Jennifer Morden Creates a Medieval-Style Home for Steve's Character in the Thriller "Fresh"

Located in a studio in British Columbia, Canada, production designer Jennifer Morden created a medieval-style home to reflect Steve's personality–an antagonistic and misogynistic character in the thriller-comedy, Fresh. To meet the needs of filming, Morden and his team built two sets of houses in a studio to create a "home in the middle ages" atmosphere in the film Fresh 2022 directed by Mimi Cave.

Jennifer Morden creates a medieval home for a fresh movie

Steve's Mansion

The set is designed to depict the main floor and basement of a medieval mansion that will be used by a central character named Steve. In the film, Steve plays a man who is shrewd at flirting with women to date, then Steve invites the woman into his basement to perform a depraved act, where it turns out that Steve is a human flesh seller. Steve's Mansion.

For lovers of medieval-style houses, the design of the set in the film can become an attraction for the audience. The design displays luxury and courage with a choice of colors that tend to lead to neutral colors, Morden then gives a touch of gold color that creates an even more luxurious atmosphere.

The use of wallpaper is also distinctive and very identical in medieval-style houses. The material used became the identity of a medieval-style house whose presence was very important on the film set, such as the use of stone and wood, both of which have textures that are often left unattended without finishing.

Wooden and concrete accents are displayed on the main floor and in the basement

Steve's dining room

Main Floor at Steve's House

The floor height game was designed by Morden to separate the space without partitions. On the main floor, there is a dining room with a luxurious design in the middle ages, equipped with leather-upholstered chairs, a magnificent dining table, and golden lamp decorations on the walls. In addition, there is a living room with the luxury of a 1970s Camaleonda sofa by Mario Bellini. The designed kitchen features a "clean and tidy" feel to reduce suspicion of the woman Steve invited to his house.

Steve's living room

Steve's kitchen

Basement

The basement gives the impression of being excavated, designed by featuring concrete staircases with a stone and concrete walls as details to provide a real visual. This staircase became access to lead to the rooms by passing through a small hallway, where this room was a cell for the women held captive by Steve.

Basements for holding female captives

In the set of rooms, this captive cell is equipped with a bed that is flush with the floor to give a hard and uncomfortable impression to the captives. This captive room is formed according to the storyline in the movie. The stone on the wall combined with beautiful paintings and orange carpets give meaning to the warmth of the flesh of the women who are held captive.

Another set that is in the basement is the operating room used by Steve to cut the body of the woman he is holding captive. It is equipped with an operating bed and the equipment Steve uses, so this set looks really like a doctor's operating room.

Women's captivity room

Steve's operating room

"The design of Steve's house is aimed at reflecting his complex and powerful personality, which quickly went from normal to creepy as the play unfolded," Morden said.

Creating a set for the needs of filming a film is a challenge in itself because it must be flexible and able to bring the visuals of the film to life. Accordingly, these sets are designed to keep in touch with each other. This was realized by Jennifer Morden by visually connecting the main floor to the basement. Morden also added wooden elements to the basement where most of the basement uses concrete. In addition, concrete elements were brought to the main floor, which was mostly made of wood