The much-discussed new Barbiefilm starring Margot Robbie has led to an international shortage of bright pink paint, claims the production designer responsible for it. It’s unclear how serious the shortage was, but in any case, large amounts were needed to get everything on set pink. The challenge was: how pink?
“It was essential to preserve the childishness,” says director Greta Gerwig about her film against the trade magazine Architectural Digest. The film is intended for adults, but it should convey “what made me love Barbie when I was a little girl,” says Gerwig. “I wanted the pink to be very bright and almost everything too much would be.”
Filming mainly took place on sets that were specially built for the film and thus had to be painted pink. It led to a run on neon-esque, fluorescent pink paint, according to production designer Sarah Greenwood. “The world ran out of pink,” she laughs. That sounds exaggerated, but it is not entirely unlikely: according to Greenwood, the paint was the core of her work.
“What’s pink?” she asked earlier in conversation with IndieWire. She pointed to a glass of grapefruit juice, which is pink in some light, but more beige in other light. The designer started working with painters to mix all kinds of shades of pink, from almost purple to beige. “We had over 100 shades of pink,” Greenwood said.
She eventually narrowed it down to about ten shades used in the film, such as on the three-story Barbie house built in a London studio for the film. “When we went to order, the company didn’t have enough pigment,” she said, referring to the way paint is colored. “Everyone was trying to find more.”
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Barbie doesn’t get sexy
Part of the ‘childish’ atmosphere of the film is that Barbie is not sexy. “She’s a plastic doll. She has no organs, she has no reproductive organs. If she doesn’t, does she feel sexual desires? No, I don’t think so,” said Margot Robbie recently Vogue. In other words: people can think something sexual about Barbie, but: ‘She should never be sexy. Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but only because it’s fun, and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her ass.”
The film will not be released until July 21, but has dominated social media for months. This is partly due to the seemingly perfect casting of Robbie (Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (Ken), who get as close to the doll couple as humanly possible. Think, for example, of Margot’s frail foot in one of the trailers.
Chrissy Teigen, used to being a top model, couldn’t believe her eyes. “I need to know everything about this shot,” she responded in a tweet that received 228,000 likes. How many takes did it take, was she holding on to something, was she hanging from something, is the floor sticky, is it her feet, who did the pedicure? I actually want a documentary about this scene.’
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