Low Budget Sleeper

Our low-budget take on the Sleepers aesthetic

In episode 4 of High Maintenance Season 3 on HBO, we had a set that was meant to be a set dressed into a homeowner’s home on a fictional filming crew’s set. (yes, very meta.)

We needed something that quickly read as drastically different than an ordinary residence’s furnishings so our designer Tommaso came up with the creative idea of doing a sleek futuristic look based on Sleeper to create a high contrast with the existing home.

the original inspiration from the set of “Sleeper”

The existing room we were working with looked like this:

BEFORE

AFTER with just some white linoleum, plexi glass, light boxes, table and chair set plus plants

For a set you see maybe for 2 seconds on screen and the reason it is there is not entirely readily apparent if you are just watching the show without knowing the script. The idea is that the homeowner is answering the door to let some set dressers in to put the finishing touches on the set.

Mother-in-Law's Brainscan as Art

On the window above the taped “HELP” is the brainscan also taped to the window.

In episode 2, in Season 3 of High Maintenance on HBO one of the characters is Darby who among other hustles she has going on around town, steals items from our corporate office job to resell on Craigslist. If you look closely, the items laying around her apartment ready to sell match items in her office.

We wanted to flesh out her character as a strange, dark, and creative woman with many little art projects in and around her apartment.

On the desk are many little art projects we created as we imagined Darby would have started

After gathering a bunch of elements to put together these aspects of her character, we still needed somethings that were off-kilter and a bit off.

So I searched around my own apartment for things that might add to this part of Darby’s character and then I saw my mother-in-law’s brainscan and was like hmmm this could work. And it ended up being a star.