ServiceMaster Disaster Sets

We have done several disaster recreation sets for ServiceMaster Restore. Some of the disasters have been flooded living rooms, kitchen oven fires, a flooded retail store, a burned out home office and a flooded basement with plenty of scenic mold. Many shoots can use existing locations, but to get the correct look and the full extent of the damage, these projects need to be created on a sound stage.

To make these sets, we work with ServiceMaster to design a look that mirror’s reference images from real life restorations that they have completed. Typically, most set construction is built with light weight materials that are not often used in residential construction. But these sets often times need to provide a look inside the walls or the ceiling. We create sections of the sets with proper residential construction, insulation and electrical materials. Then we blend those elements into walls that have been built with traditional set construction materials.

Things like mold and smoke damage are done through scenic paint. But sometimes we may physically burn set elements off-site to get a more realistic look. Some of these sets are built on top of rubber liners so that we can flood the set in a controlled manner.

Most of these sets were installed at ACME Stage in Minneapolis. These productions have been produced by Matthew Slimmer.