Little America is out!
premiered on Apple TV January 17
Last winter, I worked as the Assistant Set Decorator for four episodes of Little America. This was the unusual TV show that had two Art Departments, one for every even episode, one for every odd episode. We were “Team Odd” (which of course we all loved.) But then the number we shot the episodes as (and which ones were odd or even) changed when it came time to air, so I think all our credits are attached to the wrong episodes…
Finally on February 8, the Decorator Lindsay, our team’s Set Dec Coordinator Jackie, and I all went to Lindsay’s place, ordered some really good pizza and watched the episodes we worked on together. Which are the following:
Episode 7, “The Rock” about Farhad.
Episode 2, “The Jaguar” about Marisol.
Episode 4, “The Silence” about a silent meditation retreat in the 1970s.
Episode 6, “The Grand Prize Expo Winners”, about Ai.
It is always fun to watch the finished product with the people you worked on it with. Reminiscing about the crazy little stories, the funny memories, the moments of extreme stress, and the things that gave us grief as we see them appear on the screen. As well as being able to exclaim in excitement when a set comes together in a great way on screen after the editing and plus the lighting, costume, hair and makeup, and of course the actors.
We all shared a few moments of heartbroken disbelief when sets we worked on really hard never made it on screen (scenes in the script that took place in that set were edited out or certain angles of the camera never captured the part we were most proud of in the set).
The real heartbreak was in Episode 6, “The Grand Prize Expo Winners” where they added in new scenes they reshot in Los Angeles after they finished filming in New Jersey, so then used a completely new home set as the setting for the childhood home as opposed to the one we worked on. The home we decorated was so lovingly put together with so much attention to detail and came straight from my heart and personal lived experience…(crying emoji).
…I’ll try to put together a post of set photos from that home so at least the set can live on here even if it never made it on air.
Either way it was such a gratifying show to work on to focus entirely on immigrant stories that were so unique and compelling with some really fun sets. (on Apple+ TV!)