SagaBoy Productions Decorates Set of Hit Movie Saving Mr. Banks

When they’re well-acted and well-made, movies don’t just entertain; they transport viewers to the place or time the performers and production team wish to convey. In eras past, highly paid set designers and artisans painstakingly handpainted fabric backdrops or otherwise recreated period amenities. Now, inkjet-printed pieces create desired settings at a fraction of the cost.

Martin T. Charles, the owner of Santa Monica, CA-based SagaBoy Productions, who has produced printed set décor for such hit movies as 42 and Seabiscuit, helped embellish another silver-screen hit. SagaBoy created numerous printed pieces for Saving Mr. Banks, which recounts how Walt Disney (depicted by Tom Hanks) relentlessly pursued P.L. Travers (played by Emma Thompson), the author of the iconic children’s book Mary Poppins, to develop a namesake movie. The story take place in two divergent places and eras: the early-20th-Century Australia of Travers’ childhood, and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) as it looked in the early 1960s, and other Angeleno architectural icons, where Disney and Travers met frequently as Mary Poppins’ production unfolded.

SagaBoy Productions output the prints on its Roland VersaCamm VSi 54-in.-wide printer/cutter. According to Charles, incorporating metallic inks comprised an important part of replicating bank and city-hall architecture and their gilded accents. Also, SagaBoy fabricated banners up to 30 ft. long to replicate scenery of the Allora Fair, a festival depicted in the film’s portion shot in Australia.

“Replicated handcrafted signage can be difficult in a digital workflow, because the pigments and materials used in signmaking decades ago were so much more rugged,” Charles said. “To make them look authentic, we literally stomped on the prints to ‘age’ them.”