2024 Emmys: 10 Nominated Production Designers Recall Their Early Jobs

‘The Crown’

Production Designer: Martin Childs
Nominated Category: Narrative Contemporary Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Sleep, Dearie, Sleep’ 

Lessons from First Guild Job: The first feature I designed was “Mrs. Brown,” with Judi Dench as Queen Victoria mourning her late husband. Whatever the budget, I like to spend wisely. [This budget] was tiny, and Victoria probably the wealthiest woman in the world. I’d worked with Ken Adam on “The Madness of King George” and he introduced me to Wilton House, full of spectacular interiors befitting a Queen. I persuaded the producers of “Mrs. Brown” that wealth could be conveyed by placing a small woman in black in a huge room of unrivaled grandeur, and so it proved. A quarter of a century later, I repeated the trick in the same room, with Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth foreseeing her own funeral. 

I joined the ADG when M. Night Shyamalan invited me to the U.S. to design “Lady in the Water” in 2006. The biggest challenge was to find a location that fitted Night’s story: An apartment building with an open courtyard housing a pool, with both courtyard and pool out back. It turned out that no such thing existed. Every courtyard we found faced the street and, with that orientation, the story couldn’t be told. We had to build it. We had a choice of two paths: dark gothic architecture or something more bland and everyday where horror and mystery are the last things you expect. I hit on the idea of taking Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and flipping it, so the tall building is all rectangular anonymity and the low building is the old dark house, reversing expectations. The pool became the only organic feature, inviting intrigue. I love designing things from the ground up and having people ask me later where that location was. And that’s what happened. It means you appear to have created a kind of reality rather than contrived something to fit the story.

‘Fargo’

Production Designer: Trevor Smith
Nominated Category: Narrative Contemporary Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Trials and Tribulations’ 

Lessons from Early Work: My fist real gig was art directing a series of TV commercials. I was everything: Props, set dressing, picture cars, & wardrobe. I didn’t know any better. But what I learned, right off the hop, was that every layer matters. The finished visual experience is multi-layered, and each contribution adds to the reality, and nuance, of the story. I’ve never let go of that tenet: The details matter. One false note can spoil the whole song. That’s why great, masterful film is the rarest of finds.

‘The Gentlemen’

Production Designer: Martyn John
Nominated Category: Narrative Contemporary Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Tackle Tommy Woo Woo’

Lessons from Early Work: My first design job was a TV series, “Psychos,” a multi-episode drama for Channel 4 exploring mental health issues and relationships in a mental hospital. Research and appropriateness of design were key aspects of the approach. It taught me the discipline and clarity of design for specific script requirements and it freed my mind and allowed me to explore and push the boundaries of film design. “The Gentlemen” explores the many diametrically opposed worlds of modern British life where aristocracy and a gangster world inhabit the same arenas. Heightened and stylized motifs are a wonderful way in which I use design to enforce the drama within the scenes scripted. “Psychos” allowed me to explore these aspects, and “The Gentlemen” has given me the opportunity for more sophisticated work and has given me the opportunity to work for a director who allows me to push the limits of my talent and explore new areas of design that is appropriate for the show. 

‘The Gilded Age’

Production Designer: Bob Shaw
Nominated Category: Narrative Contemporary Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Close Enough to Touch’ 

Lessons from Early Work: The gateway to my career was opera. At some point in high school, I decided that designing scenery for opera would combine my interests in music and art. So, I began my career in the theater. My first big break was designing the Linda Ronstadt production of “The Pirates of Penzance.” That was an operetta. Flash forward 40 plus years and I found myself on Season 2 of “The Gilded Age.” The main storyline was the opera war of 1883. To bring that to the screen, we had to create the opera house from a combination of several locations and an elevated set of five elaborate opera boxes. It feels as if I have come full circle. 

‘Hacks’

Production Designer: Rob Tokarz
Nominated Category: Single Camera Comedy Series
Nominated Episode: ‘Yes, And’ 

Lessons from First Guild Job: I got my days on “Ray Donovan” as an assistant art director. When I started as an art department assistant, the two things that prepared me best for where I am now were always asking questions and sponging information off everyone I’d worked with.

‘Only Murders in the Building’

Production Designer: Patrick Howe 
Nominated Category: Narrative Series (Half-Hour)
Nominated Episode: ‘Opening Night’ 

Lessons from First Guild Job: My initial training and exposure to “show biz” began way back in grade school upon seeing my first high school production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” at the invitation of my older sister. I was hooked from the moment I saw that production! I pursued theater in high school and college. After assisting in theater on Broadway, I also assisted on a daytime drama in New York. This was the first official job requiring membership in my design union. It is a guild you test into with a portfolio and interview, etc. The genre of daytime dramas was the work early in my career that indeed I am most grateful for. These shows demanded a high volume of sets to design at a very fast pace, unmatched by any demands of nighttime TV or film. I had great mentors, and my foundation in theater was also instrumental in being able to improvise design ideas that were quick, affordable, with available materials, and kept up with the fast pace of a new one-hour episode five days a week/50 weeks a year schedule. This “immersive” training set me up nicely to adapt my skills to nighttime TV and film, a career I have been enjoying for 40 years.

‘Palm Royale’

Production Designer: Jon Carlos
Nominated Category: Narrative Period or Fantasy Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Maxine’s Like A Dellacorte’

Advice for aspiring filmmakers: A commitment to the profession of production design is also a commitment to being an eternal student — and should be done with enthusiasm. The pleasure of our profession is that while we may apply similar fundamentals of method to the design process of each consecutive project, the subject matter will always be different, requiring deep dives into new portions of history, style, and approach. It is exhilarating — but I think having a strong training in design history and technique is paramount. My advice when training is to study both the history of design (architecture, graphic design, photography, art, theater, film), and the tools needed to communicate design (drafting, illustration, presentation formatting, public speaking). Our form of art is about enhancing the story through the careful curation of a frame in collaboration with the director and cinematographer. Finding your voice as a designer begins with understanding how we as creators enhance this partnership with the choices we make in terms of color selection, the composition of space, and (most importantly to me) the conscious decisions we make regarding how light will play in and through our sets.  

‘Ripley’

Production Designer: David Gropman
Nominated Category: Narrative Period or Fantasy Series (One Hour or More)

Lessons from First Guild Job: I joined the Art Directors Guild in November 1991, with the film “Of Mice and Men.” Prior to that, I was a member of United Scenic Artists out of New York, having started my career as a set designer for theater. My first job as a production designer was Robert Altman’s “Come Back To The 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” which I had designed for him on Broadway. For me, the challenge was walking into an entirely new medium, one I had never contemplated. But soon realized that the career I had studied for, and practiced, prepared me for the job of production designer. The medium was different, but intuition that had guided me in the theater easily followed me into film.

‘Shogun’

Production Designer: Helen Jarvis 
Nominated Category: Narrative Period or Fantasy Series (One Hour or More)
Nominated Episode: ‘Anjin’  

Lessons from First Guild Job: Designing “Shogun” was the project that got me into the Television Academy. A memorable challenge on that show was to weave period authenticity into a cinematic vision, all the while creating “transformer” sets that could function and be modified throughout the 10-part series. Years of managing large set builds and an interest in all things historical made this a joy to undertake. 

‘What We Do in the Shadows’

Production Designer: Shayne Fox 
Nominated Category: Narrative Series (Half-Hour)
Nominated Episode: ‘A Weekend at Morrigan Manor’ 

Lessons from First Guild Job: It’s been decades for me, working in different unions, guilds, as well as non-union productions that has been my career thus far. In that time I have been lucky enough to dabble in many of the positions found on art teams. I have built foam and fleece (Henson style) puppets, crafted specialty props, poured breakaway glass, been a set dec buyer, decorated a million sets, and, in recent years, stepped into the role of the production designer. Having been a member of IATSE for a while, I joined the DGC (Directors Guild of Canada) at the start of Season 4 of “What We Do in the Shadows” when I stepped into becoming the production designer of everyone’s favorite vampire show. What a wild ride it has been!

Memorable challenges from my first season production designing “What We Do in the Shadows” was figuring out how to “destroy” our mansion set as well as create some spaces that got flooded as well as service a show that was very stunt and special effects heavy.

Looking back now, I am so grateful for the years I spent slugging it out on set, loading trucks, working in shop environments building things, racing around stores, brainstorming in meetings, budgeting, and everything in between. I have had to solve an endless amount of creative conundrums while working my way up the art department ladder. And truly, it’s all of those varied experiences that inform the ideas, solutions and inspirations I have to this day. Every time you overcome a challenge, or invent a new solution or process, you learn something. Every time you work within a team and see what can happen when there is focus and a good creative flow, you see that magic is possible. And that is something that you build on as you go from project to project.