Created by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass), The Fall of the House of Usher is an eight-episode miniseries that was released on Netflix on October 12th. The series is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s (The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado) short story of the same name. According to The Hollywood Reporter, production designer Laurin Kelsey (The Midnight Club, Brahms: The Boy II) spoke about the set designs for the series and the different creative choices made.
The Fall of the House of Usher revolves around the mysterious deaths of Roderick Usher’s six children. In terms of her work, Kelsey spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how each child was given specific characteristics that helped her create various set designed. For instance, each child has a specific color assigned to them.
She stated, “Perry had red, Vic was orange, Camille had silver, green was for Tamerlane. The idea behind all [that] was to give each a color story. They have these gruesome deaths, and in the death scene, you notice all the light and all the saturation of the color.”
She continued accredit this idea and more to Flanagan and the co-director Michael Fimognari (Before I Wake, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before), stating, “Michael and I sat down, went through each of the colors and dictated how it would present in the set; how saturated or unsaturated it would be; where he would go with lighting. Then, we layered in with costumes, hair and makeup, which also picked up on the colors. I was actually the first part of designing this.”
Kelsey then spoke about how the set designs for their homes were also unique based on their personalities and assigned colors. She explained, “Perry’s the young millennial who’s kind of obnoxious. He has all the techie stuff, but he’s like a hardcore partier, so he’s got graffiti everywhere. Camille’s like an icey, PR queen, so she’s got big monitor walls and everything feels jagged with glass and metal. That leans into and connects with the silver. Tamerlane is the Upper East Side, so she has a little bit more molding — a little bit more classic taste.”
She continued, “With each of them I took what he had on the page, and then amped it up, and honestly, every set that I amped up, he wanted it amped up more — more characterized — because they were these extreme versions of people.”
In addition to each of the children’s homes, Kelsey also spoke about the design of Roderick Usher’s home. Kelsey told The Hollywood Reporter, “I love that it wasn’t just one central house this time, but the main house for me was Roderick’s childhood home, which had a digital side extension of top on the exterior. That house was most like the Poe original house, in that it was scripted as a 1950s, suburban home, and his mom has very little money.”
She continued to speak about the architecture of the house, stating, “It doesn’t have the opulence and the wealth of the original story of The Fall of the House of Usher, so it had to be a subdued version, but that’s where I brought in some Gothic architecture and Victorianism into this old 1890s home.”
The Fall of the House of Usher stars Kate Siegel (Hush, Midnight Mass) as Camille, Bruce Greenwood (Gerald’s Game, Double Jeopardy) as Roderick, Sauriyan Sapkota (The Midnight Club) as Prospero, also referred to as Perry, and more.
Fans of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story can now see how Laurin Kelsey brought each character’s homes to life on Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher.