I Was in Bliss: Steve Sakland on Re-Creating 1970 for Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

I do know we’re right here to speak about “Margaret,” however I’ve to inform you how a lot I really like your designs for “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.”

It was bliss, and in my thoughts, it was a pure musical.

And on this film, we bought to do 4 theater scenes. I bought to do one other musical! I’m skilled in theater, so theater is my background. And I labored in New York in musical theater on Broadway for ten years earlier than I moved out west and began doing motion pictures.

Where did you develop up, and what did you examine?

I grew up within the Eastern seaboard, in suburban Connecticut and suburban Pennsylvania, and I went to Yale Drama School for theater design. So, you examine costume units and lights. Came to New York in 1981, so about ten years after our story on this movie takes place. And I labored most of that point helping the premier designers of Broadway exhibits, Broadway performs, and musicals. The gap in my coronary heart is that I’m not in New York now designing theatre. I really like what I do, however any present like “Barb and Star” or “Margaret” that can provide me an opportunity to design theatre within the film, oh, I’m in heaven. It’s every part I used to be skilled to do.

One element from the ’70s I particularly beloved on this film was the rec room with that sliding accordion door. I keep in mind these!

We did set up that. That wasn’t there. And Kelly Fremon Craig, our director, used it so effectively as a result of it meant a lot when that door creaked open or closed. I used to be 14 in 1970 when this movie takes place. So, I had this visceral reminiscence. And we have been residing in Pennsylvania at that time. But we’d come as much as New York a couple of times a 12 months. And driving into Greenwich Village and seeing the form of hippie folks singers on the sidewalks and stuff is one thing I’ll always remember. It was not fairly prefer it ever exhibits up within the motion pictures. There was this form of bizarre, small-town feeling in Greenwich Village that I remembered. And it wasn’t massive and glossy and company or costly like it’s right this moment. And so, I felt just like the Greenwich Village that the Simon household begins in has to really feel heat and particular and grubby however energetic, stuffed with creativity. So, that was one of many first units to resolve was that road scene, when the household is shifting to New Jersey originally of the story.

We see it from Margaret’s bed room, after which we see it down on the road once they say goodbye to Sylvia and drive away. It was [originally] a for much longer scene, the scene with Sylvia. We lastly discovered a terrific piece of the road half hour outdoors of Charlotte, North Carolina. And so, we reworked six facades into what we wanted. And between the extras and the automobiles and the ice cream distributors on the road and every part else, it was the factor that was the closest to my reminiscence.