SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Part 2 of “Wednesday,” now streaming on Netflix.
“Wednesday” production designer Mark Scruton was tasked with his biggest effort yet: creating the look for a lavish fundraising gala.
But it wasn’t any gala. It was one for Nevermore Academy. At the beginning of season 2, the school for social outcasts lands itself a new principal with Steve Buscemi playing Barry Dort. One of the first things he plans to do is put on a gala event, and he wants Morticia’s (Catherine Zeta Jones) mother, Grandmama Frump (Joanna Lumley), to donate. “We wanted to top what we did last season, and do something that was so completely different,” says Scruton.
Director Tim Burton’s directive to Scruton was “go to town” and do something grand and opulent, but keep it grounded. Scruton says, “I think the scenes are so well written in terms of how the characters are and what’s happening. The sets almost design themselves because you just sit down and you understand what you’ve got to give to make that scene come to life.”
Adding to the challenge were time and space. Scruton explains, “24 hours before we started building the gala ballroom, we had a huge forest set in there where the sword fighting with Morticia and Wednesday had taken place.” Scruton and his team had a weekend to remove the trees, mud, dirt and embankments. “Within 48 hours, we were in there building the Grand Canal for our gala, and wheeling in the huge arches which we’d made somewhere else.”
Design-wise, he drew inspiration from the opera world, which used big pieces of hand-painted scenery to make the set grander. “That was my key to the whole set. We took big elements of Venetian architecture, and then we just painted them literally onto these big canvas arches.”
In addition to that, Scruton’s team built a gondola that needed to float down the canal. “We had two weeks start to finish to that set in, dressed and ready to go.”
Principal Dort’s motives are revealed; he wants Grandmama’s fortune, and he’s also revealed as the mastermind of the Morning Song cult. Later, Dort takes Bianca hostage, but ends up setting a chandelier on fire in the process.
Ajax jumps in and rescues her by turning Dort into stone using his Gorgon abilities. However, Dort’s fate is sealed after the chandelier crashes down and crushes him to death. “Outside, we have these enormous chandeliers, and initially, that was meant to be where that scene happened, and he was crushed on the chandelier outside.”
However, as they came close to the wire, the scene “flipped to an interior scene in the ballroom, and we had to pull another chandelier together to make it work indoors.”
Adds Scruton, “That was one take. In the end, it fell, it smashed perfectly. Everyone was happy, and we walked away.”
“Wednesday” Season 2, Part 2, is now streaming on Netflix.
