My breakthrough moment: Annie Atkins

Annie Atkins tells us about the props that started off her illustrious career as a graphic designer for film; those delicious ‘millennial pink’ Mendl’s boxes that enjoy a lot of screen time in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel

The first significant piece of work I created as a graphic designer for film was the pink Mendl’s box for Wes Anderson. 

Before the Grand Budapest Hotel I was used to working on TV shows — costume dramas, mostly — where the props didn’t get all that much screen time. That’s ok, that’s just the nature of the work, the focus is on the characters.  But I could tell by reading the GBH script that the Mendl’s box was a hero (a hero prop is a piece that has to pass the scrutiny of the camera and audience), and that it had a character of its own. I think it shows up in nearly every set of the movie at some point.