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Step into Barbie Land and Beast’s castle at this museum exhibition
Visitors learn about the production design of 2023's "Barbie" at "Barbie to Anna Karenina: The Cinematic Worlds of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer" at the The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
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Fredrik Nilsen / ©Academy Museum
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Academy Museum Foundation
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From Barbie Land to a run down 19th Century Russian theater, a new museum exhibition dives deep into what it takes to create worlds for film.
“Barbie to Anna Karenina” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles celebrates the work of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer, the Oscar-nominated production design duo who’ve collaborated together on more than 20 films.
Through displays of props, concept art and scale models of sets, the exhibition highlights Greenwood and Spencer’s work on 2023’s Barbie, the 2017 live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, and 2012’s Anna Karenina.
What to see and learn
There’s the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast, a pink Corvette from Barbie (that you can sit in!), and even a scale-model film set that you can decorate with miniature furnishings yourself.
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The crystal bell jar from 2017's "Beauty and the Beast." The bell jar was made by Swarovski and Greenwood and Spencer worked with an artisan who etched an "enchanted forest" ice design into it.
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Fredrik Nilsen / ©Academy Museum
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Academy Museum Foundation
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A video interview and wall-length timeline of Greenwood and Spencer’s working relationship features details about their work on several other films, including Pride and Prejudice (Why there were all those farm animals in and around the Bennets’ home), Atonement (How they planned out the single-take shot on the beach in Dunkirk), and Darkest Hour (How WW2-era window treatments helped convey the feeling of wartime).
The message: you can do it too
The exhibition includes a recreation of Greenwood and Spencer’s office from the set of Barbie, covered with color swatches, sketches and notes to give museum guests a sense of their working process — and a chance to try it out themselves at a table featuring a scale model film set.
"Barbie to Anna Karenina" is the first exhibition dedicated to production design at the Academy Museum in LA.
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Monica Bushman / LAist
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Throughout the exhibition, there are also nods to the many other collaborators on their teams — painters, model makers, propmasters, and many more — who’ve helped them create worlds for film. The idea, the duo says, was to help people realize how many different jobs are involved in filmmaking.
“Kind of to demystify it,” Greenwood says. “It is a great mystery what we do, but then when you see behind the scenes and it's all nuts and bolts, and a bit of this and a bit of that, and then cutting edge technology, of course, it's all things. And it's there for the taking.”
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How to see it?
“Barbie to Anna Karenina: The Cinematic Worlds of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer” runs from May 23 to Oct. 25 at the Academy Museum in L.A.
Admission to the museum is $25 for adults, $19 for seniors (62 and over), and $15 for students. It’s free for museum members, kids (17 and under), and EBT cardholders.
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