TV production designers roundtable: ‘The Boys,’ ‘Doctor Odyssey,’ ‘Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,’ ‘Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire,’ ‘Nobody Wants This,’ ‘Palm Royale’
Six acclaimed production designers take us behind the scenes of their set designs to reveal what they love about their craft.
In an exclusive video roundtable interview with Gold Derby as part of our “Meet the Experts: TV Production Designers” panel, Mark Steel (“The Boys”), Jamie Walker McCall (“Doctor Odyssey”), Toni Barton (“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist”), Mara LePere-Schloop (“Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire”), Claire Bennett (“Nobody Wants This”), and Jon Carlos (“Palm Roayle”) discuss their love of craft and how production design is all about problem solving. Watch the full roundtable above. Click on each person’s name to watch an individual chat.
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Lepere-Schloop who had to design coffins and battlefields for vampires reveals, “all of us would do vastly different things on every project. But, at the heart, we are all problem solvers. You just figure out different ways to come to different visual conclusions. It’s a collaborative medium that ebbs and flows with design and decision making. The outcome is never going to be repeated twice even with your own projects. That’s what’s so incredible with this job, it’s a ride.”
Steel agrees, “every project is a puzzle to configure and figure out. That’s very stimulating too and a big part of why I like doing it.” Working on “The Boys’” fourth season has given the production designer an appreciation for collaboration. He says he loves, “when you are able to dial into the core of a story and expand it into a complete and more visual universe. When all of the different crafts come together and people are inspired, that’s what makes great production design.”
McCall designed a luxury cruise liner for “Doctor Odessey.” She admits that she much prefers being on set before the cameras start rolling, saying, “I don’t like being in front of camera. I like to be behind the scenes and be the puppeteer. To make sure everything is happening when it’s suppose to happen. We love what we do, but we like to be behind the scenes and not seen.”
On “Palm Royale,” Carols had to get out of his comfort zone by incorporating loud colors from the 1960’s. He reflects, “there’s a certain methodology to creating storytelling visually. But each production that you work on is going to change how you utilize your methods, teams and instincts. That’s what’s beautiful about the nature of production design. We are unable to do the same thing twice because inherently we’re artists.”
Bennett grew up near the birthplace of William Shakespeare. It’s a far cry from the world of Los Angeles she creates for “Nobody Wants This.” But it does explain her inspiration for production design. She shares, “what got me intrigued initially was seeing live theatre. Seeing a working set and how it changes got to me as a child, I couldn’t believe it. That’s what started me down this road of set design. That’s what we do, we are working out one set to the next. How they look next to each other and how’s they’re going to work. That problem solving is so much of what design is.”
It was a specific play that inspired Barton to pursue set design. She reveals, in college I read George Wolf’s ‘The Color Museum.’ To this day I’ve never seen the play, but it was the first time I read something that I could see in my mind. I could see the set. It was the first time I thought about scenery and thought about the value of it.” In “Fight Night” she had to recreate 1970 Atlanta. She says, “creating these story’s that become alive and allowing someone else to experience that, that’s amazing.”
Watch the full roundtable discussion above to hear these impressive artists also discuss what genres of TV series they would like to do next – perhaps that they’ve never done before – as well as their memories of a series, film or theatrical set that inspired them to take on production design as a career.
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