Though Jamie and her siblings were never on set during production, friends who help take care of the property witnessed the prep and described it as if the filmmakers had “picked the house up and taken it upside down and shaken it.” But by the end of filming, everything was returned back to its rightful place.
Production designer Kevin Thompson was a part of that careful upturning, as he sought the best way of representing the central characters’ tastes as they manifest in their living space. Research is a part of any production designer’s process and the opportunity to be in the home, never mind shoot there, was an unparalleled route to understanding the film’s two subjects. “The home had not changed much in terms of architecture or wall coverings and things like that, so we were able to actually see the layers of things that Felicia had done to the house,” Thompson explains. “We were also able to get into the intimate aspect of family photos, Felicia’s paintings on the walls, the subjects that she painted, the things in the junk drawer, and there were still traces of them almost everywhere.”