Abbi's Wallpaper on HBO's "Divorce"

I was watching the premiere of the new HBO show “Divorce” starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and when we were in her character’s bedroom, I recognized the wallpaper as a familiar friend…

Frances’ bedroom in “Divorce.”

…it is the same wallpaper used in Abbi’s apartment on Broad City!

Abbi’s living room wall in “Broad City.”

I recognized it instantly because I had to reorder Abbi’s apartment wallpaper while working on Broad City so spent some quality time with the design and seller, Secondhand Rose (which by the way is totally sold out of this design now).

I know those are sort of weird images of Abbi, but the best scenes featuring this wall of wallpaper in her set are from her infamous naked dance number to “Edge of Glory” when she realizes she has the whole apartment to herself in Season 2, Episode 2 “Mochalatta Chills”:

yes only decorators watch shows and notice wallpaper which reminds them of other wallpaper.

Trim Mania

Was dressing a set in beautiful Victorian Flatbush and needed a large quantity of ribbon fast. So I searched what was around and was delivered to this gem box of a ribbon and trim store. 

Stumbling upon little old school businesses with an ambiance of cheerful mania like Trim Fabric (they have coupon codes named "SuperMega") is one of the true joys of set decorating work for me.  

Madonna, Rhianna, Ilana + Fruit Cart!

On last night's Broad City one of the funny little joyful sequences was Ilana's little jaunt arriving at Madison Square Park. 

For this sequence, one of the key pieces of set dressing was a classic NYC fruit cart.  

There are many ways to go about finding the right fruit cart, but in this situation we decided approaching a working fruit cart nearby and negotiating a rental deal was the ideal choice for ultimate authenticity. 

The fruit cart we used in its natural habitat on 6th Ave in Manhattan

So I walked up and down 6th Ave approaching different fruit vendors. As you can imagine, most of the guys working a fruit cart are not interested in entertaining little requests like this + many don't have the authority to ok a non-traditional request like this. 

But I finally found, Helal, who was willing to do it.  Finding out he was a Bangladeshi immigrant, I talked him up in Bangla which I learned while living in Bangladesh for two years when I was a Foreign Service Officer--who knew speaking Bangla would turn out to be so useful for set decorating in NYC? 

Here is the fruit cart in question on set, Helal on the right in the brown shirt, and the actor who plays him on the left in the maroon shirt. Hilarious right? oh also, Ilana on the right. 

I thought Helal and I talked about him bringing another plain umbrella for the shoot, but when we got to set we realized the only two umbrellas he had were all marked up with company brand names. In the future, I will always bring an extra back-up umbrella-lesson learned. 

So then it became an issue of finding the right matching blue tape nearby to do the best "Greeking" job we could on short notice. 

It isn't the greatest color match, but it was the best we could do on such short notice. 

I'm sure when you watch that sequence for the first time your attention was focused on Ilana and her unique blend of charming and irreverent joyful charisma.  I, however, was watching the blue tape. 

You can watch the whole episode "Burning Bridges" (Season 3, Episode 8) from Broad City here 

Broad City's Warehouse Sale

The crazy warehouse sale Abbi and Ilana come upon in Season 3, Episode 1

In Broad City's Season 3 premiere Abbi and Ilana go on one of their signature NYC epic days and one of the fun scenes they come upon is a crazy NYC warehouse sale. 

Finding enough clothes to fill a store size space with a limited budget to sustain the wear and tear required for the chaotic and vicious action required in the scene, was a challenge. 

a hilariously exaggerated representation of how competitive NYC Warehouse Sales can be

We had to get resourceful so we asked some local fashion brands for product placement, hit up our favorite by the pound thrift store, bought some discounted high-fashion clothes, and lastly rented racks of clothes that were actually part of the location's actual pop-up sale inventory. 

But renting clothes at this quantity from someone can be tricky because they need it all back, and if you watch the sequence you see there is a lot of intense movement of clothes with lots of opportunity for confusion and mix-up.

So one of my jobs was to take a detailed inventory of all the clothes we were renting so that we could be sure we returned everything after shooting. 

Since I didn't have my computer with me, it had to be a good'ol handwritten list.  A list like:

And it worked.  It allowed us to start the day dressing the set like this:

fill it up like this in a day

then have it look like this at the end of filming:

And have each piece of clothing back where it belonged. 

You can watch the whole, super fun, hilarious, and full of Broad City charm episode here. 

My first IMDB Credit!

woooooo hooooooo!

I feel so legit now.  Though, how do I get all the other credits of things I worked on up there?

SWATCHING!

spent the rainy humid morning swatching it up at Mood Designer Fabrics of Project Runway fame.  These were the original colors they wanted to upholster some panels. 

And then the direction changed to: 

where I had fun exploring the old school upholstery and fabric stores of the Lower East Side and returned to the production office with bags full of fun swatches.  

And now also an Art Dealer

We recently filmed an Art Gallery scene which of course we needed to fill with art. 

So I called up some NYC artists I know whose art was the right style for the vibe they wanted. One of these artists is a friend from high school Crys Yin who has a studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 

At the end of the shoot, the director liked one of Crys' paintings so much she bought it!

So during the one-day fake art show, we sold a piece! Does this make me an art dealer now???

busting out my Bangla skills for a Fruit Cart

We needed a fruit cart for an exterior shot, and the ones at the prop houses we looked at weren't cutting it. 

So the Production Designer asked if we could find a guy on the street and just rent from him. 

So I walked up 6th Ave and started asking guys.  Many were skeptical and couldn't be bothered.  

Quickly I realized they were all Bangladeshi and since I lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh for two years and learned Bangla I realized I could use a little bit to ease in the ask. 

So I busted out my latent Bangla skills and found a guy, Helal who worked out great. 

When I gave him the check two days after filming he even asked me if I wanted a piece of fruit for the road.