Creative Lessons from “Emily in Paris,” According to Production Designer Extraordinaire Anne Seibel
Production designer Anne Seibel has worked on many films, including Midnight in Paris, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Photo by Roger Do Ming. Images c/o Anne Seibel and Netflix.
French production designer Anne Seibel starts every sketch by hand, letting her mind search for the right shapes, proportions, moldings, and colors to match her vision of a story. It takes hours, and by the time she’s finished, she’s built a world. If you want to see her work, look at the production sets for films and shows like Emily in Paris, Midnight in Paris, and Paris Can Wait (basically anything set in Paris). Her fingerprints are all over them.
But it wasn’t a straight path to get to where she is. She thought she’d become a doctor, but when she didn’t pass her medical school exams in the ’90s, she went to a French architecture school., where she spent years learning how to build within the constraints of the real world. And there were plenty. One week, she was invited behind the scenes to watch a French musical shoot that changed the course of her career. As she observed the shoot, her eyes were glued on the art director. She wanted to be him. All this time, Seibel has been focused on building realities through architecture. But these guys were constructing entirely different worlds.
Years later, she would be doing the same. “Everything was new and magical for me when I discovered that I could use being an architect for something other than building in real life and I could become a dream designer,” she says. “Even the way of drawing was different. I was finding myself too architectural and spent time with a teacher learning to loosen up my hand, use colors, break rules and let myself go wild and inventive, making mistakes that were sometimes becoming extremely interesting.”
Here, Seibel shares the creative lessons from working as a production designer for some of the biggest titles out there, including how she applies what she learned from architecture to set design; how she navigated the challenges of working as a woman designer in a male-dominated field; and the biggest and boldest idea she didn’t know she’d be able to pull off for Emily in Paris.
Sseason 4 previews of Emily in Paris, which premieres Aug. 15, 2024. Courtesy of Netflix.
Lily Collins as “Emily” in season 4 of Emily in Paris. Production set design by Anne Seibel.
Take us behind the scenes working on the set of Emily in Paris. What was it like when you first landed this job and started building out the set
When I started, I already knew the creator of the show, Darren Star, as I had worked with him on Sex and the City. And the producer I worked with for Midnight in Paris in France was the same one. So I knew I liked him, and he referred the job to me. I got the first three scripts, and I started to design Emily’s apartment and workplace. The apartment was modeled on Chambre de bonne apartments, typical small French apartments from a long time ago that were usually for domestic workers to live in. Nowadays they put them together to make small flats for students and workers to rent. So I used that architecture style and characteristics of those rooms to make my own for the stage. For Emily’s office workspace, I used the typical architecture characteristics of French buildings: big rooms with glass doors, wooden floors, and a fireplace in each room, as well as a double living and sitting room and corridors going into the kitchen. But I transformed that concept into a modern office. Every year we have to dismantle these sets and build them again the following season. Most of the other sets are real locations, and the idea was to get iconic places around the city but look at them from another point of view, specifically by finding places where nobody really comes, like restaurants, and capturing a new point of view in Paris.
Every production set begins with a sketch or a model like this one of Emily’s office building.
What’s the process like for designing a set? What are the things you look for in the script, story, or character that inform the creative process?
In the beginning, I read the script and I let the images come to my head. Then I calculate the number of sets to create, whether they’re on location or on a stage, and think about how I can connect them to each other. I have to make a budget, which is not the exciting part, but it’s the only way to do it. I just break down the script and get all the details down and make this line of numbers. I find my crew according to the size of the project. For Emily, it is a very big crew. Then I use inspiration from everywhere to inform the set; from nature, exhibitions, photos, books, the internet, or just from my inner intuition. I make mood boards for every room, and a model plan that includes information from the script, the movement of the actors, how the light will come in, and everything. Then I make sketches with a felt pen, and we plan according to those sketches. And of course, I ask my illustrator to make my sketches pretty and colorful. If it’s a location set, I’ll take photos of the location and my art director will make a 3D of it. Then we add furniture and she puts all the colors and details into the sketches.
For Seibel, it takes just her hands, a camera, and a pencil box to communicate her ideas to a film crew. Watch her ideas come to life above.
What’s your secret sauce in production design?
I like to tell people that I’m like the conductor of an orchestra. There are so many sets for Emily — probably 180 sets in total. I don’t have the time for that. So I collaborate with the team to show them my vision and mood. And I’ve worked with the same illustrator for 20 years because she draws like me; the way she draws is like the opposite of a computer drawing, you know? Her name is Lilith Bekmezian, and she and I have built such a close working relationship that we don’t really need to speak to each other anymore when we are working.
Was there ever a big, bold idea that you never thought you’d be able to pull off for Emily in Paris but did?
Yes. For the first season of the show, Emily’s apartment was on the stage I built and the shots of the building were at the real location. There was this wonderful staircase with five floors, as you might remember. But when we started the second season, the building manager decided to restore the whole space. Our set was gone. And of course, we couldn’t have this. First we tried to find a new space, but it was impossible. So I decided to build it. We built the whole huge staircase, and it wasn’t easy for a number of reasons. Gabriel lives under Emily, so we had to create a sheet, and the height of the studio wasn’t high enough, and there were all these security issues we hadn’t thought of. But it all worked out and we’ve been using it ever since.
When a set designer’s worst nightmare came true, Seibel pushed herself and delivered the thoughtfully unexpected.
Seibel’s background in architecture informs her creative process when designing sets.
You started out as an architect before transitioning into the design world. What was that process like of transitioning career chapters?
After three years of studying architecture, I discovered film, and I decided I would make the transition but still finish my exams. So I am technically an architect, but I’ve never practiced architecture in real life. I was an intern in a few architecture offices, which helped me learn to draw and understand lighting and spatial composition.
What is a key difference between architecture and design?
I love design because it’s more creative, in my experience, because you can create sets without encountering the problems and constraints of building for the real world, as long as you don't put anyone in danger. But architecture taught me the practical skills to get where I am today. I even built an airport, which was really where I thought my architecture background was useful, because it didn’t scare me to do it. I had the foundation of knowing how these things work.
How do you know when a set design works?
When it doesn’t show on the screen; if you can’t tell that it's a set and it seems real. You know, with the airport, people ask me, “Oh, you shot Le Bourget?” And I say, “No, I built Le Bourget.” Of course, you build sets in a different way than the architects build spaces, because you’re not building the whole thing. Instead you choose what the public will see. From the stairs on a set, for instance, you might be able to see a bar in the background, but when you’re watching the show, you won’t be able to see it. That is the magic of the editing and the camera.
Seibel works very closely with her illustrator, Lilith Bekmezian, to present their creative vision for the crew. Here is the sketch work for Gabriel’s restaurant.
Tell me about your background. Where did you grow up, and what sparked your interest in design?
I have a big extended family, and most of them are intellectuals, doctors, scientists, and technologists. But we were also very creative together. My father was a scientist, but he was very good at doing things with his hands, and he let us use his lab to develop photos. It was the same with my mom, she would teach us to sew, to cook, or to build things. During the holidays, my cousins and I would play together and put on these fun performances, like puppet shows and reenactments from films. All of this education and experimentation really nourished me; it fed me. I was supposed to go into medicine, but I failed the med school exam. And thank god, because the year after, I followed my friend to architecture school. I was just following everyone around me at that time. Luckily, though, architecture felt more like me than medicine did. When I was studying there, I met this guy who took me on a shoot. It was a French musical, “Tous Vedettes,” by director Michel Lang. And I had never seen anything like that in my life. I stayed one week with them, and I realized I wanted to be the guy who was doing the art direction. He was doing the same stuff I used to do with my cousins when we were younger. That was 30 years ago, and it’s what I do today and what I teach at La Fémis, the French national film school.
This picture-perfect setting in Emily looks almost like a hand-crafted illustration…
What are some of the biggest hurdles you’ve faced in your career? How did you navigate these obstacles?
I was one of the only women in the field at the beginning of my career, and I was surrounded by a lot of macho men. But I didn’t let them walk all over me. When I was the assistant for an art director, I had to draw a door for a period piece that took place during the French Revolution. I remember the carpenters looking at my drawing and trying to point out the errors and things that I might have missed. And sure enough, there weren’t any. When they built out my drawings, he realized he was completely wrong about me, and he started to respect me.
What have you learned about yourself and creativity from working in the television and film industry?
I learned that I was a good orchestra conductor. What I try to teach my students at school is that you show your level of training and experience through your work; that you have to choose a team and build upon it by including each person and letting them express themselves; and that sometimes you have to go against the advice of your parents if they’re pushing you down a certain career path. Because, if you remember what you were doing when you were a kid, most of the time that’s what you’ll end up doing best when you’re older.
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