Q&A - Amy Wells (Set Decorator)
Amy Wells, the set decorator for Mad Men, has it tough. But her job is worth it, she says, because the actors are so appreciative: "Jon Hamm will often come on the set and go, 'Wow. You did it again.'" Here, she reveals the tricks of her trade.
Q: This season, there are so many new locations. Has that made your job more difficult?
A: Sometimes I read the script and get so much anxiety. We're a seven-day show, so you can well imagine what it's like. Somebody comes up with an idea, and it's like, "Great. I'm really glad you have that idea. Now I have to go find the stuff." Everybody else's job is putting words on paper, and the art director can draw things with a pencil, but my job is to literally go out there and put my hands on something. It's insane is what it is.
Q: What's been most difficult?
A: They go to hotel rooms a lot. It's like, "Can't they do it somewhere else, Matt?" How much hotel-looking furniture from that year can we really find? Also, Anita's: It was a full kitchen. Think about finding the right stove, the right sink, the right faucet. You've got to find the right thing. Every dish. Every bit of food product. Then there was the dining room and the living room. Sometimes, the sets that aren't real stylish are hard to do. You want them to look tidy, but, at the same time, not too upscale. That set really took me a lot of time.
Q: What are some of your favorite finds this season?
A: For Sal's apartment, we found them a great Danish modern-dining-room set and this huge Trojan horse that was gold, with all kinds of ornaments on it. It was oversize and really funny. That was over his couch. There's just so many things that bring me joy, because I feel like they're right for the set.
Q: Is that a real Rothko in Bertram Cooper's office?
A: After all the legal issues and the clearances, you get the image online and you reprint it. With their permission, obviously. That's how we got the Rothko. Of course, we have to destroy it after the season. It can't be circulated, because it's a direct copy.
Q: Do you have people coming out of the woodwork to tell you they have an antique you need for the show?
A: Yes. Oh my God, yeah. The greatest thing that happened is that somebody called another designer who lives in our neighborhood and said, "I have a stove that I'm taking out of my sixties house, and you guys can have it if you pick it up." It was fabulous. Those are the things that are really hard to find. Phone calls like that I really appreciate. Of course, most of the people want money, and a lot of times I don't have the money to spend. We do it lean.
Amy, what an unbelievably great job you do every week re-creating the "60's" look for Mad Men! I was there (I'm 57) and I know what looks "right" and what doesn't! It all looks so very authentic and I guess the reason why is that it is! All that hard work you and your team do finding all the perfect items must be exhausting but at the same time so rewarding.... Wonderful job!
Amy, I concur with SCfan that you do a FANTASTIC job! I was in my 20s in the early 1960s, worked in a Corporate environment and attest that everything is SO real.
As a single gal I lived, at the time, in a Greenwich Village-type basement apartment (ala Rhoda) with a lava lamp, a buddha and beads hanging through the doorway, and this was right before flower power.
I'm 72 years old now and this show and your set decoration brings back great memories.
Thanks so much.
......This was a fabulous interview, except that it is much too short. Does anyone know where to find more details about the sets? I'm an interiors freak....
And by the way, ladies, you don't "read" a day over 25! Like someone (scfan?) said - "kids with wrinkles!"
I have never done this before but I had to sign up to tell you how fantastic your sets are. I was born in the 60's in the New York area and can't believe what memories come back to me when I see some of your props. I have recently relocated to Colorado Springs and in our house hunt I have seen some unbelievable "sets" for the show. Thanks!!!!
Amy, I love the look of the MADMAN Show. Interestingly enough, I grew up in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut during the 1960's. My father was famed advertising illustrator Bob Peak. Bob Peak was instrumental in creating advertising looks during the 1960's. Ask anyone involved in New York Madison Avenue Advertising during the 1960's about illustrator/designer Bob Peak. My father worked on many ad campaigns including Viceroy Cigarettes, Salem Cigarettes, Puritan Sportswear, Diner Club, The 1964 New York Worlds Fair, Westinghouse Appliances, Mercury Automobiles, Dobbs Hats, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Redbook Magazine, and Esquire Magazine, to name a few.
His unique flamboyant illustrations caught the eye of the movie industry where he went on the produce ad campaigns for over 100 films including West side Story, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Funny Girl, Our Man Flint, Superman, Star Trek, and Apocalypse Now, and many others. This work earned him a LifeTime Achievement Award from the Film Industry.
I am president of the Bob Peak Estate located in Los Angeles. The Estate has numerous original illustrations done for ad campaigns in the 1960's. We would be interested in having you see what is available for set decoration for the MADMAN Series.
Please contact me at: peaktm@aol.com or by phone at 562-773-1349.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Thomas Peak
Bob Peak Estate
Amy, thank you. As someone with a HUGE obsession/passion for midcentury furniture (particularly lamps, which make me weak in the knees) I just adore your set design. It's lovely, awesome, perfect.
I spend most weekends trolling flea markets and antique shops in and around Charlottesville, VA for lamps. I'm running out of outlets to plug them in! ;) so I've been really enjoying the lamps you choose for the show. If I can't own every one out there, at least I can view them in their natural environment, lol!
Thanks again, you're doing a GREAT job.
Dry Manhattan, it was jamm54 who made the comment about us being "kids with wrinkles" ---but, I agreed with her a post or two down that page, because it is so true! LOL
Thanks for the comment that us ladies "don't 'read' a day over 25!" I do try to think young. Must be all that Pepsi I drank in my younger days....
We had a set just like the 3 bronze and wood flying ducks (on Duck's office wall)on our living room wall right over our stereo all through the 60's! I wish I still had them...so wonderfully tacky/chic!!!
Each Mad Men episode continues to amaze me, not just in terms of the writing and acting, but also in the amount of detail put into each scene -- the Menken's shopping bag in the last episode and the bottle of Pride furniture polish on Don and Betty's dining room table (episode before that) are just two tiny examples.
You and your team have done an amazing job and the care and detail put into the show is evident in every scene. I often watch the show once for the plot and then a second time just to take in all the little details. Thank you for helping making this show such fun to watch -- literally!
Amy, you do a great job. As others have said, things I see often bring me back to my childhood in the 60's. Actually, though, except for the refigerator, my parents kitchen hasn't changed since they built the house in 1958, so I almost fell off my chair the first time I saw Don & Betty's kitchen. Same knotty pine cabinets with dark handles, same type of oven in the wall...wow! I couldn't believe it! My parents' kitchen would be a great example for you--they still have the same oven and stove from 1958--Thermador stainless steel--and VERY fifties floor and countertops. We're in MA; if you want to arrange a look, drop me an e-mail: merlin500@comcast.net
Amy, your work is outstanding! Your sets look just like my home movies from the era (I'm 60). Amazing!
Amy,
Your work is excellent! I love the sets and they are a real part of each week!
There should be a contest and the winner can come and help you for a week!!!
Thank you for your creativity!
It's not just the set design, and the clothing, it's the whole early-60s ambience. The ATTITUDE. How do they get the attitude right? Are the writers of an age when they actually were around and aware in that time period? Or do they have access to people who were? Or ... are they just incredibly brilliant. I don't get it ... They'd have to be in their mid- to late-sixties agewise.
Growing up in the New York/New Jersey area in the early Sixtiess, the one thing I miss are the bars in the basement. Every house had one, each more elaborate then the next. Ours had two booths, and some 10 barstools. Along with all the requisite electric signs of the era. Every family friend and Uncle had one, even the well to do.
I know Don had his Philco full of beer in teh garage from seeing it in Sallys Birthday party episode season one, but I still miss the bars.
I would love a "visual reality" type tour of the offices and homes, just to zoom in and get a closer look at all the vintage items. (Maybe this could be an AMC special for us Mad Men addicts, similar to Jackie's White House tour!). We only catch glimpses in the weekly program. Ms. Wells, you should write a book. It would be fascinating.
I loved the Caddy showroom. Was that set specifically built or was it exixting?
Thanks!
The show and sets are so wonderful, that I feel bad for quibbling, but, as a senior at a well known Southern college in 1963, I remember men's clothes of the early 1960's as being much more "Ivy League" than they are in Mad Men. Of course, I wasn't working in the ad industry in NYC at the time, but we wouldn't have set foot out of the fraternity house without a button down shirt, a repp or foulard tie and a three button coat with unpleated pants and either penny loafers or wing tips.
I agree with Susanne,a tour page would be great.The Deadwood site from HBO was excellent.. Also a good tool for sets for any one in film or theatre is the aspirational look from Sherwin -Williams paint catalogs and brochures. One thing about the Mad Men sets and costumes,I adore that they reflect how slowly some things change it is more realistic.. love it! Apet peeve is a set with the wrong color palette or modern hairdos in a period movie or play.
Amy, Thanks for the memories!
It's so much fun to see the sets and props. I find myself saying "I remember that"!
Keep the 60's alive!
Amy, girl... you have got it goin' ON with those 60's sets you hook up for this series!
I'm from the 60's and watching your sets is something I look forward to just about as much as I look forward to the wardrobes of all the characters! God, I'm so glad that high heels aren't our only alternatives for shoes now -- OUCH(!) for everyday, anywhere and everywhere; all day long walking on concrete!
You're a cool genius.
~RDee~
Good job on the outfits for this cast. I was not born in the 60's but it gives me an idea how people dressed back then! Peggy wardrobe seems to be looking better she seemed to be the only flaw.lol Keep up the good job Amy.
Amy, I really appreciate your attention to detail on the sets; one of the most enjoyable parts of watching the show for this collector of 50's dishes and other housewares is trying to identify the stuff you've used on the sets. I noticed the Winfield Desert Dawn sugar bowl and cup on Betty's counter when she invited Glen into the house, although it's been killing me trying to identify Pete and Trudy's china in their cabinet!
The fact that you don't decorate strictly according to just the decade of the 60s is what makes the sets so believable. Everyone at the time had objects from different eras in their houses.
Amy, you do one HELLUVA job with those sets, lamb!
As a former smoker, I especially liked the floorstand ashtray from the Kennedy vs. Nixon episode.
You're terrific. Thank you.