Disney Channel (2015) / Director: Paul Hoen
Invisible Sister is a family comedy set in contemporary New Orleans at Halloween. In addition to having the rare treat of shooting a city AS itself, we also got to play with the rich festival traditions of New Orleans, and go beyond even that to make our own version of a special, regional Halloween. This Beautiful Garden District house became the hero family's home.
Another view of the family home in the Garden District.
The living room of the family home.
Like many historic houses in the area, this one is built on 7-foot pilings to spare it from floods. That afforded us the opportunity to put a potting shed in that space, with a view of the backyard and swimming pool. This becomes geeky sister Cleo's (Rowan Blanchard) science lab, while popular sister's (Paris Berelc) high school party rages outside.
Another view of the added potting shed, showing the swimming pool outside.
We built the upper floor of the family home as a stage set. This is Cleo's (Rowan Blanchard) room.
Another view of Cleo's (Rowan Blanchard) room.
Another view of Cleo's (Rowan Blanchard) room.
Invisible Sister centers around the story of two sisters who are so similar in some ways they ought to be twins, but who also have very divergent personalities. So we made their rooms mirror images in design, but very different in finish and decoration. This is popular, athletic sister Molly's (Paris Berelc) room across the hall from Cleo's.
Another view of Molly's (Paris Berelc) room.
Another view of Molly's (Paris Berelc) room.
The girl's bathroom had some invisibility trickery that required the twin mirrors.
Cleos' best guy friend George, (Karan Brar) is even more of a science geek than she is. This little contraption is his preferred mode of transportation. It was an electric scooter we heavily modified.
During Molly's (Paris Berelc) bout with invisibility, she ducks into the high school boy's room to steal a full-body costume. We really wanted to play up how disgusting a young girl's first encounter with a boy's room would be. So we built a stage set we could really trash.
Another view of the trashed high school boy’s room stage set.
Another view of the boy's bathroom.
Being a Halloween-themed movie, we chose to make our high school mascot an Owl.
An oak tree outside the front door to the school is all done up for New Orleans Halloween.
The school stadium is ready for the big lacrosse game.
A display in the high school lobby for the social event of the year, the annual Romp the Swamp Halloween dance and fundraiser.
This is the entry gate to the Romp the Swamp Halloween dance. We built this at the far end of the Oak walk at the historic Whitney Plantation. The skeletons were hung by elastic from above so we could give them a little puppeted boogie with the music by pulling on them from below.
Here we took the historic Whitney Plantation and transformed it into a fun, haunted Southern night for Romp the Swamp.
A closer view of the haunted plantation for Romp the Swamp.
Our whimsical, skeletal jazz band theme also became the backdrop for the band at Romp the Swamp.
Nothing says creepy, period Halloween-like blacklight effects. Here is our glowing ticket booth to enter the haunted plantation for Romp the Swamp.
In an attempt to cure Molly (Paris Berelc) of her invisibility, our gang hastily erects a pumping, wheezing distillery from objects found in the plantation barn and purloined from the haunted house.
A detail of one of the spooky scarecrows at Romp the Swamp.
More blacklight. Here is a room in the haunted plantation set for a vampire's funeral.
The zombie’s feast in the haunted plantation.
The ballroom set up for the Ghost's Ball in the haunted plantation.
The snack wagon outside the haunted plantation at Romp the Swamp.
We turned this gorgeous corner house in the French Quarter into Mildred's frozen yogurt shop for the final scene of the movie, complete with our own amped-up, New Orleans Halloween decorations.
