My Secret Set Visit For Lady and the Tramp On Disney Plus

It’s been a whole year now and embargo has finally lifted! You cannot believe how hard it’s been to keep quiet about my secret set visit to Savannah, Georgia, and meeting the stars of Disney Plus’ live-action remake of Lady and The Tramp!

Lady and the Tramp is a live-action version of the animated feature we all love. It’s basically the same story we know and cherish with a few minor surprises and a whole lot of diversity.

My family and I are counting down the days to see it exclusively on Disney+.

I loved being on the set and seeing how the magic of Lady and The Tramp was made. I don’t usually get star-struck, but meeting Lady and Tramp was an incredible experience. They were really friendly and I think they were happy to see me, too! 

One of the things that impressed me most was learning about how Lady and Tramp and their friends were cast and seeing them act as I watched one of the main scenes being filmed. They are naturals! 

Even though there is some CGI involved, everything was really close to the original animated film already and being in Savannah, Georgia, gave you the feeling that you were really in another era. I’ll tell you the ghost stories in another post. LOL

We had the opportunity to interview the leading ladies, leading men, filmmakers, and the head dog trainer for the film, as well as John Myhre, the production designer for Lady and The Tramp. 

He took us through the set and showed us the marvelous world of Lady and The Tramp.

As a frequent shopper at thrift and antique stores, I love hearing about the process of finding all the furniture and decorations for the set! 

Georgia was a great place to make the movie and our set decorator, Gordon Sim, went to every city within five hours and went to every antique store and swap meet and found all of this, so we painted everything, so all the white wicker furniture we’ve painted. We’ve reupholstered. All the curtains and draperies we made but even the fire places are real. That’s a real fire place I found believe it or not on eBay.

It’s all very organic and the outside of the house we painted into greens and we’ve used a lot of green and stained glass. We’re trying to really bring nature in. All the furniture kind of came piece by piece. It all feels very unified because we’ve painted, we upholstered.

According to John, it’s unusual for all the furniture to be real in a movie, and Lady and The Tramp has real furniture. It was gorgeous to be there, and it really looks like a Victorian dream come true. 

The whole house is just the perfect house, but when I read through the script for me, I felt that before Lulu was born that this was Lady’s favorite room because form the very get go and she’s given as, Jim Dear gives Darling on Christmas, the first Christmas in the house, this hat box.

And when she opens the hat box, Lady’s inside. I don’t know if you now, but that’s based on something that Walt Disney did for his wife, so reenacting that is lovely. 

I thought it was incredibly sweet that Lady And The Tramp was inspired by Walt Disney, I mean, don’t you just melt with that hatbox scene? It is so sweet. The set of Lady and The Tramp was also modeled after the layout of Disneyland. 

Our film is set in 1910 and it’s at a time period that we feel Walt Disney really loved because a lot of his films from the Fifties were set in American Victorian times and in Disneyland the first thing you see when you walk in is Main Street USA is this kind of 1910 period, so we’ve been using Walt Disney’s love of the period and how he used it in live action films in the Fifties and Disneyland as sort of a little bit of an inspiration for our design.

Everything is done with preciseness and care on set. They made duplicates of all the props in case one breaks, and several are supposed to break in the film. Later on, everything gets put in the Walt Disney Archives, and usually set pieces are not reused!

It’s all thought out. It’s drawn up in such a way that the physicality, the space with the room word for the action. There’s a reason why the door’s at an angle. There’s a reason for the bay window and fireplaces being where they are, so we work on the plan of the house and then we start talking about colors.

We also asked how long the sets took to build. It is so massive and immersive.

Both sets took twelve weeks to build. They were built at the same time and our set decorator probably spent two and a half months finding all these things because it’s not just this. We’ll walk into another room and then we have a whole, the ground floor of the house is an entryway, a front room, kitchen, dining room. And we’re doing several other sets as well.

We also learned that Mark Forbes, the head dog trainer, brought in the dogs in to get acquainted with the sets very often. They are so sweet, I am thrilled to talk to you more about meeting the stars of Lady and The Tramp.

John also took the opportunity to tell us exactly how he got into production design. He didn’t know he would be doing this as a kid, but I could tell by the way his face just lit up talking about his work that he loves it.

I always loved movies since I was a little kid. When I was in high school, I took architectural classes. I was up in Seattle, Washington. I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the movies or an architect and when you grow up in Seattle and you don’t know how movies are made, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a production designer. When I made short films, I did everything. I did costumes, I edited, I filmed it, so I just assumed that the director did everything and in college in Seattle, I was working with the Seattle Film Festival.

Through that I got to meet real directors and when I met them I was so excited and they said ‘what do you want to do’ and I said ‘I don’t know if I want to be an architect or a film director’ and a few real directors in the course of a week said why aren’t you a production designer because it’s a combination of being an architect and a director, so I quit everything I was doing in Seattle and I drove down to L.A. and banged on doors for three months until I got a job.

In Disney+’s “Lady and the Tramp,” a timeless retelling of the 1955 animated classic, a pampered house dog and a tough but lovable stray embark on an unexpected adventure and, despite their differences, grow closer and come to understand the value of home.

Life is good for Lady, an overachieving American Cocker Spaniel who resides in an upscale suburban neighborhood. Her owners, Jim Dear and Darling, spoil her daily and her neighbors, Jock, an outspoken Scottish Terrier and Trusty, a world-weary Bloodhound, are always within barking distance. But when a baby enters the picture, Lady is no longer the center of attention, and the arrival of cat-loving Aunt Sarah only complicates matters.

Lady soon finds herself alone on the streets in an unwelcoming part of town. Fortunately, Tramp steps in, and the streetwise mongrel is quick to teach her the ways of the world. Before long, the prim and proper purebred and the fast-talking mutt are partaking in moonlight strolls in the park and romantic spaghetti dinners by candlelight. Tramp savors the independence of a world without leashes or fences alongside his roguish friends Peg and Bull, but Lady misses the comfort and safety of a family, and soon both must decide where – and with whom – they belong.

A heartwarming romantic adventure that seamlessly combines live-action and photorealistic animation, “Lady and the Tramp” stars: Tessa Thompson as the voice of Lady and Justin Theroux as the voice of Tramp; Kiersey Clemons as Darling; Thomas Mann as Jim Dear; Janelle Monáe as the voice of Peg; Yvette Nicole Brown as Aunt Sarah; and Sam Elliott as the voice of Trusty. The film is directed by Charlie Bean from a screenplay by Andrew Bujalski and Kari Granlund, and is produced by Brigham Taylor with Diane L. Sabatini serving as executive producer.

“Lady and the Tramp” premieres on November 12, 2019, streaming only on Disney+, so you better get your hands on that subscription. I’ve already got mine!

Remember to follow the “Lady and the Tramp” adventures using #LadyandTheTramp and #DisneyPlus, and like Lady and the Tramp on Facebook, follow Disney+ on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Elayna is a single mom of 4, award-winning Storyteller, Story Strategist, and Student of Pain. She’s a bestselling author, internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, and 4x TEDx speaker. Founder of the Positive MOM® and creator of the S.T.O.R.Y. System: a blueprint to craft and share powerful stories that will transform your results, so you can have the wealth, opportunities, and freedom you deserve. Connect with Elayna Fernández at thepositivemom.com/keynote-speaker and follow @thepositivemom. To receive a gift from Elayna, click HERE.

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