Production Design and Art Direction from Bruce Hill
NATIONWIDE COMMERCIALS. MOON/ BRAY
Here I had to design a nondescript large corporate bank. If you walk down the high street and look at banks, they all have their own corporate colour schemes. This bank needed it's own, and as most colour schemes were taken, I picked red and cream so it didn't match any other well-known branches.
The scripts were brilliantly written and it was superbly directed and cast by Armando Iannucci. As so many commercials were to be shot in this one bank the set needed to be quite large with a different area being used for each of the commercials.
Only a three-day build it led to us not getting the ceilings on until the prelight causing a slight delay but the end result was very authentic. We even created our own leaflets, posters and chequebooks. Beverley Butcher, my props stylist, had her work cut out having to find enough decent desks and matching furniture to fill what was eventually a very large set. All the computers needed to be practical and even the digital tellers signs were fully operational. Two seven-ton trucks were required for the props deliveries alone.
The Studio shoot was then followed by a day's location in Watford for the real bank exteriors.