Production Design in Narcos

This week I watched two episodes of Narcos, a Netflix original series. (I'm really bad at binge watching television.)

Narcos is about the most notorious drug dealer of all time, Pablo Escobar. Much of the story takes place in Colombia in the late 70s and early 80s, where Pablo and his team produce mountains upon mountains of cocaine to sell in other South American countries and the United States. ('narcos' = narcotics. If you didn't get that, it's cool--I didn't until at least halfway through the first episode). The story is told by Steve Murphy (played by Boyd Holbrook), a DEA agent who moves from Miami to Colombia to stop Escobar.

Pablo and his cocaine. Bffs 4 life.

Th production design in Narcos, as I would expect with any major drama series, was excellent. Scenes in episodes one and two take place in the middle of the jungle, a fancy Colombian hotel, a random street in South Beach, Miami, the airport, a plane, a bowling alley, and a ton of other places. There was so much effort put into every little detail--as it should be.

This has inspired me to get involved in this part of production for our project, which was recently retitled as Dollhouse. In class we talked about using our location to resemble a dollhouse, so I started to think about exactly what that means.

I may have had this exact dollhouse growing up, actually.

I played with dolls (Barbies, Polly Pockets, Bratz) all the time growing up. However, I think what makes dollhouses a little creepy is when all the furniture is glued down. Not all dollhouses are like this, but the ones for very young children are, so they can't pick up the tiny furniture and start eating it. Maybe glued down furniture is an element that we can play with. We want the dollhouse to reveal characteristics about our antagonist, Hannah, so very minimalist designs might be best. Perhaps we could have shots of her straightening or tidying things around the house as she talks to Vivian, our protagonist. Vivian's room, in contrast, will look like the "normal" college student's--pictures and posters on the walls, some laundry on the floor, homework sprawled across the desk.

Obviously, we don't have the money that Narcos did, but that doesn't mean we can't put a lot of effort into our production design.

New Dog, Old Tricks.

      Continuing on the thread that I can't seem to clip and bring to a stop, the best time of my college life is usually spent on the vastly infinite expanse of Netflix. I was recently given the Australian adventure-comedy show Danger 5 to binge after I finished a few select others over the summer. Well, let me rephrase that. I lost a bet and had to watch the pilot with my boyfriend and, let me tell you, I still have no clue what the hell is going on. I've seen about 5 episodes and the only thing that I can actually tell you is that it was filmed rather recently but looks like it was made in the 70s, both visually and audibly (which btw, is so goddamn cool). I've also learned that every episode they are given a new mission and, of course, they must try and kill Hitler. I think Hitler is trying to steal famous monuments from around the world like the Eiffel Tower and the like. I honestly have zero idea what is going on but it's constructed in such a way that it's coherent enough to look like none of it is nonsense when, in fact, it's literally nothing but pure nonsense.
      While the show is made so it looks like it's straight out of a time that is not this current one, it's clearly got technology on its side. Reconstructing the sets, lights, and the rest of the jazz to look 1000 years old, Danger 5 tends to showcase the type of humour that could easily be from today or the past, which I adore. It's funny with its running gimmicks and jokes but also has gags that poke fun at the era that it's desperately trying to recreate. Spoiler, they are actually doing it better than the poor folks who made the inspirational material in the first place. The show incredibly has enough plot for those who actually want a show to watch with a little bit of weight to it instead of the class 'binge because it's got nothing going on'. Danger 5 does have a running storyline, it's just the fluff around it that's a little crazy. Ok, a lot of crazy. There's a lot of weird puppets and giant animal-headed people but honestly, that sounds like a normal Tuesday night for me. I totally recommend at least watching the pilot and appreciating the hard work that all of the hardworking people at D5 did in order for this show to become a reality.