Descendants 3

Like the first two films in the trilogy, Disney’s Descendants 3 takes place in both the wretched Isle of the Lost (an Alcatraz style prison where all of the Disney heritage villains have been incarcerated) and the enchanted, perfected kingdom of Auradon (where all the heritage princesses and heroes reside in royal splendor). This is the armory in Auradon’s royal palace. It houses a collection of armor and weapons (not pictured) that good-girl turned evil sorceress Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey) brings to life to fight our heroes in musical combat. We built this broad hall encased in stained glass.

A detail of some of the panels of stained glass we designed celebrating chivalry and feats of arms in the armory in Auradon’s royal palace.

A reverse showing the entry to the armory set in Auradon’s royal palace.

Here three suits of armor/dancers wait to be summoned to life by the newly evil enchantress Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey).

There were 13 niches to display the suits of armor in Auradon’s royal palace armory and each one was backlit by a stained glass window with a unique narrative of mythical chivalry.

Each of the dozens of windows had a full color ‘glass’ layer and a 3/16” ‘lead’ layer rubbed in graphite to give the window a sense of dimension and density.

In the Descendants movies, the good guys in Auradon are separated from the bad guys on the Isle of the Lost by a blown-up bridge and a bay. This is the bridge plaza on the good guy’s side of the rift. It’s used for public ceremonies and events. It mirrors the dilapidated and crowded plaza on the Alcatraz-style prison island across the bay.

This tower/gate leads out to the broken edge of the blown bridge.

The finale to the movie trilogy ends with the blown bridge being magically rebuilt and the imprisoned population is free to come back to the abundant mainland. Because the daughter of Maleficent, Mal (Dove Cameron) was the mastermind of their liberation, I proposed the people of the Isle of the Lost would parade across the bridge with pride in their hero, Mal. So in honor of her purple dragon alter-ego, they led the procession with this dragon puppet.

A detail of the dragon puppet.

The other end of the blown bridge is the plaza on the prison island of the Isle of the Lost. It’s the home of all the classic Disney villains, their hench-people, and all their offspring. So the vibe here is not only the hapless poverty of the formerly powerful but also rebellious defiance. We had just a couple of days to turn the plaza set from the elegant piazza of the Auradon side to the rough and rebellious Isle of the Lost side.

The people of the Isle of the Lost used their end of the once elegant and now ruined bridge plaza to send a message to their captors across the bay. Anything can be made into a face if you think about it.

A panorama of what the stinkers on the Isle of the Lost have done to their end of the blown bridge.

The daughter of Sleeping Beauty, Audrey’s (Sarah Jeffrey) beautifully appointed room in the exclusive Auradon Academy. Every ‘Descendent’s’ color story is based on their parentage from the classic animations. Director Kenny Ortega chats with Sarah Jeffrey.

The pinks and blues of Aurora’s (Sleeping Beauty) color story from the 1959 classic inform Audrey’s bedroom set.

The window seat in Audrey’s bedroom set.

A detail of the functioning pink marble fireplace and sitting area in Audrey’s bedroom set.

Our anti-hero Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey) retreats to this remote fairy cottage that was once the secret refuge of her teen mother, Sleeping Beauty. We built this humble Bavarian-style cottage in a practical forest.

Another view of Audrey’s retreat based on Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather’s fairy cottage from 1959’s Disney classic Sleeping Beauty.

The interior of Audrey’s (Sarah Jeffrey) forest hideout in her mother’s former home.

A detail of Sleeping Beauty’s former home now occupied by her villainous daughter, Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey)

Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey) finds her way into the Auradon Museum of Cultural History where she smashes this vitrine to steal what she feels is rightfully hers, the crown of the Queen of Auradon. I designed this opulent, conceptual space with glowing blue marble to serve the dream-like reality of the musical number, The Queen of Mean. The royal blue draperies and the radiant compass rose of the white, black, and caramel marble floor speak to the order, calm, and safety that are the hallmarks of the Kingdom of Auradon.

When Audrey (Sarah Jeffrey) smashes the glass to steal the Queen’s crown, she awakens a dormant evil. The blue drapes open into a red space where the most evil artifacts in all of Auradon are housed, including Maleficent’s supremely powerful scepter. The floor here is a green and black lightning-field of chaos and disorder. The blood-red draperies billow and sway to infer a dangerous presence stirring to life.

The Isle of the Lost is the Alcatraz-like prison island where all the classic Disney villains, their children, and their hench-people live. Descendants 3 opens on this set, where the children of the Isle learn they’ve been granted a chance to go to school in Auradon.

Another view of the wretched state of life on the Isle of the Lost. We bought two cement mixers that ran 12+ plus hours a day for months full of mounds of fabric/plastic/old clothing plus sand, gravel, and bricks to get the ratty look we were going for.

One of the heroes of the Isle of the Lost is Carlos, the son of Cruella De Vil played by the sadly late Cameron Boyce. This is the home for lost boys and girls Carlos sponsored on the Isle of the Lost.

We created pro-Auradon propaganda posters for each of the four VK’s (villain kids) to help promote the idea of Isle of the Lost kids applying to move to the mainland for school. These are Carlos’ (Cameron Boyce) posters in his orphanage set.

The Isle of the Lost is the tiny, overcrowded home to a dizzying number of oversized, villainous personalities. Villains like Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Jafar, Frollo, Scar, Ursula, Dr. Facilier, etc. But maybe the most dangerous and most remote villain is Hades, the antagonist of Disney’s Hercules. An actual god who has lost the most of all the prisoners of the Isle. Here is the foreboding gate complete with Greek-style letters we made for the entrance to his subterranean lair.

The mighty Greek god Hades (Cheyenne Jackson) found as familiar a haunt as he could in an abandoned mine shaft deep under the Isle of the Lost. Director Kenny Ortega saw Hades as a faded rock star. So I created a cool but tattered den for this forgotten rock god.

Another view of Hades’ (Cheyenne Jackson) dismal subterranean lair.

Even mighty Hades has been reduced to the scraps of modern society in his his infuriating imprisonment. On the first Descendants movie we decided nothing new had reached the Isle since 1979, and most consumer items were probably much older than that. This is the ad hoc, salvaged stereo/media system I designed for poor Hades (Cheyenne Jackson)

Every villain needs a throne. Hades has adopted a humble mining cart for his lounging. His lair is dotted with mirrors because his fading vanity demands constant affirmation. And his footrest is a jumble of Greek helmets from the souls of the vanquished he’s collected.

I think it’s sometimes helpful to look at the structure of the outside of a set to understand the dimensions and functionality of the inside. Here is the outside of Hades lair showing entrances and exits, wild sections, and lighting elements.

On the Isle of the Lost, the cunning Dr. Facilier (Jamal Sims) from Disney’s Princess and the Frog has opened a VERY underground arcade. This is a wide shot of the carnival-style, secret space I designed for that arcade.

The entrance to Dr. Facilier’s secret arcade is based on the mask that was his contact with ‘the other side’ from the classic animation. This was a multi-layered, flat set piece with lights embedded in each layer.

Because nothing new has come to the Isle of the Lost in 40 years, I delighted in conceiving totally analog amusements. Everything is powered by hand, and in lieu of glass, the enclosures are rusted chicken wire. Even the nature of the games are things like sea monsters eating sailors off of ships and pickpocket challenges. And because it is Dr. Facilier’s midway, everything is rigged to favor the house.

One of the analog games in Dr. Facilier’s Voodoo Arcade is the Voodoo game. As a child of the ’80s, I love the look of cheap, mass-produced, stenciled game cabinets.

Here’s the Voodoo game on set between the catapult game and Monster Madness. I think they invoke a semi-familiar but also bizarre sensibility.

The catapult game was an amazingly functional amusement where two working catapults flung bean bags and could topple the prince’s castle.

Monster Madness featured a schlocky city-scape in which two low-rent Godzilla-style puppets fight over a fire truck.

A detail of the crummy city-scape and the analog monsters in the Monster Madness arcade game.

New Orleans, Voodoo high priest Dr. Facilier (Jamal Sims) may be stuck on the Alcatraz-like prison of the Isle of the Lost, but he hasn’t lost his magic touch. Within his underground arcade, he has his own tarot/fortune-telling stall. We over-dyed antique quilts in red to create his mystical parlor.

What analog arcade would be complete without dartboards? Because the people of the Isle of the Lost are formerly powerful witches and conjurers who’ve lost their powers, they aren’t very good at anything practical. So these dartboards spin, the scores are random and the darts aren’t really that sharp.