• 2 days ago
Today, AD joins production designer Kave Quinn to tour the set of ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.’ As Bridget, played by Renée Zelwegger, embarks on life as a single mom, she’s traded in her iconic Borough Market apartment for a Victorian townhouse in Hampstead. Join Quinn to tour Bridget’s new home, and where she’ll be embracing her latest chapter.

BRIDGET JONES MAD ABOUT THE BOY is streaming February 13, 2015 on Peacock https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-movies/bridget-jones-mad-about-the-boy
Transcript
00:00Hey AD, my name's Kate Quinn. I'm the production designer on Bridget Jones' Mad About the Boy.
00:06Come and have a look at the set.
00:16Oh goodness, where did we leave Bridget last?
00:19Well, she was getting married.
00:21She just had her son and she was beginning her happily ever after with Mark Darcy.
00:29And when we catch up with her this time, things didn't quite turn out like she'd planned.
00:36Bridget is a single mom and she's raising her two children and she is trying to figure out how to begin again.
00:47The reality is suddenly completely terrifying and Mark and insane and flabby and oh god, oh god.
00:52I can't. I really can't.
00:55What?
00:56No, I just can't.
00:57It really is a collaborative effort to make a film.
01:00The costumes along with the set design, all of the elements come together to bring her to life
01:07and make her world that magical place that we like to revisit.
01:19So let's go and have a look in the kids' bedroom.
01:21So this is Billy and Mabel's bedroom.
01:23So I wanted to make the bedroom feel as though it was in two parts.
01:27Billy's is kind of a more serious part.
01:30He's into astronomy, he's into building Lego, he's into chess.
01:35So everything about Billy's sort of side of the room reflects that side of his creativity.
01:41And then you've got the crazy Mabel and she's younger as well.
01:44It's more disorganised and cute.
01:47Bridget has painted her bed, so you've got a lovely painted bed here.
01:51And then she's also painted Billy's but done it much more formally
01:56with the galaxy and different stars painted on the bed.
01:59Mabel's also painted a little bit on the floor with her mum.
02:02And then we have a wallpaper which is a bit like Bridget's wallpaper in her bedroom
02:07but a more Mabel version.
02:09And then this window is really, really critical because Bridget, Mabel and Billy
02:14all see this lovely owl in the garden who's watching them at various times in the film,
02:19keeping an eye, so they feel as though Mark is still there in their life
02:23but he's embodied by this lovely barn owl.
02:25This whole room is structured around all these scenes where they're looking out the window
02:30as well as all the other important scenes that happen in this room.
02:33There was a lot of thought put into the design to enable these rituals
02:38that Bridget shares with her children, bedtime rituals.
02:42And they've become really important in Mark's absence
02:46and how the children show their grief.
02:50Retrospectively, it's really clear that a lot of thought was put into these very important story points
02:55and subtext to give, especially the children, a safe place to play
02:59which enables them to be more open or to feel less vulnerable.
03:09This is Bridget Jones' new kitchen, her new house that she bought with Mark Darcy
03:14when they got married and where they had their children.
03:16As you can see, it's very fun and colourful, very Bridget Jones in its fun and cheekiness
03:23but it also has the serious Mark element.
03:26So it's a combination of their two characters, this house.
03:29The colour of the kitchen, which is this beautiful bright yellow,
03:32actually on camera it will feel a lot softer
03:36because of the digital in-camera LUT that we're using on the film.
03:40So it's all slightly faded back and will have much more of a filmic quality
03:44rather than a very vibrant bright yellow.
03:47I find when filming on digital, it's very difficult to make everything look real if you do fake.
03:54So I try to use real as much as possible.
03:56For example, the marble here, I used real floorboards which are reclaimed floorboards
04:01like an old house would have had a little bit of subsidence and settling in it.
04:05So I tried to put those elements in the set.
04:08The ceiling mouldings, I didn't want them to feel too crisp and new.
04:11I wanted them to feel as though they'd been overpainted.
04:14So we chipped away at them a bit, rubbed them down, added layers of paint
04:18just to kind of give that feel as though it'd been here for a long time.
04:22What a complicated challenge it must have been to find a nice mix
04:27between the styles of Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy to create that space
04:32because we know how very different they are and how they present themselves
04:36and how they dress and, well, in their personal styles.
04:40So I think they found a really nice mix.
04:43I love that she isn't precious about certain things
04:46and I love that what she likes, she likes and it's very charming.
04:50Please enter along.
04:53Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.
04:55Please enter along.
04:56No, don't put a blade down. We can save Josmelo.
04:59Please enter along.
05:00Please.
05:01Oh!
05:12I wanted to make something that was true to Bridget's character
05:15and she's now got children, so things have changed.
05:19There's all these details that kind of make it feel real.
05:22She doesn't mind the children drawing on the walls.
05:24There are everywhere, messing up the whole environment
05:27and then there's elements of Mark here, like, for example, this sofa,
05:30which is quite traditional, and then we've got the more playful,
05:33kind of fun Bridget elements dressed on top.
05:36The same with these very kind of simple chairs,
05:39which have a throw over, which is very Bridget.
05:41And then within this set, we've got, like, pictures of Mark and the children
05:46and then we've got, like, pictures which Mark might have bought in,
05:50like these Japanese prints.
05:52So the other key thing that we dressed in the set
05:54was obviously the iconic Bridget diaries.
05:57They're up here on the shelf here.
05:59These are all the old diaries from previous films
06:01and then we had to recreate a diary for the new film,
06:05which is sitting here over on the table.
06:07It's very important to Michael Morris, the director,
06:10that the diary had to be virtually identical
06:14to the original Bridget Jones diary, which is very, very beautiful,
06:18the colour, the ribbon, the way it was bound.
06:22They all slightly changed over different Bridget Jones films,
06:26so we tried to go back to the original first Bridget Jones film
06:30when Mark first bought the first diary for her.
06:33The chimerical qualities of that space,
06:35of the living room and the kitchen, which is the heart of the home,
06:38that opens out into this beautiful play space for her children
06:42just exemplifies the importance of her children in her life.
06:46It's vibrant and alive and it's a fun place to be
06:49and everything has been altered in some way to accommodate the kids
06:53and to put them as a central focus in the home
06:55and you can see it in both Mila and Casper's performances,
06:59the way that they integrate the space into their performances,
07:02up and down and climbing on this and that and throwing things over here.
07:06It's just a beautiful sort of space for Bridget to raise her kids
07:11in a way that's quite different than maybe Mom was, you know,
07:15raising Bridget back in the day.
07:17Now, what are you going to put on?
07:19This.
07:20Oh, don't be silly, Bridget.
07:22Go upstairs, lay out something lovely on your bed.
07:32So here we are in Bridget's bedroom.
07:35Bridget obviously is more grown up now, so I went for a wallpaper
07:39but something with a bit of fun in it and also a bit of tradition
07:43so it kind of fits with Bridget's character and Mark's character
07:46and this is the wallpaper we landed on.
07:48On this side of the room is kind of what was Mark's sort of side of the room.
07:54This would have been his chest of drawers that he might have had his clothing in,
07:58some books of his up here, and then there's layers of Bridget.
08:01She's not keeping it as a shrine, but she's got like the feeling of Mark here.
08:06Within the bedroom, it's kind of a little bit of fine-tuning dressing
08:09in as well as general dressing.
08:11Like there's a coffee here that's been left and a mug of tea.
08:15It's kind of this level of detail is really important for the believability of the characters,
08:20especially with somebody like Bridget's character, which everybody knows and loves.
08:30This is the bathroom, but I wanted like a flow of space between the two rooms
08:35so that you could get a real kind of moving in and out of, you know, characters here.
08:40We could have put a cupboard in the bedroom, but the space then wouldn't have been so dynamic.
08:45It made it more interesting to go in the bathroom.
08:47The other thing that we did, we put pocket doors in here
08:50and we found some amazing kind of antique glass
08:53and we got it properly leaded to kind of just give it a bit more character detail.
08:57So again, it lets the light through.
08:59It's just another little detail within the set that's really beautiful
09:03and it gives the set more space having the pocket doors.
09:06And then in the bathroom, it's very traditional, but it's also quite fun.
09:11It's got a really lovely cast iron bath near the fireplace here.
09:14Bridget's just used it, you know, as a ledge for her bits and bobs, which is really lovely.
09:20And then we've got a really kind of traditional chair, which is far more marked.
09:23And it feels very modern as well. It doesn't feel too old fashioned in those traditional.
09:27And then over here we have the double sink unit, which, you know, they bought together.
09:32His and her kind of sides and mirrors.
09:35We've got a few scenes with Bridget's trying on clothes to go on dates.
09:38So we created these louvered cupboards, which are full of Bridget's kind of mess of clothing.
09:43And then we have the camera trap. The back of the cupboard comes off.
09:47So when they're filming the scene with Bridget getting all the stuff out,
09:50the camera's behind the cupboard looking at her as she's doing it.
09:56Hello, old friend.
10:05It was quite a challenge for me to make a new set for Bridget Jones.
10:15You've always seen her in her lovely flat in the Borough Market,
10:18which Gemma Jackson designed back in Bridget Jones 1.
10:21I had a lot to live up to from all the other films. It's obviously got a massive fan base.
10:27It's just so warm and familial and familiar.
10:32It's Bridget as a mom at her finest, you know.
10:37And you can see the love between Bridget and her children.
10:41One of the things that I find so special about the experience of making the Bridget Jones films
10:49is that there's an opportunity to reconnect with this character, this person that I love,
10:57and just to check in with her and be immersed in her world once again.