With the Emmy Awards right around the corner, I was thrilled to be able to talk to production designer, Michael Wylie, who is currently nominated for Best Art Direction for Pushing Daisies! As a big fan of the show, I wanted to get a more in depth discussion on building those elaborate sets, getting the right look, and so much more. We also talked a bit about his past work including Little Britain USA and Notes From the Underbelly. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Tom Zeleny

Congratulations on your Emmy nomination for Best Art Direction for Pushing Daisies. How did you find out that you were nominated?
Thanks so much! I was one of those people who woke up at 6am to look up the nominees on the internet. I went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It was awesome!

How did you get involved with Pushing Daisies?
I had been working with Barry Sonnenfeld for a number of years and he directed the Pilot. He called me in to do the Pilot and the Pilot turned out really well so we continued on with the rest of the show.

Did the “look” of the show change a lot from pre-production to production?
No because we didn’t have enough time. We did a couple of sketches of what The Pie-Hole would look like and then I sold them on the idea of the patterns, wallpapers, and bright colors. They kind of wanted it to look like Amelie but I hadn’t seen it. It was fun though and I loved it! We only had 5 weeks to do the whole Pilot and we built every single set, except for the funeral home in the Pilot. So we didn’t have a lot of time to discuss a lot.

What were the challenges building those elaborate sets in a short amount of time?
We had a really great construction team and just from working with Barry a lot I kind of knew what he wanted. I got to know Bryan Fuller very well, very fast so I got an idea of what he wanted. He is like a fountain of ideas. He is awesome to work with.

What was it like working on the budget that the show had?
I wouldn’t say that we had a small budget. We started out with a small budget and then it was decided that we would build everything to keep a consistent look with the show and have more control, so the budget expanded quite a bit. We were actually most challenged by time.

What was the most elaborate set?
I would say it was Bitter Sweets candy shop in Season 1. It was meant to be in the show every week. With those characters there was supposed to be a 3 or 4 story arc with that shop so we spent a lot of money on that and it was really beautiful. It turned out amazing!

So in Season 1 you did not have a lot of time to build sets and everything that goes with that but in Season 2 did you have more time?
No, in fact we had less time! Although we built a really big set and for 6 of the 9 episodes, we kept reconfiguring it over and over and over again. For instance, the mansion where the guy is killed by the chandelier is the same set as the Chinese restaurant, which is the same set as The Longborough School for Boys, which is the same set for the department store. Every episode we just completely redid that space to make another set and you would never know it.

I have to watch it again now.
Yeah and notice that in the back there are 2 giant windows and those are the windows from the boys classroom and we would always cover them with something. In the restaurant, we covered them with a big lantern shaped bright paper windows and when it was the mansion we covered it with giant curtains.

How often does the art department work off the of the wardrobe department?
We are very closely knit. Whenever we get a script, we all sit down in a room together and come up with ideas together.

What did you contribute as far as your expertise when it came to digital graphics, backdrops, CGI, etc…?
Pushing Daisies is probably a bit different than a lot of things. The visual effects department would come to me and ask for my visual references, so I would email him a hundred pictures every week of what I thought the different buildings would look like, what the circus would look like, etc… All of the CG shots of the exterior of The Pie-Hole were compiled from hundreds of photographs of paintings from Edward Hopper.

Moving on for a bit, tell me about working on the show, Little Britain USA.
I was a huge fan of the British series! I had worked with the director, Michael Patrick Jann many times so when this opportunity came up, I jumped on it immediately. We went to North Carolina and found locations and just kept up with the amazing art department.

Tell me about working on Notes From the Underbelly.
Barry Sonnenfeld was also attached to that who I had worked with. That was really my first big TV break. It was a great learning experience on how to make a television show.

Tell me how you came into this business and what people can do to do what you do.
This is such a subjective and relationship based job…I came to LA at a time when you could actually work a lot as a non-Union person. So I got a lot of experience. My advice would be to just get on as many sets as you can. Volunteer and do whatever it takes to get on set. Film schools are great but anything you can do to get on set, do it.

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards Ceremony will take place on September 12, 2009 and be sure to tune into The Emmy Awards which will air live on CBS Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 8/7c.