Julie and the Phantoms is a 2020 Netflix series about Julie Molina (Madison Reyes) a young girl who has recently lost her mother and then discovers 3 ghosts (Charlie Gillespie, Owen Joyner & Jeremy Shada) living in her garage in Los Angeles. We chose to build an LA-style Craftsman house because, despite their amazing construction they’re creaky and a little spooky, a perfect setting for a ghost story.

A view from the living room of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house looking toward the front door.

A view of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house set looking toward the main living room.

A view from the family room of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house set looking into both the kitchen and living room beyond. We oversized the space a bit and made all 4 “exterior” walls open into the main space so our DP (Jon Joffin) could light from all directions, and prevent the need to remove walls. With multiple minors in the cast, every time-saving consideration has to be made.

Another view from the family room into the living room.

The staircase leading to the second story bedrooms in Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house set.

The kitchen in Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house set.

A view from the kitchen into the informal breakfast area in Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house set.

A look in the opposite direction, past the kitchen into the formal dining room and out to the patio beyond.

Julie’s (Madison Reyes) bedroom set.

Another view of the bedroom set.

Another view of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) bedroom set.

Because of the time restrictions having minors in the cast cause, we decided to finish a substantial amount of the exterior of the interior set so we could stage “exterior” scenes on stage, saving us a move to the real exterior house, and sparing us from the constant autumn/winter Vancouver rain. This turned out to be a very wise investment.

A view from the front porch of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) house on stage. With the faithful recreation of the front yard from the exterior house on location, we were able to use this “exterior” seamlessly with other shots from the actual exterior front yard.

This is the outside of Julie’s (Madison Reyes) bedroom on stage. Like the main house set, finishing a considerable amount of the exterior of the set enabled us to maximize our limited cast hours.

A central narrative of Julie and the Phantoms is that the three deceased ghost-boys (Charlie Gillespie, Owen Joyner, Jeremy Shada) who died in 1995 used to hold band practice in Julie’s (Madison Reyes) garage long before she was born. This is the grungy, 1995 garage set.

Another view of the 1995 garage set, with the ghost-boys (Charlie Gillespie, Owen Joyner, Jeremy Shada) hand-painted banner for their band, Sunset Curve.

Another view of the grungy 1995 garage set.

At some point in the recent past, Julie’s (Madison Reyes) now deceased mother turned the grungy garage into a bright and comfortable music conservatory and studio. We imagined her mother and father added a small greenhouse to brighten the space and bring in some softness and life.

Another view of the more genteel, current version of the grungy old, 1995 garage set.

In the universe of ghosts that inhabit the world of Julie and the Phantoms, the malevolent, old Hollywood ghost Caleb Covington (Cheyenne Jackson) is the wisest and most adept. This is the stage in his fabled underground speakeasy, The Hollywood Ghost Club, a cool, 1930s-style deco space where the living can mingle with the dead - for a price.

A detail shot of the all girl-ghost-band, bandstand, and rotating stage in the Hollywood Ghost Club.

A view showing an evening’s entertainment at Caleb Covington’s (Cheyenne Jackson) Hollywood Ghost Club, with the rotating, lighted stage.

A reverse view of the 1930s art deco-style Hollywood Ghost Club.

For Julie’s (Madison Reyes) high school, we remodeled a midcentury, Catholic high school slated for demolition. It was a grotty space, but it had amazing bones and lots of light. We rechristened it as the home of the Los Feliz Bobcats. This is the cafeteria.

This is the refurbished and rebranded gym of Los Feliz high school.

We helped the former school vacate its cluttered library and resurfaced the entire space to create the spacious music classroom for our fictional Los Feliz high school.

Ghost-boys Alex (Owen Joyner) and Willie (Booboo Stewart) share an adventure of ghostly fun trespassing and skateboarding around a closed contemporary art museum. We dressed a closed mall that suited our narrative perfectly.

The defunct mall we found for our closed contemporary art museum had so many of the essential elements of a high-dollar modern art institution - an expansive lobby, stark white walls, concrete floors, and brutalist elements like this rough, concrete elevator column. So I came up with an artist and a collection to honor the pretentious nature of the museum.

Ennis Nielson’s ‘Broken Sky’ retrospective collection is just being installed in our story, creating a landscape of crates and ramps and equipment for ghost-boys Alex (Owen Joyner) and Willie (Booboo Stewart) to skateboard around in.