn’t find any they liked, the prop master got an idea: “They look like normal lights, but they’re actually silver doggie bowls and cheap plastic domes,” Ingerslev says.

Lafayette’s home: “Basically, we started with a leopard carpet and some foiled wallpapers that we found in an in-stock book here in the office. It’s not often that you get to combine those two anymore,” she says. “Also, there was a book called Bachelor Pads that we used as a resource.” They wanted to incorporate religion into Lafayette’s life. “He’s not just a one deity man, he goes to different deities, so we represented all of them,” he says. His home is a location right now, but eventually, if they get to build that set, we may finally get to see his bedroom in all its glory. ”You only see little glimpses of it. We have a feather boa in there, and some kind of crazy art, more foiled wallpaper. We would love to go to town on that. His little boudoir. That would be a fun one.”

Sookie’s house: The heart of the set, in more ways than one. Two readers asked how Sookie managed to clean up the blood that’s been spilled there with a mop. “My theory is that Bill should be helping her because if he can do everything at vampire speed, he’d have everything cleaned up in like half an hour, right? The blood, luckily, has landed basically on the wooden floors, and I do believe you could clean that up. One of the recent episodes, she’s scrubbing the carpet with the blood, and I don’t know how well that’s gonna come out,” she admits, chuckling. “But it’s true with all our things. We spent a lot of time on the pilot. The house was so delicate and beautiful and represented grandma. And then you get into the series, and everything’s about destroying, and fighting, and impaling people. and imploding. And it’s like, Ohmygod, this is one of a kind furniture. Grandma’s house is still in a state of disrepair after Maryann was there. It used to be so cute and quaint. We’ve actually had people visit the set and cry in there and say it reminded them of their of grandparents’ house, and now it’s like this mud and mess. I hate it. I’m sick of it,” she continues. “When we first did it, our construction guy Mike Wells’ mother-in-law passed away, and her daughter donated a lot of her dishes and crotchet items like little pill bottle tops, and Kleenex box and toilet paper covers, and all that stuff. Everybody in the crew has donated stuff, so it feels like everybody’s family has something in there. Lois Smith [who played Gran] has pictures in there of when she was younger. Even Alan Ball has pictures of his family in there. You walk in there, and it does have that homey feeling, and I understand why people maybe cried or it feels like a time gone by.”

To read the rest of this fascinating glimpse of the inspiration behind the True Blood sets, click here.

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Jaimie Trueblood/Courtesy of HBO

Alan Ball is in the dungeon underneath Fangtasia, the vampire-owned strip club on HBO’s True Blood, and it’s as cold and creepy as it looks on TV. It’s the place where the bad vampires chain and shackle humans they can torture, then exsanguinate; in one scene last year, a townie named Royce was ripped to shreds, literally. Ball is unsuccessfully trying to turn on the lights, but instead feels his way to a corner to study a mysterious piece of machinery—what looks like an antique boiler. “I’ve never seen this here before,” says Ball excitedly. “It’s gnarly. I’ve got to figure out how to use it.”

Whatever he decides to do, it won’t end well. Few auteurs are as comfortable with death and darkness as Ball, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for American Beauty; whose first series for HBO, Six Feet Under, was about a family of morticians; and whose current show fetishizes the undead. “After Six Feet Under ended, I wanted a change,” he says, “and True Blood seemed so fun and bright.”

Perhaps he means bright as in quick-witted. True Blood, which begins its third season June 13, is set mostly at night; the action, design, and even the acting are steeped in an unrelenting (albeit often mordantly comic) murk. Most sets are located in West Hollywood; the exteriors are shot in Mississippi and Louisiana, where the show takes place, in the fictional town of Bon Temps.

Read the rest of this wonderful article on NYMag.com and read more about the True Blood set design right here on The Vault.

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Have you ever asked yourself where they film the various scenes of True Blood? We found a site that tells you lots of information about the many locations that the show has used and continues to use.

Seeing Stars in Hollywood is a web site that is the ultimate guide to celebrities and Hollywood, you can find links to all sorts of Hollywood information, like landmarks, restaurants owned by the stars, location shooting, movie studios, where the stars are buried, etc. However, they also have a section on the site devoted just to True Blood locations. As many of you know most of True Blood is shot in Los Angeles or on locations in Southern California, but they also go to Louisiana and to other locations for filming.  At “Filming Locations Of True Blood”  they have most of the locations chronicled for both the Southern California and the Louisiana locations.

LOUISIANA

In Louisiana they shot the scenes where they burned the vampire nest in Season 1, episode 5 and where Jason and Amy first hooked up in the gas station in Season 1, Episode 7.  You can also find:

Bill Compton House

Did you know that Bill Compton’s house is an existing plantation.  While the sets are in California for the interiors, the exteriors of Bill’s house were originally shot at the Roseneath Plantation in Louisiana. The house was built in 1845, and served as a hospital for injured soldiers during the Civil War. The plantation takes up a large parcel of tree-filled land (much of it dotted with cattle), on both sides of the 4900/5000 section of Highway 5, midway between Gloster & Kingston, Louisiana. That’s about 20 miles south of Shreveport & about 10 miles north of  Mansfield, LA. It is not open to the public.

The French Restaurant where Bill asked Sookie to marry him, Season 2, Episode 12

The French restaurant scenes where shot at The Stockade Bed & Breakfast, which is located on the south side of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They shot the scene in the Stockades “great room” (which was made to resemble a restaurant for the occasion). The property is listed as an archaeological site on the National Register of Historic Places. The Highland Stockade was a Civil War-era Union fortification and camp site, built by Union troops in 1862 (when the Union Army first took Baton Rouge from the Confederates) as a check-point to protect the southern entrance into the city.

Three are also many more locations in Louisiana.  Click here to see the other Louisiana locations.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND LOS ANGELES

In Southern California they shoot mostly, but some examples are the Fellowship of the Sun Church scenes, the Descendants of the Glorious Dead church, Merlotte’s Bar & Grill, and Sookie’s house, just to name a few. You can also find:

The Tribunal Scene – Season 1, Episode 10

And, in Southern California, they shot the the trial scene in a real-life junkyard named Aadlen Bros. Auto Wrecking, in Sun Valley, CA. Sun Valley is a small city located in the northeast corner of L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, between North Hollywood (on the south) and the Hanson Dam area (on the north). The odd, box-like cubicles seen in the background of the trial scene are real, located just inside the fence off Tuxford. Here is an aerial photo of the yard (with those cubicles marked), and here’s a map link.

Believe it or not, Aadlen Bros has been used many times before as a filming location. Previous shoots at this 26-acre wrecking yard include movies such as “The Running Man”, “Deep Impact” and “Escape from L.A.”, plus TV shows such as “The A-Team”, “Tales From the Crypt” and “Beverly Hills 90210″. They’ve even shot music videos here, including Sheryl Crow’s Sweet Child of Mine and Usher’s You Make Me Wanna. (They even have their own website, at www.aadlenbros.com.) (It’s also about two miles south of another auto salvage yard where they filmed a scene from “Dexter”.) (To the uninitiated, a junkyard might seem to be an odd choice for a filming location, but the more you learn about L.A., the more you realize that the entire city is just one big backstage for the film industry.)

Maryann’s House, many episodes in Season 2

The home is located in Pasadena, CA. It’s about two miles east of the famous Huntington Library & Gardens (in San Marino), and about a mile and a half west of the Santa Anita Race Course and the L.A. Arboretum. (All three of those places have been used extensively for filming, over the years.) The producers also used the back yard, the pool, the patio, the interior of the house and even the same furniture (e.g. the bed Tara wakes up in the next morning.) There are lots of other photos of the house at this site.

There are also many more locations in Southern California. Click here to see other Southern California locations.

Also, there are several articles that we have done here at The Vault that include photos of set designs on True Blood. To see them, click here.

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True Blood’s second season showed us an interesting variety of sets. The most sinister of them all is without a doubt the eerie Fangtasia dungeon where Eric locks up his human prisoners.

I asked True Blood Production Designer Suzuki Ingerslev, about this set that she designed. “It was definitely the writers who inspired the design of the Fangtasia basement with their grisly depiction of what they called the “Saw” room”, Suzuki answered.

The writer of the episode Alexander Woo explains how they came up with the idea of the dungeon: “Since we decided that Lafayette was going to survive into season two, we obviously needed to address where he had been during the two weeks after his abduction. Alan Ball came up with the idea of having him in a sort of horror-movie room where he would be suffering the consequences of dealing vampire blood. From there it was a matter of coming up with the bleakest, darkest place we could imagine. Suzuki Ingerslev and our Art Director Cat Smith were the ones who brought it to life.”

According to Woo the dungeon he created represents “the secrets that all of us prefer to keep hidden and buried. The vampires in our world have come out of the coffin, but that room is a concrete representation of the darker side of vampire-human relations.”

Suzuki explains how the oppressing atmosphere of the Fangtasia basement was created on set: “Ordinarily it would have been any kind of basement or storage room but in the hands of Eric it became a grisly prison where the worst kind of atrocity is practiced. It was built entirely on stage. All the blood, rust, gore and decrepitude were created by our fantastic painters and plasterers. The wheel itself was built by our prop makers and is actually all made out of wood to look like metal. The wheel was dreamed up by Alexander Woo, as a device Eric rigged to torture people. It is a complete view into his utter lack of compassion. “

The significance and purpose of the wheel to which the prisoners are chained were discussed and speculated upon to great length on the True Blood message boards. Sometimes we try so hard to see symbolism in every scene that we overlook the obvious and simple explanation. Alexander Woo explains that the purpose of the wheel is surprisingly connected to one of the primary human bodily functions.

“I thought it would be funny to find a very complicated solution to a very simple problem, namely how do you let the prisoners go to the bathroom while still keeping them far enough apart so they don’t kill each other? I suppose you could chain them all to the wall and give everyone their own bucket, but that’s a lot of buckets to empty. Why not have a single bucket that only one prisoner can reach at a time? That’s where the idea for the wheel began. I also thought it was funny that any time one prisoner needed to use the bucket, it would inconvenience everyone else. In the end, the wheel became a great visual representation of the hopelessness of everyone’s fate in the dungeon, but it all started as a way for the prisoners to use the toilet.”

In the show it was Eric who came up with both the concept of the vampire bar Fangtasia and the torture dungeon that lies beneath it. What does this tell us about Eric’s character according to Woo?

“Eric has no insecurities about who he is. He understands that there’s a side to vampires that would make humans very uncomfortable, so he’s shrewd in keeping that side hidden away. The upstairs of Fangtasia is Eric’s public face. The downstairs is the darker side that humans don’t need to know about – unless they’ve crossed him. I think the bar and the dungeon are both equally Fangtasia, just as the roles of club owner and vampire sheriff are both equally Eric.”

The True Blood vampires obviously all have a very dark side to them, but so do many human inhabitants of Bon Temps. The dungeon shows us the cruelty of vampire nature, I asked Alex Woo if this is really so different from the cruelty Eddie suffered in Jason’s basement?

Woo: “You’re right – they’re very much the same. Jason’s basement in season one was a place for two of our humans to indulge their savage side, much to Jason’s disgust, eventually. The Fangtasia dungeon was one of our first glimpses into the parallel underside in the vampire world. Basements are never pretty, are they?”

Finally I asked if he thinks that humans and vampires will ever be able to live in a somewhat peaceful coexistence.

“Probably not for the life of the show. What fun would it be to watch then?” answers Woo. And I think we can all agree with that. Keep the drama coming!

Photos courtesy of Suzuki Ingerslev.
Video property of HBO.

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Suzuki Ingerslev

True Blood’s production designer Suzuki Ingerslev has been nominated by the Art Directors Guild for Excellence in Production Design Award single-camera series for the episode “Never Let Me Go”.

The other nominees are Mark Hutman for the pilot of “Glee,” Dan Bishop for the “Souvenir” episode of “Mad Men,” Michael Wylie for the “Kerplunk” installment of “Pushing Daisies,” and Mark Worthington for the “There’s No Place Like Mode” installment of “Ugly Betty.”

Winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on Feb. 13 at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Read the specials and interviews we did with Suzuki.

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Production Designer Suzuki Ingerslev is responsabile for the look of the True Blood sets. Previously we published our interviews with Suzuki about the Queen’s dayroom,  Hotel Carmilla and Maryann’s house.

All very elegant sets. But there were also sets in season 2 that looked like a bomb exploded…. and in one case a bomb did explode.

Godric’s lair, a beautiful composed set was sadly destroyed by a suicide bomber.

Suzuki tells us about the choices she made for Godric’s lair. “It was modern with many relics and artifacts from various cultures. The primitive sculptures served to remind Godric of his evolution, of all the places he had been and all the things he had witnessed during his “life”. Most of the paintings were commissioned from artists specifically for the set. We wanted paintings that would be atmospheric and modern. The art in a set should never compete with the overall design (unless intended) but should also maintain a clear viewpoint or voice. We also knew that we would be destroying it, so that enforced our decision to create it as well.”

Not knowing anything about set design I asked Suzuki if the same set was used before and after the bombing or if a different set was created to serve as disaster zone. “No, the original set was destroyed for the explosion”, she explains. “It is hard sometimes to see a set destroyed after you put so much love and attention into making it perfect but ultimately they are all temporary. The crew was just as upset as we were when it got destroyed. Everyone had their favorite pieces that they were hoping to take home.”

Destroying a set is not done randomly as Suzuki explains: “We always start with extensive research to get an image of what it would look like in reality, then we just let our painters and carpenters go wild and really mess it up. They do have fun with that.”

The next scene of destruction is Sookie’s house.

Gran always took great pride in her home and she would have been so sad to see what had happened to it under Maryann’s influence.

“In keeping with the pagan nature of Maryann the writers decided it would be interesting to bring the outside in and the inside out”, says Suzuki about what Maryann did to Sookie’s house. “I liked how it turned out with the art and artifacts looking out of place amidst the mud and branches. Once we started filming, it turned out that we had to put the dirt in, then clean it up, and then put it back in again. It was really messy.”

A very important element in this set was the meat tree. “We used real meat and lots of it!!! It had to be replaced every other day because it would start smelling and decomposing. Our crew affectionately called him “ Demetri” as in “De Meat Tree””

Photos courtesy of Suzuki Ingerslev
© The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

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Production Designer Suzuki Ingerslev is responsabile for the look of the True Blood sets. Previously we published our interviews with Suzuki about the Queen’s dayroom and Hotel Carmilla. In this  article we show you Maryann’s house.

A very elegant and luxurious set is Maryann’s house, or the house with the red door that we thought was Maryann’s in the first few episodes of the second season.

This beautiful house with large garden and pool is an exciting house and is located in Chapman Woods, CA. The house was used to shoot the inside scenes as well as the external scenes in the garden and at the pool. Suzuki explains that they did have to change a few things in the garden. “We actually did a lot to change the mood and dressed the patio with furniture, drapery, many plants, flowers and fruits galore.“

The mural of Pan and his human lover was not part of the original property. “It was based on a relief sculpture Alan Ball found from the Roman Empire. We took liberties to make the female figure resemble Maryann a bit more and amped up the already lusty Pan.”

The female statue that is shown in the first episode of Season 2 and triggers Sam’s memory, is a replica of “The Bird Lady” figurines that are part of the Egyptian collection of The Brooklyn Museum.

The script called for “a primitive piece of art; like a dancing girl” to be placed on the character Maryann’s coffee table. Suzuki and Cat Smith, Art Director, went on Google to look for images that fit these requirements, hoping to find something that inspired them. They looked at many different types of ancient images including Mycenaean, Etruscan, and Minoan examples. And they came across the Bird Lady.
Suzuki says: ““We liked the dancing posture of this statue and thought it represented the character of Maryann perfectly. We commissioned a local artist to sculpt multiple copies, which we then aged with paint.”

Read more about the Bird Lady

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In the first part of our series about the True Blood season 2 sets, Production Designer Suzuki Ingerslev, revealed the story behind the Queen’s day room. In this article Suzuki tells us about other elegant True Blood set: Hotel Carmilla.

The set of the elegant vampire hotel “Hotel Carmilla” in Dallas has a very modern look, nothing like what we traditionally would expect from a vampire hotel. The rooms are decorated in light and dark colors, a lot of white and black combined with red and purple.

Suzuki explains why this look for the hotel was chosen. “It was meant to be an upscale, luxurious resort for vampires. It needed an international and sophisticated appeal. The colors reflect a dark world, a life lived in night, obviously representing the myth of the vampire, but the hotel also has human visitors who would be seduced by the brooding color scheme.”

Part of the scenes for Hotel Carmilla were filmed in April of this year in the Los Angeles Sofitel Hotel. Shooting took two separate days and a total of 18 hours one day and 24 hours the following week.

“The front lobby was used, as well as the lounge”, says Suzuki.

“We mainly encountered time restrictions, having to work with the hotel to maintain their guests’ comfort. It was somewhat of a challenge masking so many mirrors and reflective surfaces for our camera crew without simply covering them all up.

The large metal piece of art we see in the lobby scenes is not a prop. “It belongs to the hotel. Another lucky break because the cost to commission an original artwork of that caliber would’ve been very expensive. We had to ask permission from the Sofitel, however, in order to show it on camera, and if they had said no we would’ve had to build something, an obelisk for example, to go over it.”

Photos courtesy of Suzuki Ingerslev

In Hotel Carmilla we see the corridor and several different rooms. The suite where Bill and Sookie stay, their bedroom, Jessica’s room and Jason’s room. The hotel rooms are very similar, but it is not the same room that was just for all the sets.

“We built the main suite for Bill and Sookie, and an attached suite for Jessica, The room Eric was a redress of Bill and Sookie’s suite. Jason stayed in Jessica’s suite. When you entered this set on stage it really felt like you were in a hotel, complete with key card locks, fully stocked True Blood mini bar, and roll down lightproof shutters. We also built the corridors outside the rooms.”

© The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

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True Blood’s second season featured several new sets: The FOTS church, Hotel Carmilla, Godric’s Lair, Maryann’s house, the dungeon and my personal favorite the queen’s residence. The creative force behind all these amazing sets is Suzuki Ingerslev, True Blood’s Production Designer.

Suzuki Ingerslev

Suzuki previously worked on Six Feet Under, Shark and In Treatment; she received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations and an Art Directors Guild Award nomination for her outstanding work.

I was very curious to know more about the True Blood Season 2 sets and Suzuki graciously answered my questions about how she created the sets.

In this first article Suzuki tells us about Queen Sophie-Anne’s dayroom.

Suzuki: “I start designing the sets by reading the script and getting a good understanding for who the character is, and if there is something important, we need to convey about their lives. I will work with the writers, producers and directors and pitch ideas and we will come together on a final concept. It is always good to have everyone on the same page, and that way there are no surprises on the day of shooting. As expensive as building scenery can be, and the short timeline of television production, you don’t want anyone walking into a set and saying that it was not what they expected. I also try and do some illustrations and presentation boards to show everyone the style, colors and sometimes furniture.”

As Production Designer Suzuki and her team have quite a lot of liberty in designing and creating the sets.

Suzuki: “I do have a lot of liberty when designing sets. I usually have a general idea from the script, but I am definitely expected to embellish and enhance those concepts. I usually do a lot of research to come up with interesting ideas, and then I pitch them to everyone. Once an idea has been approved, I work with my departments to get the set construction started, and we make sure that it not only looks great, but that it functions well for the crew, the camera and the action that is taking place in it. I will then work with my decorator and come up with an idea for what the furnishings will be needed, and they will go out and see what is available to rent or purchase.”

What can you tell us about the exterior of Queen Sophie-Anne’s residence?

Suzuki: “The Queen’s house is an existing location in Malibu, California, and it was definitely one of those locations that you knew was right from the minute you saw it. The pool house has a nostalgic feel to it, while at the same time seems timeless. We really wanted a space that we could turn into a dayroom and still have it feel glamorous and elegant, befitting of a Queen.

What we did was create dioramas in each window, so that the dayroom looked like it had views to the ocean. Since vampires could not be out in the day, we figured these dioramas represented everything the Queen missed about not being mortal, such as the sun and sea. It was tricky, we wanted the dioramas to appear somewhat surreal looking so that the audience understood that the Queen had created this dayroom, but on the other hand, we didn’t want the audience to think that we built this set on stage and we put some cheesy backdrops outside the windows.
It was funny; the crew arrived at this beautiful location, and was shocked to see that we had covered up all the real views of the ocean, only to have substituted them for our painted dioramas and fake seagulls. Over all I think it worked out well, and the dioramas had an elegant, Natural History museum feel to them, and not a cheap television vibe.
The water element was there as well, and we loved the visual interest it created, so we embraced it and featured it in our establishing shots of the building. It is unique and creates a romantic feel to the neoclassical architecture.”

Is that a greenhouse in the background next to the house?

Suzuki: “Yes, there is a greenhouse in the background and it is a part of the existing property. We chose to feature it as oppose to hiding it. Who knows, perhaps the Queen has a love of Orchids and she collects them in her greenhouse. It is very feasible that this character would have a greenhouse on her estate, and it is wonderful to add some depth and beauty to our establishing shot by choosing to light it up in the background.”

The interior of the dayroom is simply breathtaking. The amount of details is amazing. The entrance and the room are designed in a nature style that reminds me of Art Deco.

Suzuki: “What drew us to this location was exactly what you just mentioned. It does have an art deco/ nature feel to it, and the room is definitely one of a kind, with extraordinary detailing. After all the location scouting I have done over the years, in my opinion, nothing even comes close to the amount of detail that went into this pool house. We all just stood there and took the room in the first time we went there, and pictures don’t even begin to do it justice. The Statues, chandeliers, chair rail and ceilings are all made out of a variety of various sizes of seashells and corals. It is astounding, and we could never accomplish this on our budget, and time frame. It is truly breathtaking and exquisite.

I just went along with the existing architecture and oceanic feel. We wanted to just embellish on it and not detract from it.

The decorations in the entry were hand painted by an artist as per the owner. Apparently, he designed a lot of the pool house himself.

The floor is real marble, and since it was already there we had the benefit of shooting it. The owner’s budget is apparently a lot larger than our shows budget [laughs].

The furniture that we used was also the owners; we just replaced the cushions. The chairs and benches were exquisitely made out of wood with mother of pearl inlay. Again, something we could not afford on our budget. We had to be extremely careful with this furniture, and we chose to replace the cushions and add our own fabric, as well as protect the owners’ cushions from getting make up on them. The sculptures and chandeliers were created exclusively for the existing pool house by the owner; however, we did hire an artist to create large planters for the kentia palms we added in the room. She glued on miniature white sea shells to all the pots. We felt that the addition of plants to this room not only softened it, but also added to the exoticness. They also helped us cover up many reflective surfaces that are not helpful to the shooting crew.”

How long did it take to complete this set? How many people do you have in your team working on the sets?

Suzuki: “This set took us a couple of weeks to get organized. Building the dioramas was the biggest part of our job, and we had to make sure they fit into the existing openings seamlessly.  Also, we had to make them flexible by having them roll away so that the crew could access each doorway. On such a high-end location, our department has to be extremely careful not to do any damage, but yet we still have to incorporate our changes and ideas into the space. I have a large crew, from construction, paint and plaster, to decorators and art director. A lot of work goes into each and every set, and sometimes a location is more difficult to do than building a set.”

I noticed the queen’s gold powder box and the 1920’s Vogue that she picks up. Are those authentic props?

Suzuki: “The powder box was a request from the actress [Evan Rachel Wood]; she wanted to have something to do while she is speaking with vampire Bill. Our prop department went out and found some authentic vanity boxes/compacts, and this one was unanimously chosen. It did add a flare of elegance. The Vogue magazines were all authentic as well. They were purchased on EBay and we had to get permission to use them from the magazine, well worth it.”

And how does Suzuki think the Queen decorated the other rooms in her residence?

Suzuki: “I think the Queen would continue with the 1920′s feel, it is who she is, a timeless, elegant beauty, who appreciated the past. Of course, it would always have a hint of the modern as well.”

Stay tuned for more True Blood Season 2 set secrets…

Photo credit: HBO
© The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com
Reproduction is not allowed.

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