Making of ‘Lessons in Chemistry’: 6 artisans explain how they transported the audience back in time [Exclusive Video Interview]
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The Apple TV+ limited series “Lessons in Chemistry” tells the story of Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson), a brilliant chemist struggling against the blatant sexism of the 1950s science community before taking her skills and empowering women over the airwaves through a science-driven cooking show. But how did the artists behind the scenes transport us to the era? We spoke with editor Geraud Brisson, hair department head Teressa Hill, cinematographer Jason Oldak, composer Carlos Rafael Rivera, supervising sound editor Perry Robertson, and production designer Cat Smith for a special “Making Of” panel. Watch our entire discussion above.
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For Hill, “the shapes that we create on set” with the hairstyles “actually help to tell the story.” She explains, “You have to research the economic status of a character. You have to take into consideration the storyline as well. Like with Elizabeth Zott, she was definitely not a woman who cared about her looks when we first meet her. And so that was very difficult for me” because it meant “letting her hair go and be a little messy, whereas most women in the ’50s went to the beauty salon once a week.”
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Visiting past eras was a little different for Smith’s production design. “When you look at design from the ’50s, you’re really also looking at design from the ’40s, the ’30s.” Whereas hair can change from day to day, settings, interiors and locales are full of history. “If you think about your house, for instance, you can pinpoint the decade of all the products. Hopefully of all the pieces you have in it, they’re not universally new.” And this also helps to tell the story: “What I try to do is think about the character and what references that person might have to the design and how important design is in their life.”
Oldak was inspired by “what Teresa and Kat and what [costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier] gave us in front of our cameras.” But it was important “not to overly stylize a period look. At least from a camera and photography standpoint, it’s really to be more subtle … In terms of lighting, we really tried to go with a very naturalistic feel.” Meanwhile, Robertson drew from his own memories to develop the sound: “My grandparents had those cars, you know, and all of those utensils and all the stuff in the kitchen they had. … So for me, it was pretty easy. We find what these beautiful people have put in the show, and you go, oh, I remember what that sounds like, and you go looking for it, and it’s amazing.”
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The story itself plays with time, which affected Brisson’s work in the editing room. “There’s a lot of time periods intercut with other time periods. And also a lot of montage was scripted,” he remembers. And the story had to flow organically, not just from one scene to the next but from one episode to the next. “I was given the note to sometimes take a scene from episode five and put it in episode four. Or give a scene from episode eight and give it to episode seven. And those things we had to make look like it was completely seamless, no matter what. So we were paying attention to those details.”
Rivera’s music was tied to character. Initially he had an idea to “make it more jazzy. But the fact that Calvin [played by Lewis Pullman] loved jazz and it was so prevalent to his character, it felt like it would be competing in a way for the way it’s placed right now. Like the music that we hear against Calvin is stuff [music supervisor Christine Greene Roe] got … So really it was more about the emotional arc of the characters that we were really focused on.”
In the end, the goal for every department is to serve the story. As Hill puts it, “When you do a period piece, whether it’s set design, lighting, music — whatever it is — hair, makeup, wardrobe. I truly believe that when the audience is watching the finished product, the production that we’ve all worked so hard on, nobody’s distracted by any of that. And they’re actually transported and taken along a journey.” Oldak agrees, adding, “Everything was working. It’s very smooth and subtle and the show just works as a whole. You can feel it.”
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