Mean Girls was filmed in a recently closed school in New Jersey. Not only was the school the filming location but it was also where all our offices, shops, workshops, and warehouses were too.
I liked to joke that it was like being on a boat. On the lower ground floor you would hear saws cutting up sets, smell people painting scenery items, see racks and racks of clothes moving around. You climbed up the stairs and you would see dancers rehearsing in the hallways flanked by offices for each department of the movie.
The hallway outside of our office was the setting for the fantasy sequence in the musical number “Revenge Party” so it was entertaining to see the progress as the hallway transform everytime I left the office. Less entertaining, hearing them rehearse the song over and over and over and over and over and over.
BEFORE
AFTER
Production Designer Kelly McGehee contemplating all the options of the large paper flowers we had custom made for this hallway.
said paper flowers on the screen
When the set dressers took over the cafeteria to become a floral arrangement assembly line:
A team of scenic painters working on transforming the lockers.
CONFETTI TIME!
how the hallway looked after filming.
The same hallway, before it was transformed for Revenge Party, used for another musical number, Apex Predator but now from the point of view from inside our office.
Because of the way this scene was blocked, the actress Auli’i Cravalho who plays Janis had to run through our set decoration office to get back on camera in time for the shot.
Here’s a video of what that looked like from my desk: