Tamsin Scott
Floral Set Designer
Please give us a whistle-stop run through your background and career so far.
Tamsin. Oh gosh, where do you start in talking about life journeys?
I’ve arrived where I am thanks to my lovely parents, who brought us up in an incredibly creative house in Surrey and instilled in us you can do anything attitude. My dad was a gentle soul and a fabulous writer. My ma, Caroline, was always knee-deep in garden design and architecture, and years later, I’d also get the bug for all things flowery. I thank her for that, and although there are few words in her dotage, we share the flowers, and I hope she knows it started with the blooms put in my room weekly.
I was cringey shy at school, always hid in the art block creating or writing, and found myself doing work experience at the Redgrave and Thorndike Theatres, where I got to do scene painting and props. At 15, it felt like a direction I could sneakily go down, creatively embracing all my loves without talking to anyone! That, with a side of drama. I also started writing for a teen magazine in my spare time, which ticked all the daft words whizzing through my head.
As a badly behaved teen halfway through A-Levels, I was banished to LA to stay with my godmother for a year. I grew up there very quickly as it’s so huge, loomy and bonkers, but instead of languishing in the lonely, I embraced film and drama studies at high school and attended UCLA Film School for their summer school nine months later. Again, I got to combine drama with art and side steps into film, which made me realise that deep down, I can find the brave.
When I returned home, I quickly did A-Levels in Sculpture, Art and English, then started at theatre school doing set design. While studying, I got lots of work experience for Royal Opera House (ROH) doing set painting, followed by work with two fantastic production designers, the late Maria Bjornson and John Napier. John was known for his set design for things like The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Cats, Miss Saigon, Maria, Phantom, Aspects of Love and Les Misérables.
Instead of snogging boys and smoking Marlborough Lights of a late evening at drama school, I’d find myself painting moody floors and skyscapes, then gold leafing dangling in a harness for Sunset. They were really fun times. A few months before graduating, I had a ladder fall on set, which meant I couldn’t paint for a while. Through friends, I went off in a totally different direction and took a job at MTV. I did a real mix of jobs there, some sets, talent relations, and even writing scripts for VJs. Through all these mad connections and my continued love of writing, I interviewed all the boy bands for Smash Hits and Just Seventeen magazines and started a bonkers career in teen mags.
Through that, I got poached to be an entertainment producer for AOL when all the .com companies were starting up, which led to a similar job at Channel Four and then the BBC. So I had some weirdly grown-up jobs for a while; the painting sets, and theatre were forgotten.
So, I was in my late twenties, being grown up and living in Notting Hill, where there were some fantastic flower shops. I had the crazy notion that I’d love to return to a simple life running a flower shop. I just wanted to get my hands dirty and do something that didn’t involve the telly!
That is how I met Marcus (RyeZine No. 1, McCully & Crane Gallery). We ran a place called Wild at Heart together, which was kind of the ‘it’ flower shop of its time. Don’t get me wrong; I started by filling buckets of water and writing soppy messages; end of the business. But here, I found the perfect mix of being semi-grown-up and creative. And creating flowery magic, well, it was love at first sight.
Thirteen-hour days embracing blooms led to lots of freelance shoots with photographers like Mario Testino, David Burton and my friend Tim Walker and filling eccentric celebrities’ homes, like Madonna’s, with roses and blackberries in blooms, Alan Rickman’s flat with delphs and a bounty of blooms for my beloved Angela Lansbury at the Basil Street Hotel.
“For a while, I had a beautiful old navy blue taxi that was my flower store parked up at Bluebird on Kings Road in Chelsea. I was about 35 when I started working on films, which I still do today.”
That was a whistle-stop tour! How did your love of flowers blossom, and turn into a career?
Tamsin. My first florist job at Wild at Heart was beginner level, filling buckets up, hard labour, chopping, and doing the foliages, so I learned
on the job. I learned from great florists at Wild at Heart and Harper & Toms.
I was working at Wild at Heart part-time, so I also had time to work on photo shoots. Working with the British fashion photographer Tim Walker got me even more interested in flowers. The fashion people made it feel glamorous. It wasn’t about making another simple dome of roses; I could go a bit wild, which is what I used to do with my painting and scene painting. My style is very wild abandon; some might go the Marmite route and say messy, but I love creating as I go along. I never have a plan!
I had felt constricted at the BBC; inside, I knew that I had to go and get my hands dirty, and I didn’t mind learning something new and retraining even though I was a bit older.
We also did events, and I loved it all, but like many jobs, it became relatively uniform, so I needed more of a creative challenge to occupy my mind. I started developing my style, which is a lot wilder and like walking through a meadow and picking things up. I was getting more direct work and realised I should do this myself. So, I left Wild at Heart and stopped the freelance writing I’d been doing. So I could enjoy being creative.
How did you start creating floral scenes for films?
Tamsin. I lived on a boat creating blooms on the roof when my lovely next-door boater mentioned me to her sister Stella, a set designer who regularly worked in period dramas. That was my lucky intro, and the boat was the perfect spot to make historic blooms for a while. The needs soon got grander, which is when I found myself a set regular, where flowers are a completely different kettle of fish to cosy posies.
It can be incredibly busy and scorchio on set, and you’ve got to think about setups very differently. You often need three lots of backup flowers because of the heat and lights, which can destroy fragile flowers in moments.
I suddenly feel grown up talking about this and realise I’ve been fortunate in loving my work! Looking back, I went from simple blooms to worrying about costumes; even a single rose ripping a costume would leave me quivering in fear of costume designers. Some flowers have dye in them, so you need to be careful. I also use silk flowers. It took
a lot of mistakes, seeing flowers wilt straight away and then racing around to find replacements to decide I needed to work with a mix of real and
silk flowers. It works if you get the right mix. I once had to fill a church with a thousand sunflowers, which all drooped. So, you learn to adapt.
One of my first big films was a Daniel Redcliffe horror film called The Woman In Black. It was a remaking. I’m always really interested in history and research. I love to find out the Latin names of flowers or date the names, thinking that would’ve been the name 200 years ago and, leading me to the styles of that period. So, with that in mind, when I started working on films, there could be a pineapple on that table, which wouldn’t be strange. Whereas, you watch many films and they’ll just put contemporary flowers in the scenes. The Woman In Black was moody and gritty, so I got to go gothic.
“This career ticked a part of my brain that craves relevance and continuity. It’s where research meets creativity, and that’s the perfect combination for me.”
I work on many period films, so learning, researching and ensuring that I get the exact right flower and that it is in season is so important. I worked on the film Emma, where I’d advised that the servants wouldn’t have a brilliant garden; they’d be just growing herbs. And if it were in the 1820s, that flower wouldn’t be around. They wouldn’t have been rich enough for this and that in their garden.
Autumn de Wilde’s Emma was a six-month shoot that spanned four seasons. So I planned Christmas in April, May, June, and July, ensuring everything was seasonal and of its time. Plans change, dates move, and people get ill, so you need to be on your toes.
I find it all fascinating, and through word of mouth, I started getting steady film work. I always have a giggle and meet some lovely people in this industry. You do 13 to 14-hour days, which is pretty hardcore, but you don’t mind because you are doing something you love, being creative and trying different ways of doing things. I’ve huge respect for my peers and the sheer graft it takes to create these glorious sets and overcome obstacles thrown at you.
For example, you can’t touch a thing in National Trust properties, so I often have to work with no water, and the vases have to perch on special fabric. When I was working on Judy with Renée Zellweger, there was a poppy copyright issue, and I found myself in my workshop with my friend Karen of Tillingham fame, hand painting lots of flowers for a week that looked similar to poppies but wasn’t! So yes, if you need hand-painted flowers, I’m your gal.
“It’s a lot more intense than floristry. You must be alert, think on your feet and have a plan B or C. I do love it, but it’s hard work.”
How does the process of floral set design work?
Tamsin. I’ll meet the set designer, look at the spaces and discuss placement and the heights each thing will fill. I’ll be told the period of the film so that I can research the most relevant flowers. Then, I’ll do sketches and mood boards, list the flowers and include their Latin names. I work with a handful of set designers and get on well. They usually allow me to do my thing with the brief because they trust me.
We have been working with Lotus, a big silk flower company in Rye Harbour, who are lovely, bloody life savers and perfect for us. Often, working on films is a short turnaround. Many people say we need it yesterday, and so far, with a brilliant team, we’ve always succeeded all the yesterdays, even if it’s meant working all night to create a showstopper. I’m chuffed to have lovely hearts around me who get that. And next year, some of our most significant projects, like Snow White and HBO’s The Regime with Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant, will see the light of all that work.
Like most people, I imagine the COVID-19 pandemic stopped your film work.
Tamsin. Snore! Everything ground to a halt. My last shoot was for US Vogue, so one minute, I was fluffing chintz and pinning flowers to crinoline, and the next, we were walked off the set, not knowing that the world was turning upside down.
And it did for me, too; a terrible fall and a cancer diagnosis during COVID-19 was a bit of a bummer. I’m sure many people had epiphanies during lockdown, and I definitely joined that movement with both these dents in my journey.
For me and the C word, it was surrounding myself with the best of friends who blew my mind with their love and care, lasagnas and all that. Then, I brushed myself down to celebrate life. When the dust settled and I could finally work again, I chose only work That Tickles my Turnip.
“I want to make my dance with Cancer as beautiful, gentle and happy as possible. Working with it is possible, and there is life after a diagnosis. I find my calm in the chaos cones by throwing myself into blooms.”
Tamsin Scott
Floral Set Designer
Instagram. gypsyrosesets