Breed – Annie Atkins’s favourite project
Personal best – Annie Atkins
Another episode of the new series where we ask Breed artists to select a piece or project of their own that holds a special meaning for them. It may not necessarily be the most successful or even their favourite, simply one that stands out for them as important in some way. We’re intrigued to see the choices made and the stories they may lead to.
It’s Annie’s turn. From her studio near Dublin, she creates the ephemera that populates the background in films – posters, signs, letters, tickets, maps. All in incredible detail, the result of extensive research. The films she’s worked on include ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ and ‘Bridge of Spies’. The film work followed a period working as an art director for ad agency McCann Erickson before she changed gear by studying film production at University College, Dublin. She has literally written the book on her film work ‘Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Map – Designing Graphic Props for Film’ and more recently produced a book for children – ‘Letters from the North Pole’. So, any guesses as to what she will choose as her personal best?
What piece have you chosen?
A spread from one of my old notebooks, kept during my time working on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Why is it special to you?
When I was writing my book about film design, Fake Love Letters, my editor Sara Bader suggested including a shot of one of my notebooks. I resisted at first, because mine never looked like the beautiful, artistic sketchbooks you see online – they were really just scrappy lists of tea-staining recipes and paper tests. But Sara insisted on seeing them anyway. When she did, she said, “People will love this.” After the book was published, I started to see that notebook spread shared again and again on Pinterest — even now, I stumble across it when I’m searching for inspiration myself. It made me realise that the everyday working process can be just as fascinating to people as the finished props.
What’s the story behind it?
This spread is from when I was working on a prop for Wes’s character Madame D, played by Tilda Swinton. She was an 80-year-old aristocrat, and I had to create her last will and testament. Although the film is set in the 1930s, the will itself was meant to be 40 years old and only recently unearthed – so it needed to look much older than the other documents in the film. These pages are my tests. I always keep notes on how I make each piece so that, if there’s a reshoot, I can recreate it exactly without risking continuity errors.
How did you come to create this piece?
It wasn’t created with any intention of being seen. It was purely functional: notes to myself on how long to steep paper in tea, which inks worked best, what textures to try. But I think that’s what gives it its charm now – it’s unpolished, and shows the craft behind the craft.