Creating Whitney's World
An interview with Super Human Anxiety Production Designers Lynda Reiss & Rachel Leggett
What are practical effects?
Practical effects are special effects created physically, with a goal of making the viewer feel a desired emotion, and shot in camera. We often create these special effects by hand and utilize tools like puppeteering, hydraulics or animatronics, cloud tanks, bladders, and reverse photography of moving objects….and in our case for this film, sheer woman muscle!
Rachel: We had to make the set look like the world around Whitney was really crumbling around her — breaking, smashing, denting, you name it. To do that, Lynda and I spent months creating the best look for a tumbler cup to shatter, a pencil breaking in her hand, a stress ball popping, elbows punching through walls (*takes breath in…continues*), denting a floor tile, denting an elevator door, breaking elevator buttons, scrunching a book bag…all while ACTUALLY building an elevator because we weren’t allowed to break a real elevator.
Lynda: Not only did these effects need to be safe and convincing, most needed to practically fix themselves again on camera (spoiler alert!).
We needed to think through each effect front & back, inside & out. The popped stress ball refilling with air, the splintered elevator panel stitching itself back together, and more. Trial and error became our best friend.
For example, there is an effect, our “piece de la resistance,” where Whitney (Alexis Jacquelyn Smith) sends her elbow through the wall. We built the elevator set with a wood paneling design so that we could replace the breakaway wood panel in-between takes. During the build we tested multiple versions of the breakaway panel to find the perfect balance of splintering and strength.
Rachel: My poor elbow took the brunt of it all! In the end we found a material that was just right. On the day of the shoot, when it was time for elbows to fly, we recruited the crew to stand on the other side of the wall as reinforcement (and put a comfy arm pad on Whitney to protect her elbow).
Lynda: By far the largest challenge working on this project was the summer heat. We built the elevator elements in a small living room with no air conditioning.
Rachel: Ha! It’s a miracle we were able to problem solve these practical effects while sweating buckets. We owe a lot of gratitude to the friends who helped along the way, and to popsicles!
Lynda Reiss is a Director, Production Designer, and a Prop Master in film and television. Reiss’s directorial debut, “Ready To Go”, won 27 awards on the festival circuit, and was Oscar qualified for 2019. As prop master, she has worked on feature film projects such as “American Beauty”, “American History X”, “Reality Bites”, and television shows “Stranger Things”, “True Detective”, and “Winning Time”.
Rachel Leggett is a Production Designer, Prop Master, Stop Motion Animator in social media spots, shorts, and feature films. Recent projects include “YOYOs”, “Never Hike Alone 2”, and “The Stain”. As a member of Women in Film, Cool Girl Cinema Club, and a regular at the neighborhood cinema, she loves connecting with the film community.
