One of my favorite shows ever made is Gilmore Girls. It needs no big conflict, no loud sound effects or never-before-seen quirks. It instead tells of the quaint life of a mother and her daughter in the little town of Stars Hollow. It just made me so happy that a show was doing what no shows or movies ever do: show you what happens after the big event (in this case, Lorelai Gilmore running away from home at 16 with her newborn baby), the day-to-day stuff that people might look over: getting coffee every morning, the first day of school, the movie marathons and junk food, the bonds and irresponsible life choices: it’s all wrapped up messily into this show and I love it.
So for this assignment, it felt only natural to recreate a scene from this show; its simplistic nature made it a little easier to reproduce. The scene I decided on was from Season 1 episode 2, “The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton”, where Rory (Lorelai’s daughter) is late to her first day at a prestigious private school, where her mother is expected to meet the principal. Lorelai has run out of clothes and goes in boots, shorts, a bright pink shirt, as well as a big overcoat in an attempt to cover all this up.
After recruiting my roommate to be Rory (dressed as accurately to a school uniform as we could manage), and myself as Lorelai (I managed to recreate a similar outfit with what I had in my closet), we used the stairs of our residence hall to mimic the stairs in the tv show. There were a few things I changed for the sake of clarity: First, I had my coat on, despite the fact that Lorelai doesn’t have hers on while going down the stairs, and second, I made coffee cups with the Luke’s (the local coffee shop in Star’s Hollow) logo on them to help hint towards the show, and nod at the fact that these two characters are always drinking coffee.
This was a lot of fun, and definitely made me want to revisit the show. It also made me think a lot about what set designers go through to make a realistic-looking environment; if there’s one thing I missed entirely, it was making the homey vibe that Gilmore Girls has come to life. That being said, I’m pretty proud of my imitation, and thoroughly enjoyed the process.
The Secret Language of Sabrina 