Building Respect: Production Design in the Aretha Franklin Biopic

If you haven't seen Respect, I recommend you do. The biographical film directed by Liesl Tommy and based on the life of the American singer Aretha Franklin transports us to the 1960s through an appropriate and pertinent set design. Here, production designer Ina Mayhew was tasked with creating a series of locations where color palettes undoubtedly evoke more than emotion: her suburban childhood home in Detroit, the edgy jazz clubs of New York City, her luxurious apartment on the Upper West Side and, finally, his ultra-modern house in Los Angeles.

In the following interview, Ina tells us in detail about the inspirations and challenges in the construction process (and gives us a sneak peek at some of her recent work).

Fabian Dejtiar (FD): Working alongside director Liesl Tommy, you created a set that echoes the story of Aretha Franklin, from her ups and downs and struggles to find her own voice and independence as a performer and as a woman. What inspired you to build part of this story?

Ina Mayhew (IM): Liesl and I began our conversations about Aretha's longtime visual style. At first we thought it should be moody, with muted colors, taking pictures of jazz musicians and singers as reference. We wanted to continue the muted palette of the time, from the 1950s and 1960s, for his childhood home and the various houses and apartments in which he lived.

But after more conversation and after watching a couple of movies (A Room With A View was one), we changed our minds. We decided to do something beautiful and started researching the exclusive homes of black celebrities. Aretha's father, C.L. Franklin, was certainly just that: a celebrated minister on the leading stages of evangelical and civil rights. We decided to show the wealth in which Aretha grew up. We highlight the comfortable style of your home. I consider that one of my strengths as a designer—first trained as a painter—is the addition of color, to evoke emotions. And the hallmarks of this era are my favorite palettes, with subtle, rich shades of teal, yellows, oranges, burgundy, and deep blues. The charming furniture style of the Mid-Century Modern pieces creates places where the actors can truly live their characters. This style direction was one that Liesl was happy to follow and it continues in all the houses where we show Aretha living, including the offices. This style also dictated the look of the other places we looked for that didn't play a role like Aretha's dwellings. Our true north was to remain immersed and authentic in the period.

In the early part of Aretha's life in New York, it was a time of struggle for her, both where she lived and where she performed. Our initial conversations were helpful here, and we were able to include some of our first thoughts on a dull, harsh look. We looked for some real places where he lived and recorded. Fortunately, much of New York was from this period, especially the places we needed to be: Downtown, Greenwich Village, and Harlem. Taking advantage of the muted tones and night scenes of the city, Liesl created visual transitions emphasizing Aretha's moods, her inner struggle and insecurity about life, and her talent and struggle to make it as a singer and live on her own.

Her life in Manhattan also had some high points. Some of the ones we enacted were his first recording sessions on Columbia Records; his sumptuous Upper West Side apartment; the grandeur of the Woolworth Building; and his birthday in the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller Center.

All of these ingredients connoted the color and beauty of the time. That, of course, included the clothes, brilliantly designed by Clint Ramos in our movie.

FD: You had the job of designing his suburban childhood home in Detroit, the edgy jazz clubs of New York City, his luxurious Upper West Side apartment, and finally, his ultra-modern Los Angeles home. How was the construction process of this work? What was the main challenge you faced? Did you trust new technologies at some point?

IM: There were numerous challenges for this film. One of the most important was the sheer number of sets that had to be built and dressed, and the locations that had to be adapted and dressed to fit the correct period in time. We had to build 12 sets on the stage; the largest was the Franklin family house that had 8 rooms, an entrance with a central staircase, a long corridor that connected the rooms on the ground floor, and a side porch. (And all of this had to match what the audience could see on the exterior of the house that was filmed on location, things like windows, doors, patio furniture, greenery outside the windows, etc.)

The concert halls were shot on location and were an added challenge as our tight shooting schedule required several of these large venues to pull double duty. For example, we used the Infinity Energy Center in Atlanta as Madison Square Garden, then had to redo the same space to serve as Cobo Hall in Detroit, which hosted Aretha Franklin Day later in her career. Atlanta's famous Fox Theater served as the Olympia Theater in Paris, then became the stage in Columbus, Georgia, from which Aretha fell and broke her arm. One challenge in using these large locations is finding enough time available for that location to allow us to dress up the location in the days before the film crew arrives, allow enough time to film the work, and still have enough time to finish all of our equipment and scenery. Turnaround time for changes was always tight, and sets had to be designed in a way that made it possible to quickly convert one into another overnight.

As far as actually building sets, the build process for me starts with my ideal design wish list of overall scale and size, including wall height. Franklin's house, for example, was a tall complex with 12-foot walls; but because of the ladder, another 12' of the required height was added. It was by necessity a very large set.

One of my most important collaborations on any project is always between me and the Construction Coordinator. It is essential that the Coordinator understands what materials I want to use for the floors and ceiling elements. The Coordinator must know, for example, where I want to place the double-sided walls. Most decorated walls are framed and finished on one side, and the unfinished side is the obviously not-to-photograph side. By finishing certain important areas of the set with double-sided walls, it allows maximum flexibility for the actions of the actors or the camera, or both. Once there is an understanding of the building style I want, the Construction Coordinator is ready for the final design drawings.

A drawing tool that I now use to show each build is a 3D sketching program, which uses mostly Sketch-Up and 3D Cad. It allows me to show how the final design will look with the placement of the furniture and all the architectural elements. I also like to incorporate the final color and wallpaper and other floor and wall textures into these renderings. It is an approximation so that everyone can see all the design options with the option to make changes if necessary because the 3D sketch is the initial stage of the design process.

Another new technology we started using at Respect was a Matterport virtual measurement tool. It's a camera real estate agents use to digitize their spaces and create virtual tours for prospective buyers. It can take a 3D photo of a location that is difficult for the director or crew to access, often due to time constraints, and allows them to see it in a way that still photos cannot, from different perspectives and distances. It gave us some basic dimensions and a great way to check a location in all directions without going back, as we often have to do it multiple times to confirm the placement of windows, doorways, etc.

FD: I understand that you studied in detail the concert material, photos, news, interviews, and watched several documentaries from the time. What surprises did you find there? How did you make this long-suffering job work in today's fast-paced work environment?

IM: Fortunately, there was some newsreel footage that followed Aretha and her husband at the time, Ted, walking through the offices of their manager Jerry Wexler. At the end of the newsreel there was a short interview with Aretha, Ted and Jerry. The most surprising thing for me when watching the reel was the confirmation of the mid-century style of furniture that is evident throughout. I was also surprised by the scale and complexity of the offices in the Wexler complex.

Watching footage of their tour concerts and televised performances, I was struck by how simple the sets were. They were very minimalist and very much in the design of a 1960s variety show - very colorful shapes, mostly floating and simple, set against a colored background. I wanted the concerts to have a dynamic look but be true to the period, so I found similar set elements that mimicked the style of the period. Working with Kramer Morgenthau, our film's cinematographer, I created colorful environments that relied heavily on lighting to bring them to life.

When we began the design collaboration, we had no idea how elegant the house Aretha grew up in was. As a result, our research was forced to evolve; in fact, this discovery required further investigation. The deeper levels of our research forced me to change my design; I started to focus on another style for the look of the interior, including the color palette, the style of the wallpaper, and the very current style of furniture of the time. Aretha's father's goal was to impress the many guests who frequented his home, and my design had to show his pride in his home and wealth.

The research process, while laborious and tedious to carry out, allows us to cut short design decisions that need to be made under time pressures. In the later stages of our process, when the sets are being built and the locations dressed, we have studied so much and know the period so thoroughly that it becomes a shared shorthand between me and my decorator. When I collaborate with my decorator on furniture styles, window treatments, etc., we are able to make quick decisions, confidently understanding the era we are designing for.

FD: You've recently worked as a production designer on other films like Dolly Parton's Heartstrings and Jay-Z and Beyonce's Family Feud, which add musical stories to your long-standing portfolio. Are there more of these coming? Are you working on new projects?

IM: Let me start by noting that I also recently did a musical Netflix TV movie, Christmas on the Square, with original music and lyrics by Dolly Parton herself. It was directed and choreographed by Debbie Allen and first aired in December 2020. It was the Emmy winner for Best TV Movie and Best Choreography at the recent Emmy Awards. The challenge on this project was that I had to design an entire town square and place it on a sound stage, which we managed to do.

I also had the opportunity to design several music videos with director Spike Lee. One was the controversial Michael Jackson song "They Don't Care About Us." Spike recently recut it into a longer version last year that included footage from the Black Lives Matter protests. I also designed a music video for Spike with Chaka Khan and Bruce Hornsby, "Love Me Still". I was inspired by the recently deceased environmental artist Christo and covered empty apartment buildings with colorful fabrics in an earlier, more derelict 1990s Harlem.

You never know what will come your way as a designer. For some reason, over the years, basketball related projects seem to find me. I did the movie Above the Rim with Tupac Shakur; I designed a commercial with Shaquille O'Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon riding a bike built for two through Central Park; I designed a commercial where Kevin Garnett dunked a basketball through a crystal chandelier and I did a Michael Jordan Nike commercial.

In that sense, my most recent film, which just finished in July, was based on the early life of Milwaukee Bucks star basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo. Giannis is an NBA champion and a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player. But he grew up in Athens, Greece, and the movie was shot entirely in Athens. Directed by South African director Akin Amotoso, it follows the story of a Nigerian couple who emigrated to Turkey and eventually Greece after escaping political unrest in Nigeria in the early 1990s. It will be a special film demonstrating generosity of Antetokounmpo's parents in fully encouraging their children to follow their passion for basketball. It dramatizes the importance of family support, a relentlessly positive outlook on life, and staying together no matter the circumstances. As a result, the family would later have four brothers on NBA team rosters this coming season.

As I said before, I took this last detour to answer your question: you never know. As a designer, you never know what will come next. The best thing you can do is be prepared and, when the opportunity presents itself, trust your research and talent.