“Wednesday” has returned to dish out another dose of deliciously dark gothic charm. The storyline stretches its slithery tendrils into new territory that has its title character, embodied by Jenna Ortega, face foes old and new (and family) to uncover the latest supernatural mystery endangering Nevermore Academy. What it meant for production designer Mark Scruton and his team, which included designer Philip Murphy, was to expand familiar visual haunts with surprising new twists.
One of those twists, at least from a production standpoint, was shooting the season in an entirely different country. Romania was swapped for Ireland, with Ashford Studios stepping in for the stage work and areas of Dublin, Wicklow, and Offaly for practical backdrops. But fear not, Nevermore still oozes its signature moody trappings — labyrinthine corridors, eerie stained glass, and foreboding woods — but now there are fresh corners of the school revealed, which echo the gear-turning soul of the Industrial Age.
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“This year, from my point of view, is very much trying to deal with the sort of dead technology and old machinery that comes through in episodes,” Scruton told IndieWire. “Bringing that into our language was important long-term in the show, so I kept trying to weave those motifs into the sets as a backstory to it all, along with all the classic Addams family style.”
Below are a handful (of the countless) sets and design choices Scruton and crew had their hands in developing – all of which were guided by creator Tim Burton’s preferred choice to shoot things practically in-camera.
Death from Above
Edgar Allan Poe references seep into Season 1 like fog over a moonlit graveyard, none more than his poetic despair “The Raven.” From the school’s name to Wednesday’s raven-style psychometry, Burton and company tapped into the dreary lore with delight. Raven motifs crept into the production design at every turn: Nevermore Academy’s front gates, Principal Weems’ office, roof tiles that resembled feathers, and the school’s mascot. The most memorable: Wednesday’s hypnotic dance number during the Rave’N themed bash. “The look is in the DNA of the show, so it’s quite easy to then bring it into the designs as the bird plays an important part in all sorts of ways each season,” Scruton said.
“Wednesday” Season 2 sees the imagery becoming a full-blown nightmare. A sinister one-eyed raven takes the protagonist’s spotlight, stalking unsuspecting victims and snatching their eyeballs. The feathery villain scares were developed through a mix of makeup, functional props, and visual effects. Production created a detailed model of the hero bird and other generic versions to be used as a reference on set or attached to a fishing line as a way to capture them in a scene. “Tim loves practicality and will shoot stuff as practical as he can, so he will literally throw a bird in front of the camera,” Scruton said.
Animatronic versions, albeit with limited movement, were also incorporated. But visual effects provided the heavy lifting where the team, overseen by VFX supervisor Tom Turnbull, filled the sky with CG unkindness and mapped the chaos to characters fighting for their life. For instance, the first episode sees a man viciously attacked in his van, setting off a mystery for Wednesday to solve. “This one-eyed bird that’s killing people gave us a nice counterbalance between the interwoven nature of the school and the villainous elements in the plot line,” Scruton said. “The collaboration between visual effects, special effects, and our model-making team made it possible.”
Rotwood Cottage
With school back in session, Principal Dort (Steve Buscemi) has asked Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to chair the Gala Fundraising Committee and suggests she and Gomez (Luis Guzmán) “stay a little closer” while she makes a decision. The two find a temporary haven in the gardener’s cottage – the former living quarters of Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci). Sharp eyes will see an exterior plaque with the name Rotwood Cottage on it. Perhaps a connection to Lady Gaga’s character Rosaline Rotwood?
Scruton designed two versions of the interior, a kind of before and after, as Morticia redecorates its “ghastly” appearance. Bubblegum pink palettes were exchanged for gloomier blacks, reds, and earthy browns. Set dressing takes on a more gothic tone akin to Addams Family vibes.
“The interior was about the transition of pink that we first see and then into Morticia’s version. You can never design one without thinking about the other, so the wallpaper was specifically designed for each version using two different colorways. It’s exactly the same design, we just changed out the colors,” Scruton said. “Then all the woodwork was done with a limited oak finish, and we went back in with a really dark, sort of black drag over everything. It was a process to make it all feel the same but have it suddenly look like I took on Morticia.” Finishes touches to the space included an elaborately designed fireplace, blood-red drapes, and shrunken heads of family members to make the “house feel like a home.”
The exterior took on a darker tone as well. “It has a sort of carpenter’s gothic look because we wanted to take it away from looking like the Addams family mansion,” the production designer said. “We wanted to give it a new shape and its own silhouette, so if you saw it lit from behind and it was just a black shape, you would know it.” Each consideration was dressed through Morticia’s viewpoint as if she were given a blank canvas to express her own look.
“We wanted a really clear distinction that this wasn’t the Addams family house revisited but Morticia’s space that she could decorate in her own way,” Scruton said.
Playing with Fire
Nevermore Academy celebrates its roots with a Founder’s Pyre, a kind of student meet-n-greet where the main attraction is a multi-story bonfire in the shape of a raven. Scruton and his team utilized a studio backlot to create the structure, a sequence that was shot over five nights. “We did a lot of testing on how to make it fireproof because the structure had to withstand being burned constantly,” the production designer said. “We used real wood and treated it with fireproofing, and then we had a concrete flat board behind it so that it could withstand the heat.”
Sculptors were brought in to hand-carve the swirl of timber that was treated and cut into the shape of the twisting sculpture. Special effects buried gas lines underground and integrated them into the structure so the blaze could be easily started and stopped.
The interior required a separate build to support a climactic sequence where Wednesday crawls through its prickly confines. “We had an equally complicated interior which was built in sections on rostrums with wheels so they could pull apart different sections and get the camera angles they needed,” Scruton said. “All the branches had to be fireproof and soft so that Jenna could climb through them safely. It was definitely one of our bigger jobs this season.”
The pyre’s final stunt sees the avian structure break free and soar through the night sky. “That was an impressive thing to see. Hats off to Tom Turnbull and the visual effects team because you don’t even notice the transition from it being a physical thing to it suddenly becoming this live bird. It’s a hard one to pull off and get that believability.”
Tower of Terror
An abandoned clock tower at Nevermore becomes a key location to the story, which is first introduced when Enid (Emma Myers) and her new love interest Bruno (Noah B. Taylor) are trapped inside – only Wednesday can save them. The structure was another practical build that required construction to start 10 feet underground to give it a level below. It was erected using steel and dressed to spook with eerie hallways, winding staircases, and a dilapidated clock face with moving mechanics. “We had to work through all the different plotlines to make sure you can access everything,” Scruton said. “There were a lot of moving bits around and trying to figure out exactly where everything needed to fit to make sure characters could get from one point to another.”
In the race to save Enid and Bruno, Wednesday must solve a riddle to stop a platform of lowering knives threatening to kill them. “Our model makers were casting knives for the entire duration of our prep,” Scruton admitted. “They all had to be rubber and we went through every existing mold and made new ones. The platform was all practical and in camera, and it really did lower down.”
The production designer also incorporated the old-tech motif into the space. “If you look into the ceiling, there are bits of technology that you don’t know quite what they were or how they figure into things, as if there’s an underlying mechanism to it all that is sort of long forgotten,” Scruton said.
Color Wars
In an episode where Wednesday and Nevermore students go on an overnight camping trip, Scruton and Murphy conjured the extensive exterior location from the ground up. The duo utilized a park near their production stages to erect the set pieces that included buildings, tents, and a gigantic tower with an observation deck – the latter of which required constructing multiple versions. “The tower was an engineering feat. We built a complete version and then also a replica of the top at the location for the action sequences. It made it easier to shoot because getting up there would be tricky,” says Scruton.
The replica top was built in an abandoned car park and positioned so that the backdrop was the surrounding environment. “It wasn’t against a green screen. We built it so it looked out across the valley so the crew could be ground level, but the camera still had skyline views across the wilderness,” notes Scruton. The foresight allowed both set pieces to be seamlessly cut together as Nevermore is challenged by a group of normie cadets in a color war game to see who will get to remain in the overbooked campground.
Willow Hill Psychiatric Ward
As Wednesday pieces the mystery puzzle together, she makes a visit at the hospital holding Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), the monstrous Hyde who tried to kill her in Season 1. The space became production design’s largest build that combined a practical location with stage work.
“There was an abandoned seminary in Dublin we scouted, which became a starting point for the Willow Hill site,” Scruton said. “What was good about the place was that it had a very big empty front exterior, so we could build the gatehouse, the driveway, and the main road outside. It also had higher windows and balconies where we needed them for the set pieces and a full-length corridor inside.”
The team added to the patina, creating hallway arches, installing tiles, and incorporating large sphere-shaped lighting to the corridor ceiling. A smattering of turquoise brings color to its walls. The seminary also had a number of offices which were transformed into hospital support rooms, including an electrotherapy room. “That was a really fun set where we wanted only a few things in it,” says Scruton. “We wanted the machine, the chair, and nothing else to really enjoy the proportions and scale of it all. That location was a blessing from that point of view.”
Production design also created an entire basement level at the location, which mirrored the main floor but with a darker, grubbier aesthetic. Existing rooms turned into cells of the disturbed. It’s here where Tyler is being held in shackles behind a glass wall and steel bars, giving serious “Silence of the Lambs” vibes. The location also had an existing exterior square outside where a gigantic birdcage was brought in as part of the storyline. “We had an awful lot of work with greens to bring it back to look manicured,” Scruton said.
However, not part of the practical location was a secret, unmarked room that Wednesday stumbles upon, which may hold the answers to the mystery. That set piece was built on stage with production design matching all the visual motifs of the practical location.
“A huge amount of work went into creating that labyrinth of space, and it was great because we could really build a world where the actors could turn up to and they felt like they’re in the real place,” Scruton said. “And Tim loved it as you could properly roam around inside and feel that nasty undercurrent from the whole place.”
“Wednesday” is streaming now on Netflix.
