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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
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<description><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my honor to welcome Rick Carter. His wonderful career has brought us the worlds of the original “Jurassic Park” and its “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” sequel, “Forrest Gump”, “Cast Away”, “Polar Express”, both sequels […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my honor to welcome <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0141437/">Rick Carter</a>. His wonderful career has brought us the worlds of the original “Jurassic Park” and its “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” sequel, “Forrest Gump”, “Cast Away”, “Polar Express”, both sequels in the “Back to the Future” trilogy, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker”, “Munich”, “Lincoln”, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” and “Avatar”. He has won Academy Awards for the production design of “Avatar” and “Lincoln”. In this interview Rick talks about building a world that serves the story, the expansion and evolution of the role of the production designer in the last 50 years, the magic of watching these stories on big screens, and what advice he’d give to his younger self.
This interview is the third and final part of a special initiative – a collaboration with the <a href="https://www.productiondesignerscollective.org/">Production Designers Collective</a> that was founded in 2014. This collective brings together over 1,500 members from all around the world, sharing ideas, experiences and advice across the industry. We talk about its goals and initiatives, and the upcoming second <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/">International Production Design Week</a> scheduled in mid-October this year. <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/program/">Here you can browse</a> its full program, where you can filter by country, city, category and more to find an event near you.
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19936" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/rick-carter.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/rick-carter@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="720" height="405" />
Kirill: Please tell us about yourself, and how did you start in the industry.
Rick: I grew up around the Hollywood filmmaking industry because my father was a publicist. I knew about it a little bit from the inside, but I wasn’t sure I wanted too much to do with it. After I went traveling extensively as a young man, it seemed to fit because of the art that was embedded in the art direction. It felt like that it would be a good path for me to see if I can make my way.
I think I came in also to a fortuitous time because the industry was in the midst of a lot of changes. This was in the early 1970s, and I was able to meet some people that I got along well with. So I had it quite good, because once I met Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, I had 20 years of the two of them as these two brothers, almost an older brother and a younger brother that I could collaborate with. They were so good at what they were doing in terms of making movies, and they took me along for the ride. I attribute a lot to where they went with their ideas and how those were realized.
It felt like I was growing up going on those adventures through the movies that we did together, from “Back to the Future” to “Jurassic Park” to “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”. There were so many adventures to go on in the stories – time travel, dinosaurs slave ships and islands, the future with the AI. I was introduced to so many worlds, and then I was the one who got to be in charge of making the worlds. That was an adventure to be called upon from my early thirties to my mid fifties. They were jobs, but it wasn’t that formal. It felt more like I was being invited to partake of their fantasies. And they were very interesting people, and they were successful with what they were doing.
<img decoding="async" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 18px; float: right;" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/rickcarter-oscars.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/rickcarter-oscars@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="360" height="450" />Kirill: Would you say that you got to participate in this transition from special effects to visual effects? What kind of world building it unlocked for you?
Rick: There was the digital revolution, moving from analog to digital, and from optical to digital. The expansiveness of the digital realm has opened up how big the worlds can be as they come across on screen. They’re not necessarily built out more physically, and so the production design is more split now between the physical and the digital side of it.
It can be an historical world or a fantasy world, but they all share the same DNA for me. I ask myself how could I believe this? How could I truly be inspired to be at that place? That’s what I try to bring to the production design – the authenticity of the place that I’m in. I want to have it feel like it serves the story in the right way. And also, it needs to come together emotionally to be supportive of the actors and the narrative of the story. It’s an intuitive process, and there are many levels to manage through the process, be it set decoration, illustration or digital arts.
As production designers, we’re in the midst of this expansive arena, and it keeps on expanding as the technology keeps on expanding. Generative AI is just the latest example of this.
<img decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jurassicpark1.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1040" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Jurassic Park”.
Kirill: How do you see the role of the production designer evolving over these last few decades? I’m partial to the ’50s and the ’60s, with Hitchcock and Kubrick as some of my favorites. I just rewatched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “To Catch a Thief”, and there is no production design credit. It was art direction, which later morphed into world building, and separating – or maybe elevating – the role of the production designer.
Rick: The elevation creation of the production design credit happened all the way back in 1939 with “Gone with the Wind”. They gave William Cameron Menzies a special title called production designer for that production, because he had so much involvement in all the development of the whole movie getting made.
But at that point, most people that were in the art direction end of it – they were art directors. Then, as you said, production design started slowly getting credibility through the ’60s into the ’70s. That gets to the era that I’ve been involved in, starting in the ’70s and all the way until now, where the movies have become so complex that more often than not, I’ve had co/production design collaborators. The role is so big and so diverse, and it’s important to have a way of making it cohesive, which often is beyond the capacity of one person. And it’s never really one person anyway. It is so collaborative. There’s so many people involved.
It certainly has expanded during my time. It used to be about drawing up physical sets and maybe do some illustrations, but nowadays it is about world building. We’ve also seen many games taking advantage of world building. You might or might not have a narrative in a particular game, but the world is still in there.
I don’t know where it’s going from here. It’s extremely expansive because of how much even my own minimal experience with the AI has been. I look at the AI as a partner and not a tool. It’s an advancement of what started with the digital revolution, and now it’s going that much further. You mentioned Kubrick, and he is in many ways a godfather of the concept of the AI. It wasn’t specifically digital in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, HAL is the entity brain. And then I got to work on “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” which was Kubrick’s concept.
I am old enough to have been around at those times, and that was my learning curve to see it a little broader than most people see it now – in the evolution of it from the analog times in the beginning of production design, through going into the digital realm to design worlds. Calling it “worlds” is an interesting way for people on the outside to perceive it. It’s almost a magician’s act. You’re always involved in something that the audience can see. But you have to really look at it and admire it. And when you’re admiring production design, you’re not into the movie. It’s almost going antithetical to how most people like to watch movies.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/jurassicpark3.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1040" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Jurassic Park”.

Kirill: Another thing that I didn’t know up until recently is that only in 2012 the Academy rebranded the category of best art direction to best production design. Do you feel that it was too late? Or maybe it was the acknowledgement that production design superseded the physical builds?
Rick: I don’t think it’s too late. The two words – art and direction – are probably the two best credits you could possibly have. And it’s hard once you have it to give it up, even if it’s superseded by something that supposedly is more important. The head art director was the production designer, so in a way they had to eventually come to that way of recognizing it. If you’re giving the award to a production designer, why is it called the award for art direction? The branding and the clarity of the definition of the award was too difficult already for people to understand. It was more a function of trying to make it as clear as they could.
But in doing so, they did have to give up these two fantastic words. There’s no better role for anybody who’s in our side of things to want. Anybody who was anywhere near an artist would want an artistic credit or a direction credit of any sort. When you have the word “art” in it, that tells you what the role is. It’s not an artisan role. It’s not a craft. Those imply no thinking. That’s not what art is.
We have so many more thoughts than almost anybody, because we’re there in the beginning. I’m not saying that as an ego thing, and I’m not saying that we have more thoughts than a writer or a director. It’s because we’re exploring so much before anything’s there. By the time most people come into a movie, there’s a lot that’s been established. Usually there are no visuals that have been established, so there’s a tremendous amount of exploration that has to be done in order to find what you really want to do. It doesn’t fall off the tree and you go “yeah, that!”
You have to design it, you have to think about it. So I love the word art, and I think most people do. That’s why the <a href="https://adg.org/">Art Directors Guild</a> is still the Art Directors Guild. They can’t give it up. They like it too much [laughs].
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/backtothefutureii2.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1040" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Back to the Future Part II”.
Kirill: What is the <a href="https://www.productiondesignerscollective.org/">Production Designers Collective</a> for you?
Rick: It’s a long overdue and wonderful way for production designers to gather – literally – every two years on a Greek island. It goes beyond the superficial level of talk of what it is that we do and our role in the movies. It’s deeper places that we tap into that are not only artistic, but also philosophical. We also talk about the specific methodologies that are used to achieve the settings, physical or digital. The ability to get us all together in a relaxed atmosphere has been fantastic.
From there, it spawned the in-between weeks of events that coagulate and coordinate designers coming together to express what we do on movies, to interface with one another, and to illuminate for other people who are interested from the outside what our involvement is. It does not come at the expense of someone else. It’s not egotistically saying that we’re more. But it’s so easy to not see what we’re doing, and people enjoy trying to come up with words and images to express what it is that we get to do.
There’s a lot of enthusiasm around it. I’ve been doing this for many decades, and I get to interface with many younger people who are coming up. They’re not sure what it is or what their role will be in it. It’s changing so much and always has been. There are peaks and valleys. People can get a sense that this can be a lifelong pursuit. It’s not an adjunct thing that you did. It can be a real career as it is for me. It is an inspiring thing for me to mentor younger people, to have collaborative discussions with my peers, and to have a sense of legacy, to feel that there’s something going on beyond me that I’m handing off.
My opinion is that the mentoring part of it is as much for the mentor as it is for the mentee. You feel there’s something that you’re passing on. I had mentors when I was starting, and I’d love to be able to do that now. That’s what the collective helps with.
Kirill: Do you want to reach a wider audience inside the industry and outside of it with these initiatives?
Rick: There’s a lot of desire on the part of many production designers who are in the collective to be able to not just reach, but to communicate with others in the industry as to what the role is. The idea is that it is given as much respect and encouragement to participate as I’ve had in my career.
Where I am now, I’m beyond the point of being ambitious to have it turn into something more than it is and has been. I want to share that, but not because I see any specific gain. I don’t know whether any of it will ever be something that will help people from the outside to see it, although I have seen a bit of that.
For me, the more important part of it is how do the production designers regard themselves? I want to encourage them to regard themselves as artists. You have so many pragmatic things you have to do. You’re held so accountable to schedules and budgets. But I want to make sure that as a production designer, you contribute to the vision of it and foster the collaborative nature of helping the movie become something special. We’re the keepers of the dream, because we’re introduced to it so early. We believe it early, and the directors look to us to maintain that all the way through our involvement with it.
We’re never there just to give them the bad news of what they can’t do. That’s the job of the producer and the studio’s production manager. We’re on the side of encouraging their dream and trying to show how they can get it through pragmatic solutions. That’s a wonderful role to have in the collaborative process.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/backtothefutureiii1.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1040" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Back to the Future Part III”.
Kirill: You mentioned that you do not necessarily want me as a viewer to think about production design, because you want me to be in the story. Do you feel there’s a certain tension between promoting production design as an artistic discipline versus it taking the backseat to the story?
Rick: I don’t feel that at all. I feel like I found the key to how it works. You can look at the movies I’ve worked on. I can’t tell you how many people say to me “I grew up on your movies”. The answer is in working on good movies. Now, you don’t have control over how a movie is received. But I put my belief into truly contributing to the story and the vision and the emotion, into putting your own ego aside and putting it into the service of what the movie needs. That what worked out for me.
I know that there are many people who did wonderful work, and it doesn’t show up. Maybe the movie is not good. Maybe it’s not memorable for whatever reason. Maybe it doesn’t get the attention that the movies that I have been able to work on have. However, I think that you’re going to get the most notice from being in the service of the vision of the movie to help create the vision, to truly have a heartbeat, to truly have a mind, to actually resonate. People notice what I’m doing, because they see the movie, and they like the movie, and then they go a step deeper.
If people don’t like the movie you’ve designed all that much, it’s hard for them to say it. In fact, it’s almost the inverse. If you’re a production designer and your friend first tells you that they loved your work on it, it means that they likely didn’t like it the movie itself very much. It’s just the way it is. You’re happy that they liked your work, but most people go to movies for other reasons than how it looks.
The more that we’re associated with good storytelling and good heartbeats and philosophy, the more we will be always recognized for what we do. But that’s maybe my singular experience.
When artists are clamoring to be recognized, it becomes clamoring. It becomes that Rodney Dangerfield’s punchline “I don’t get no respect”. Anybody who works on movies can be in that situation where they can have a tinge of unfulfilled recognition – but if they voice that frustration too much, then that can go counter to having people want to give them their recognition. That’s my own personal view on it. But I very much admire all the work that’s being done by the collective to try to get the concept of the production designer out there.
I always want to have it be on the positive side of what we get to do, because it’s such an extraordinary job to get to do this. I can’t think of any other pursuit where we’re given the money and the resources to go explore things and come back with what we find. It’s pretty miraculous, even when there’s small budgets.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/warhorse1.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1362" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Warhorse”.
Kirill: Speaking of making movies and going to movies, what is the magic of watching a movie in the big theater for you?
Rick: The most obvious aspect of it is the communal experience. When you’re watching a movie that is involving groups of people, there is a collective consciousness that starts to be in relationship to what’s going on on the screen. If it’s something like “Jurassic Park”, it’s visceral. People get very involved with who the dinosaur is about to attack.
After the first “Jurassic Park” came out, I watched it a few times as a viewer, and then I would go and sit in the front row and look at the audience. I knew what was coming, and I loved watching people’s collective response and how many were exactly the same. You see something bringing people together. They’re all tracking what’s going on. And it doesn’t have to be only the action sequences. It could be “Forrest Gump” catching people’s attention on a deep emotional level and identification level.
Seeing movies in cinema is so powerful becomes it comes from the collectivity of the group that’s with you.
The other part of it that you ask not during a movie but afterwards is – where is the movie playing at any given moment? It’s starting on the screen, but then it goes into your head. There are times when it goes in your head, and for ten minutes you don’t even know you exist. You’re just in it. Then maybe you see the audience or you hear somebody laugh, and there’s that empathy experience between what’s in your head that’s so esoteric and what’s coming at you that’s exoteric. It bounces back and forth. There’s a gap.
I call it “minding the gap” between those two levels. The breathing between those two is the cinematic experience – in a theater, particularly. It can happen in your own home, but it’s so easy to have your peripheral vision interfere with that. Some light over here, somebody says something, whatever it is, where you don’t stay so directly connected.
The art of the cinema is truly, over time, specifically able to keep people involved in that way. Older movies are a bit slower for the new generation. This generation is much faster with the literacy of the visual images, and maybe they can admire aspects more. When you’re young, a teenager of in your twenties, cinema is speaking to you. It’s a blessed moment. And older movies are like fine wine that you can enjoy over and over, at a different pace.
I hope we don’t lose the big cinema experience, because that’s definitely where that type of thing happens the most.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ai1.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1293" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”.
Kirill: I can’t watch “Jurassic Park” in a movie theater, unless there’s a special event in one of the big cities. Do you find that newer audiences miss out on not being able to see “Avatar” or “Back to the Future” or “Star Wars” on the big screen?
Rick: I’m guessing they probably are. So much has change radically with Covid, pushing people to watch on their iPhones and home theaters. It’s amazing that the AI is coming up. It’s going to fundamentally change what we expect from entertainment. It’s a gray area, obviously, and it’s a big unknown.
We want great storytellers to tell us stories, and not have us to tell our own story, because we’re not that good. Most people pay money because they get something from what the moviemakers can do. But there is an aspect to when you see how much you can do yourself. It’s evolving right now, and it will change the dynamic of what you expect and at what level you expect it, both on the phone and all the way up hopefully to some big event. Stories bring people together in a communal way.
There’s something missing, but you can never go back. It becomes fruitless. You understand it more as you get older. It’s just a trap to go back too much. It’s great to have the screenings, but I don’t know if I’m going to count on the big initial releases the way it was done before. The business model that allows for movies to first get shown that way is changing. But people crave it, especially if they think it’s going to be something special.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ai2.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”.
Kirill: It feels like in the last few years in the world of feature films, we see the big multi-hundred million dollar productions and a whole bunch of indies. And the mid-size drama looks to have moved to the episodic, streaming format. How do you feel about the evolution of where these stories are told?
Rick: That’s a fair assessment of what’s happened. You take “Forrest Gump”, “Munich” or “War Horse” that were mid-sized, and they wouldn’t be movies in the same way they were back then. They would be streamed. I’ve personally benefited by having so many people see the work in a large format. That’s what people did at those points in their life – they went out, and they saw movies, and they came back to the school, and they talked about it at school.
Movies had an impact on the culture, and culture had an impact on the movies. It was almost a dialogue. Cinema is a part of whatever is happening in the culture. Today they call is the zeitgeist. You can have impact with the music. There can even be a political aspect to it. It’s such an ethereal thing, and somehow I was fortunate to be at a time when some of these things mattered.
The computer use on “Jurassic Park” was the opening of what the computer could do to the public. It was an exciting moment for viewers and filmmakers. It felt almost like a Pandora’s box. What else could happen here? I’m not referring only to the technical side. Storytelling can be exuberant or sombering. A few of the movies that I worked on caught those moments through their own processes or serendipity, and that allowed me to see into that side of it that most people don’t necessarily get to see.
It’s not only even about how a movie performs when it first comes out. How does it last for a while? No movie lasts forever, but the idea is – what are we contributing to, and what is its impact? On a more personal level, it is also the type of imagery that we’re involved with in the production design. There are some old movies that you wouldn’t necessarily want to watch in their entirety, but there’s an image of them that you have in your mind. It’s taking you to a certain place in the way it was designed. It goes all the way back to the silent movies, which are difficult to watch for the modern audiences. But you look at the image of what was created in some of those old silent movies, and those worlds are absolutely fantastic. They can’t sustain the same pace as a modern movie, but the creation of that place for that world is something that can last quite a long time.
It goes well beyond the performances of the actors, the editing, the pace, and even the cinematography. They become dated. I’m not trying to put it above, but at the heart of it is an image. Sometimes, you look at those images, and you think that we can’t do that anymore. There hasn’t been anything even close to the version of “War and Peace” that was created in 1965 in the Soviet Union. It doesn’t matter how much technology you have. In my opinion, you’d almost be going in the opposite direction to try to make the scale work using only technology, even for a current audience. The original film had its own vision in the service of a powerfully epic and profound story, and it was marshaled into a six hour movie. It is never going to be topped. I hope it gets preserved, because then it’s like a painting that can last forever.
There are movies that sear in with their vision, not because of production design, but because of what they’re about and the combination of all of its parts coming together. I get excited that we get to participate in that aspect of it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/forrestgump1.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="800" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Forrest Gump”.
Kirill: Speaking about images that are seared in your mind, what films would you consider to be the golden standard of production design of all time?
Rick: The sequence in “The Wizard of Oz” where we’re opening the door from Dorothy’s black-and-white bedroom to the full Technicolor world of Oz that represents the shift between one reality and another reality. The way that singular transition was created can never be topped, in my mind.
Another one is Tara, the plantation house in “Gone with the Wind”. The tree, the mansion, and the whole concept – it is all taken away by the Civil War. It’s created in this glorification of color and exuberance, and yet the harshness of what happens almost becomes unbearable a little bit because there was so much put into what then gets destroyed.
Going to my own era when I was growing up, it would be “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” – not a singular moment, but its whole world. I entirely believed it. It was so artistically expressive in how it was presented. And around the same time, “Chinatown” also came out. It had a different feel, and I felt enveloped in that world. There was something indelible for me in those experiences. And I’ll add “Apocalypse Now”, which was a way of telling what I had just been through for myself in the Vietnam War era, with a surreal point of view that had theatricality to it. Its words seared into my FEELINGS, and it was set in a classically large, deeply resonant settings.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/avatar6.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Avatar”.
Kirill: If you could go back in time to give a piece of advice to your younger self when you were starting out, what would it be?
Rick: When I was 20, I was traveling around the world and I didn’t know where I was going. Much of what seeped in then, became the basis for what I’ve worked out later. So I would tell my younger self that these experiences that you’re having now (back then) are going to play out in ways you can’t imagine. Don’t only judge them by what you think their importance is to you right now, because some of the ones that aren’t even pleasant, will come back to matter to you in unexpected ways that I’ve had that happen to me. Don’t get too hung up in the moment. Your point of view on it right now is not a problem you have to fix.
Kirill: What keeps you going in this field?
Rick: I’m still interested. Early on, I was fortunate enough to go out into the world, and to see the role that art has in it. The artistic life is worth a lot to lots of people. It’s not about the money or the status. It’s about the need to express. If you’re given an opportunity to be in that arena or that role of an artist within any context, it’s a very special role to have.
Of course, I was specifically inspired by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis for 20 years. They never made it difficult for me to be a part of their world to help create. That’s what kept me always coming back to it, both from the interior, but also the exterior version of it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/avatar1.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" /> 
Rick Carter’s work on “Avatar”.
And here I’d like to thank <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0141437/">Rick Carter</a> for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Javier Irazuzta for making this interview happen. To stay up-to-date on the latest news from the International Production Design Week, <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/program/">click here</a>. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/inmotion/">click here</a> for additional in-depth interviews in this series.
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<title>Production design of “The Man in My Basement” – interview with Kathrin Eder</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/26/production-design-of-the-man-in-my-basement-interview-with-kathrin-eder.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 20:26:52 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[inmotion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Interviews]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19895</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Kathrin Eder. In this interview, she talks about collaboration and fostering creativity, the importance of tactile work, challenging the viewers through her stories, the impact of Covid on the industry, and […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome <a href="https://www.kathrineder.com/">Kathrin Eder</a>. In this interview, she talks about collaboration and fostering creativity, the importance of tactile work, challenging the viewers through her stories, the impact of Covid on the industry, and her thoughts on generative AI. Between all these and more, Kathrin dives deep into her work on the just-released “The Man in My Basement”.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 18px; float: right;" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/kathrin-eder.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/kathrin-eder@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="360" height="479" />Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Kathrin: My name is Kathrin Eder, and I am a production designer. I’m originally from Austria, where I grew up in the time before cell phones and the Internet. My village didn’t have a permanent movie theater; instead, the convention center would occasionally be converted into one. That was where I first discovered Disney films, with their brutal storylines of loss and their magical approach to visual storytelling.
Later in my teen years, I felt a calling toward the visual arts. With my limited access to the university system in Austria, I applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna but was turned down. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. It led me to study social and cultural anthropology, which allowed me to explore philosophy, sociology, ecology, and the grand sciences that make up the human experience.
I always had a need to travel, and on one of my trips I met someone who invited me to Los Angeles. When I arrived, I realized I could pursue my curiosity for art in a different way than in Austria. I didn’t need pre-given talents – I could be curious and naive, and that freedom spoke to me. I originally wanted to become a screenwriter, without really knowing what that meant. But through a fine arts internship with local artists, I discovered production design and soon became an intern to a production designer on a music video.
The first time I stepped on set, I felt like production design had chosen me. It was one of those rare moments when everything made sense. From then on, with the support of friends who believed in my growth, I took filmmaking seriously. I wanted to understand storytelling, mythology, and world-building. That curiosity led me to teach myself design – by working on short films, collaborating with students, and starting out in the indie world. It’s been a journey now for about sixteen years.
Kirill: Is there anything that you’ve seen on your projects that was particularly surprising?
Kathrin: There’s a surprise in every story. I believe that as much as we choose projects, projects also choose us. Every story that enters your life is, in some way, connected to your own experience. Each project becomes a vessel – a moment in time where, through collaboration, you can reflect on your emotions, your pain, and sometimes your most personal experiences. I’m always struck by the unexpected moments when something – or someone – truly resonates. The first surprise is always the emotional connection you make.
As to execution, I believe creativity is malleable – there’s never just one right idea. Communication fuels creativity, and the most beautiful surprises for me always come when communication flows easily with collaborators. You enter a mental space that feels familiar from childhood. When you’re fully immersed in the creative process, there’s no fear and no boundaries. You’re in that place where judgment disappears, and reaching that point with colleagues is always a truly beautiful surprise.
Another surprise is that no matter how much you plan, there will always be coincidence. Coincidence can be a beautiful addition to what to what your plans are. Coincidentally, a color doesn’t turn out the way it should be. Coincidentally, a wallpaper that was shipped to you has water stains on one side and creates a new pattern. It’s tiny instances like that.
When you collaborate with others, you can never assume they’re seeing things the same way you do. You can’t assume they share your perspective or your assumptions. What comes out of that collaboration can be surprising – and often, endearing.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/lookbook1.jpg" alt="" width="1924" height="1078" /> 
Lookbook development for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Do you feel that anybody can be an artist?
Kathrin: Yes, I think so. I don’t consider myself an artist. I consider myself a craftsperson – someone with many passions.
The reason I left Austria was because the image of “the artist” there felt so tied to old aristocratic principles, rooted in our history. It created something elitist, something I felt ordinary people couldn’t access – and I never liked that. To me, art prospers in conflict. Art prospers where there is struggle. It is a form of expression, a form of storytelling, and it runs in our DNA to be storytellers.
To become someone whose creations are appreciated by others, you need dedication and curiosity. You need to reflect on your own growth, to train your skills, to consistently be in dialogue with yourself. At its core, art is an expression of the human soul – and everybody carries it within them.
Kirill: Is there such a thing as objectively good and bad art? I have my own reactions to different stories, and so does everybody else, and different people like different things. But there are also some artists and works of art that are universally considered to be masterpieces. How do you see it?
Kathrin: I’ve thought about this so many times. Recently I was in Venice at a Da Vinci exhibit. You look at his work and you can’t help but bow your head – you’re humbled by the idea that some human minds simply think differently, with a clarity of vision that feels beyond reach.
In our world today, I feel that same sense when I look at certain directors and screenwriters – how they interpret the world and present it back to us. Their work moves us, teaches us, and immerses us in experiences we’ve never known before. One of my favorite authors is Ken Liu. When I read his short stories, I feel deeply connected to what it means to be human. No other writer has ever triggered that kind of emotional response in me. So yes, I do believe there are people of extraordinary talent.
But then there’s another conversation – about good and bad. As humans, our rationale is built on opposites and polarities. We like to categorize things, to orient ourselves. If there’s “good” art, then by judgment there must also be “bad” art – because we’re naturally biased. I do it myself. I don’t like certain pieces. That’s only human. I don’t have a clear answer. Sometimes you just ponder it, drift in it, and see where your thoughts take you. What I know is that I love appreciating the work of others when it truly touches me. That emotional connection – it makes me feel alive.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/lookbook2.jpg" alt="" width="1930" height="1080" /> 
Lookbook development for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.

Kirill: Do you find that some people inside and outside of the industry have certain misconceptions of what your job is and what production design is?
Kathrin: I always see it with my family and friends in Austria. It goes back to when we were kids going to the movies, and the way Hollywood portrayed itself as a world of stardom and starlets. People imagine we live these glamorous lives. Rarely do they consider the long hours we work, or the intensity of leaving your family behind when you go on the road. To me, it feels more like a circus life – we’re vagabonds traveling from place to place.
On the inside, the experience shifts depending on how curated the project is. With a more experienced crew, everyone has a clear understanding of what production design is. I’ve worked on independent films with first-time directors, and while those experiences can be beautiful, they often carry a certain ambiguity about the art department and production design. We don’t just choose colors or create spaces. As a production designer, the dialogue I engage in runs much deeper. People are sometimes surprised by the questions I ask or the processes I propose, all of which are part of shaping a contribution that truly serves the story.
Unlike a lighting or camera package, you can’t plan the art department in a fixed way. Do we have access to a location? Can we build the set on a stage? What is the availability of actors? What does the shooting schedule allow? What is the budget? These factors make it difficult to predict what the art department will look like. We adapt to each project individually, pulling in a specific set of tools and approaches that fit the moment.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/construction-drawing1.jpg" alt="" width="2654" height="1874" /> 
Construction drawings for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Looking at this period of 18-20 years that you’ve been working in this industry, what are the big changes in how and where these stories are told?
Kathrin: I had the pleasure and the honor to come up under art department leaders who grew up in the old system. They grew up doing big movies, with the process of presenting ideas in a physical manner. When I was a production assistant, I watched and I learned, and I planned to repeat what they were doing when I’d get my chance to design.
I started out right at the cusp of moving to digital. When I started doing production design on indie films, it was already predominantly digital. When you’re under time pressure, anything that can expedite communication is a benefit. You can plan things differently.
The shift to virtual video meetings in the last few years isolated us in a certain way. I’m always happy when I can go back to tactile communication and a tactile planning experience. I always print things out. I enjoy to pass things along to my collaborators by having a meeting in person.
In general, I feel like I’m still working pretty old school and can’t speak much to the extreme technological advances or the uncharted territory. There is a group of designers who consistently push the boundaries forward, and they would have way more to say about it than I do.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/construction-drawing2.jpg" alt="" width="2668" height="1874" /> 
Construction drawings for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Getting closer to “The Man in My Basement”, how did it start for you?
Kathrin: When I had a meeting with our director, Nadia Latif, I found her fascinating. But afterward, I wasn’t sure she would pick me. I was intimidated by the script – and by the fact that it was based on a book so heavy on dialogue.
The book deals with the race discussion in the United States, and it flips roles. With my background in social and cultural anthropology, the subject matter fascinated me. It also fascinated me that Nadia chose this particular story as her directorial feature debut. Being intimidated can sometimes be a great motivation for growth. You want to jump in and see how it goes.
I wanted to be careful in how I navigated the storytelling. I’m a white, Austrian, middle-class immigrant working with a subject matter that is woven into the fabric of American history and remains a source of ongoing struggle and dialogue. This is where filmmaking and storytelling become truly interesting. You have to become aware of your own assumptions. You have to recognize the biases held in society. And then, as a group of storytellers, you work toward building mutual trust and turning those biases into curiosity. Curiosity lets you put every question on the table and approach it from the angle of storytelling, not personal opinion. It was a complex process. And we put the utmost care into addressing all facets sensitively.
And on top of all that, we took the project to Cardiff, Wales – far away from the United States. That meant questioning every assumption about the tactile, human details of daily life. You might assume certain things about American life in the ’90s – but then you start really looking at how it actually was
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19907" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/prep1.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/prep1@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="720" height="540" /> 
Building the main house for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: The story is taking place in the ’90s, but this house has been in his family for generations. How do you envision the history of the house, how it looks like on the outside and on the inside with something like 200 years worth of people living in it?
Kathrin: That was something Nadia and I really enjoyed exploring. We had three months of soft prep, meeting every week to break the script by emotional beats. As we worked through each line, I could ask questions and suggest how the house might come about.
Nadia wanted it rooted in the Craftsman style, which isn’t as old as the house itself. So we took some liberties – blending elements more typical of the West Coast into Sag Harbor, shaping it to the community but also making it stand out as a jewel. We imagined his ancestors as part of the fabric of that place – leaders, speakers, hosts who opened their home and became its heart.
That gave us license to scale the house larger than the local norm, and to build stories into every object. We tied it to Moby-Dick mythology, and to Sag Harbor’s legacy as a community of free black families. In my research, I noticed how Victorian portraits of white families are everywhere in European museums, but similar images of black families are so hard to find. That absence raised powerful questions about how to present his family history – and it guided the background we built for them.
Kirill: Most of the story happens in his family house. Did you start looking at existing houses in Wales, or was it clear that you’d need to build it yourself?
Kathrin: The production wasn’t always meant to be in Wales. We first planned for Savannah, but it moved for budgetary reasons. Once that happened, it became clear we’d need to build the house. We still scouted locations and found a few that worked for our world building – Narciss’s shop, the bank, the little bar where he gets lost one night. The gas station was tricky, and hopefully we pulled that off, because gas stations look so different in Europe. We also scouted older houses, but the geography just didn’t work. It was a quick turnaround – we ended up with only seven or eight weeks of prep to build it all.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/prep3.jpg" alt="" width="3024" height="1134" /> 
Building the main house for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: How did you decide to build the house in the woods and its interior on stage?
Kathrin: We filmed in Wales in January and February, which is a rainy and cold season. We needed to tie the exterior of the house to the Sag Harbor community. Many of those houses sit in the forest – back then there were no real roads and very few streetlights. Nadia wanted the exterior shots of our house to match that atmosphere, so we found a private piece of land in a swamp. It was flooded most of the time, but it already had an existing structure from a previous film.
We staked it out, laid a road, and brought in street lanterns. But on the very day construction was supposed to start, it rained so much that the whole property was two feet underwater. We ended up pouring 30 tons of gravel over a membrane just to have a foundation to build on. We created this little neighborhood, but then the cold set in. It’s always better to be on stage – you have more control. You don’t need to film nights at night because you can just turn the lights down.
In the end, we realized it would be warmer and more manageable to build on stage. We could use cinematic backings around the house and complete the builds without being at the mercy of the weather.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/house-before-after.jpg" alt="" width="2380" height="755" /> 
The location of the main house build for “The Man in My Basement”, before and after the build completion, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Were there any particular colors that you wanted to stay away from?
Kathrin: The Craftsman color palette is grounded in muted, nature-inspired tones – pastels and natural shades. We presented a lot of options, and Nadia became very involved in choosing the colors for the house. I think those pastels resonated with her because of her own interpretation of the story, but also her background in theater and her sensitivity to color. She didn’t want wallpapers or patterns that felt too forceful. The house was already filled with so many objects and so much history, so we kept the wall surfaces fairly simple.
Red doesn’t appear much in the palette. For example, in the Tiffany glass windows by the front door, we actually swapped out red for orange. I couldn’t even tell you it was a conscious decision – it just came from an understanding of what the house needed to be, and how we were grounding it in a Craftsman history with a deep connection to nature.
Kirill: Do you feel that this story might be taking place pretty much at any point in time after World War II? It didn’t feel particularly connected to the ’80s or the ’90s.
Kathrin: I agree with you. There’s no modern technology in the story, and the storytelling isn’t tied to communication through technology. That gives it a sense of timelessness, even a dreaminess. When I read the book and then the screenplay, I asked Nadia: did this actually happen? Is this happening, or is it an illusion? What is truly tactile in this story?
There’s a feeling that the dialogue and the events could take place at any point – across the last few decades, or even centuries.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/prep2.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1350" /> 
Building the basement cage for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Some storytelling is direct and presents an unambiguous sequence of events. And some storytelling is less conclusive, leaning on metaphors and asking the viewer to build their own interpretation of what is presented. Do you want your stories to be less straightforward? Do you want to ask the viewer to spend some time after it’s over to complete some of the gaps?
Kathrin: It’s a lovely question. I wonder if we’re being geared toward assuming everything will be fed to us. Our attention spans are getting shorter, and people are getting used to easily digestible bits of information. I have to make a conscious decision to read a complex book. Do I have the mental space and the time to immerse myself in an art-house film, rather than something mass-produced and formulaic?
As a production designer, I really enjoy working on stories that are not strictly linear. It lets me take what’s on the page and in the dialogue and add other layers through the spatial experience. We can create backstory that doesn’t have to be spoken, but still floats in the room. That backstory gives intention to everything and allows me to put myself in the character’s shoes with a certain logic.
As our world speeds up, we shouldn’t forget that storytelling is always about compassion and empathy. We’re literally putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. To do that, you have to pause and reflect. You have to allow yourself an emotional response. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable – with not liking something, with having an unexpected reaction, with connecting to your own emotional life. That can be a challenge. More and more, we numb ourselves with things that don’t ask us to do that.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/renders2.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" /> 
Main house renders for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: What was the most challenging sequence or part of the house for you to work on?
Kathrin: The basement was difficult. We start with it stuffed full of family history, and then it becomes completely empty. Basements aren’t big spaces. They don’t have high ceilings. They’re not architecturally refined – you have stone walls, a bit of foundation, and some wood beams holding up the weight above. It’s a challenge to create a box, then spend three weeks of cinematography in that box, and still keep it visually interesting.
A lot of action takes place there, and we needed to make it bigger than I originally wanted, for the cinematic requirements of our director of photography, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2019/05/05/the-art-and-craft-of-cinematography-interview-with-ula-pontikos-bsc.html">Ula Pontikos</a>. She photographed it beautifully, and on screen, the size feels natural and doesn’t distract from the story.
Imitating nature is always the hardest thing. Painting stone is much harder than painting a surface created by humans. Down there, we had weathered old stone walls that demanded a lot of detail. It’s all texture, and within the short prep time it was a real challenge to get it right. But it was the kind of challenge that’s always good to have.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/renders1.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1575" /> 
Main house renders for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Does it feel that the industry now is back to how it used to be in the pre-Covid days? There were some discussions on how the Covid protocols might lead to more manageable schedules on set, but it seems like that hasn’t quite materialized.
Kathrin: It comes with so much hope. We were all hoping for shorter workdays and more prep time. But I don’t think that’s changed. If anything, on many productions I’ve been part of – and from what I hear from colleagues – there’s less time, less planning, and less money. Things feel more rushed. Productions are moving to different countries – ours included. We planned to shoot in Savannah, and ended up in Wales.
I came up in the Los Angeles film industry, and back then there was a wonderful sense of community. Around the winter holidays you’d go from prop house to prop house – you could pick up your Christmas tree at Green Set, or stop by Omega and they’d hand you a bottle of wine. There was a real spirit of belonging. Fast forward to 2025, and that’s fractured. Prop houses that had been open for 80 years have declared bankruptcy in just the last few years. There are all these small deaths in the industry, many accelerated by the pandemic and the shutdown.
Right now there’s a lot of pain, sadness, and mourning in the U.S. film industry. A lot of people are out of work. We’re watching major productions move overseas, and it’s affecting all of us. The pandemic hit right in the middle of that shift, and things haven’t gotten friendlier since. There hasn’t been much positive change, nor much progress in how environmentally conscious we are as an industry. I haven’t worked in L.A. since 2017, and I’d love to feel again that sense of community – that this industry still has a home there for so many people.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/prep4.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1296" /> 
The interior build of the main house for “The Man in My Basement”, courtesy of Kathrin Eder.
Kirill: Speaking about changes, generative AI is another big change that is happening across so many industries. Do you see it as a threat, or another tool at your disposal, or something else?
Kathrin: I find it fascinating, because back in the ’80s and ’90s we talked about this as some distant idea that would happen in the future. My feeling was that when it arrived, it would be this awe-inspiring, amazing thing. And yet here we are – it came so silently, seemingly overnight.
As humans, we adapt to new technology as it enters our lives. Oh, now we have cell phones – I can call my mom in Austria without buying phone cards at the local liquor store. Oh, now we have electric cars – so I charge instead of filling up at the gas station. But with AI, I think I’m still in denial. I haven’t fully let myself participate in the discourse around how I think about it.
We have incredible illustrators, concept artists, and set designers. I’m waiting to see how AI will be implemented on our end. I know we’ll have to adjust and adapt; denying it won’t make it go away. But right now, I wouldn’t use AI to generate concepts for a project I’m working on. I’d much rather challenge my own creativity, collaborate with an illustrator or concept artist, and create something together. Of course, I’ve been curious. I’ve played around with it. Sometimes AI helps me edit a difficult email and takes the emotion out of it.
I’m curious about how it’s going to change the human experience. We’re at the very beginning of it. The stories we tell reflect our emotions, experiences, and thoughts. It’s good to have a human connection to that. If we give it all to a machine, then what do we have left? What I don’t want is for us to end up like the humans in Wall-E – chubby blobs floating on a spaceship.
Kirill: What productions would you consider to be the gold standard of production design?
Kathrin: There are so many brilliant designers out there. And my answer is likely just very spontaneous. Sarah Greenwood does amazing work. Anything that Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin do is extraordinary. There are also incredible younger female production designers, like Ruth De Jong and Florencia Martin – it’s inspiring to see how they apply themselves. Nathan Crowley invented this entire world for “Wicked”. It’s amazing to see production designers creating worlds not grounded in reality – reimagining fairy tales, pushing into the future, building these beautiful visions. “The Aviator” was another standout.
I also loved “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” by Peter Greenaway. He was making experimental art house films in the ’90s and ’00s with such a vivid use of color. Or Alejandro Jodorowsky, with his wonderfully strange design language. There are so many, each with a different flavor. But it always comes back to the story – we cater everything to that. That’s what I love about production design: there are so many facets to it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/still1.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" />
Kirill: If you had a time machine, and you could go back to when you were starting out to give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?
Kathrin: I would probably compliment myself for my naïveté, but at the same time I’d say: don’t get blinded by the fantasy of working in the industry. You learned analytical thinking at university – use it. You moved halfway around the world to L.A.; you’re in dreamland. Your naïveté is charming, but balance it with a bit more structure in your approach.
My twenties were all about full-on living, making spontaneous decisions. So I’d tell myself: keep that spirit, but be a little more structured along the way.
Kirill: You mentioned the long stretches of time that you spend away from your family and friends, and the long hours on set. What keeps you going? Why do you choose to stay in this particular field?
Kathrin: In the last six or seven years, I’ve had a partner by my side who’s also my art director. We work together, and that’s become a crucial part of my work–life balance. I can only be a successful designer if I’m also living a life I enjoy. I don’t work from a place of isolation or loneliness. Some people thrive like that – but I can’t. What’s beautiful is that we’re creating together. It’s immersive, it’s shared, and we’re going on these adventures side by side. That’s probably why I stay in this industry.
I get the opportunity to live in Vancouver for six months, to bond with people, to experience nature, to try new flavors. It’s long enough to build a real body of experiences. And then I might go to Serbia, or to Buffalo, New York, where I am right now. The chance to live in different places around the world keeps feeding my curiosity. If I could visit every country, and every place within every country, I would. That’s how much I love to travel. I love meeting new people, animals, and environments. I’m endlessly curious.
I pair that curiosity with a commitment to integrity. I remind myself that if I act from a place of integrity, I’ll go far in life. That’s what keeps me moving forward. And I really value being appreciated on a production, when people enjoy my contribution. That means a lot. It’s not about how successful or prestigious the project is – it’s about the bonding, the human connection. That’s what matters most to me.
Kirill: Out of all the travels that you’ve done so far, what was your absolute favorite dish to eat?
Kathrin: I love food. One of my favorite meals was at a restaurant called Josephine’s in Belgrade. I had ricotta gnocchi with wild mushrooms, and to this day it might be one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in my life.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/still2.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" />
And here I want to thank <a href="https://www.kathrineder.com/">Kathrin Eder</a> for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design, and for sharing the supporting materials. I also want to thank Jordan von Netzer for making this interview happen. “The Man in My Basement” is <a href="https://www.hulu.com/movie/the-man-in-my-basement-2f0ee9e4-73b6-41ed-8f42-dabfd96361c2">streaming on Hulu</a> starting today. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/inmotion/">click here</a> for additional in-depth interviews in this series.
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<title>DragonCon 2025 parade highlights</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/10/dragoncon-2025-parade-highlights.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:19:53 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19882</guid>
<description><![CDATA[As usual, DragonCon comes to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade this year.  ]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[As usual, <a href="http://www.dragoncon.org/">DragonCon</a> comes to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade this year.
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<title>DragonCon 2024 parade highlights</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/10/dragoncon-2024-parade-highlights.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:13:26 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19870</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A little bit late to post these, but better late than never. As always, DragonCon came to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend back in 2024. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade that year.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A little bit late to post these, but better late than never. As always, <a href="https://www.dragoncon.org/">DragonCon</a> came to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend back in 2024. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade that year.
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<title>DragonCon 2023 parade highlights</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/10/dragoncon-2023-parade-highlights.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:10:01 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19848</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A little bit late to post these, but better late than never. As always, DragonCon came to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend back in 2023. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade that year.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A little bit late to post these, but better late than never. As always, <a href="https://www.dragoncon.org/">DragonCon</a> came to Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend back in 2023. These are my personal highlights from the opening parade that year.
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<title>Chroma color system – part V, the outside world</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/08/chroma-color-system-part-v-the-outside-world.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 22:31:11 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Design]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Radiance]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[UI]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19839</guid>
<description><![CDATA[To wrap up the series on the Chroma color system introduced in the latest Radiance release, I wanted to look beyond the world of user interfaces, and to the world of physical products around us. For quite some time now, Radiance supported the concept of decoration area types – recognizing that application menu bars, toolbars and […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[To wrap up the series on the Chroma color system introduced in the latest Radiance release, I wanted to look beyond the world of user interfaces, and to the world of physical products around us.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ui-colortokens.png" alt="" width="2400" height="1849" />
For quite some time now, Radiance supported the concept of <a href="https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/radiance/blob/sunshine/docs/theming/painters/decoration.md">decoration area types</a> – recognizing that application menu bars, toolbars and status bars are common examples of special containers found in most user interfaces. <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/06/24/chroma-color-system-part-iv-surface-containment.html">These containers</a> create functional grouping of application controls and bring order to complex screens. From the title pane at the very top, to the menu bar and the toolbar under it, to the control pane on the left, all the way down to the footer at the bottom – the visual grouping and separation of application content into distinct decoration areas follows the logical grouping of application content.
And with Chroma, a button component does not need to “know” about the decoration area it is displayed in – it asks the current Radiance skin to give it color tokens that correspond to wherever it happens to be in the application hierarchy, and then draws itself with surface, outline and content tokens.
Tokens are design decisions that combine together to make up the whole design system. A design system can be in the digital world of user interfaces, or in the physical world of retail and wholesale goods. This is the <a href="https://www.thenorthface.com/en-us/p/bags-and-gear/backpacks-224451/womens-borealis-backpack-NF0A52SI?color=NEW&size=OS">Borealis backpack</a> from The North Face:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/realworld-colortokens1.jpg" alt="" width="1376" height="800" />
Here, we have:
<ul>
<li>A consistent color palette of terracotta heather.</li>
<li>Applied in two tones – a lighter one for the bulk of the body, and a slightly darker one for the bottom, the sides, and the back cross.</li>
<li>Company and product names as “content” on top of these “surfaces” in a consistent, much lighter tone from the same palette.</li>
<li>And finally, consistent application of a darker grey accent on the buckles and additional elements</li>
</ul>
The overall design “system” is applied throughout the whole line of Borealis backpacks, that you can see by clicking the color selectors on <a href="https://www.thenorthface.com/en-us/p/bags-and-gear/backpacks-224451/womens-borealis-backpack-NF0A52SI?color=53R&size=OS">that page</a>.
The same approach, extended to multiple “decoration areas”, can be seen in the line of <a href="https://astraldesigns.com/products/brewer-3-0">Brewer 3.0 shoes</a> from Astral – delineating design elements across the product, changing the color palette and color token mappings to create a coherent thematic connection across all variants:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/realworld-colortokens2.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1373" />
This is the <a href="https://www.fjallraven.com/us/en-us/women/tops/sweaters-knitwear/ovik-knit-roller-neck-w/">Ovik knit roller neck collection</a> from Fjallraven, again with a single strong underlying design, but multiple color variations:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/realworld-colortokens3.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="903" />
This is the <a href="https://7terra.com/products/stokk-half-zip-hoodie">Stokk hybrid hoodies line</a> from 7Terra:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/realworld-colortokens4.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1000" />
And this is <a href="https://www.zorali.com/products/escapade-backpack-kakadu-khaki">Escapade backpack collection</a> from Zorali:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/realworld-colortokens5.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="800" />
The overall approach is similar:
<ul>
<li>Create a “blueprint” for the product line, identifying key functional areas of the product that will be consistent across the entire line</li>
<li>For each functional area, group the pieces into tiers – canvas (surface), logo (content), connectors (outline / line)</li>
<li>For each tier, define which color tokens will be used on the physical material – plastic, metal, cloth, etc</li>
<li>Define multiple color skins / combinations to be used across the product line, deriving palettes for each functional area, leading to the color tokens being mapped to the actual RGB colors</li>
</ul>
With a few tweaks, this approach works for wearable consumer products highlighted here – shoes, sweaters, and backpacks – and can extend into tupperware, cars, architecture and many more. Keep your eyes open for the design of the physical world around you as you go about your day, and see how it can be applied to the world of digital user interfaces.
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<title>Production design of “Superman” – interview with Beth Mickle</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/09/08/production-design-of-superman-interview-with-beth-mickle.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:27:58 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[inmotion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Interviews]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19788</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome back Beth Mickle. In this interview, she talks about the changes in the industry since we spoke back in 2012, how she sees generative AI, what advice she’d give to her […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome back <a href="https://www.bethmickle.com/">Beth Mickle</a>. In this interview, she talks about the changes in the industry since we spoke back in 2012, how she sees generative AI, what advice she’d give to her younger self, and the importance of physical and mental well-being. Between all these and more, Beth dives deep into her work on “Superman”.
This interview is the second part of a special initiative – a collaboration with the <a href="https://www.productiondesignerscollective.org/">Production Designers Collective</a> that was founded about 10 years ago. This collective brings together over 1,500 members from all around the world, sharing ideas, experiences and advice across the industry. We talk about its goals and initiatives, and the upcoming second <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/">International Production Design Week</a> scheduled in mid-October this year.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-17808" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/beth-mickle_premiere.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/beth-mickle_premiere@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="360" height="540" /> 
Beth at the LA Premiere Of “Superman”
Kirill: Welcome back, Beth. We <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2012/06/19/the-production-design-of-drive-conversation-with-beth-mickle.html">first spoke back in 2012</a> about your work on “Drive”. What has been happening in your professional life since then?
Beth: “Drive” was an amazing opportunity to work with Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling. A couple years after that I worked on Ryan’s directorial debut “Lost River”, as well as a few other smaller studio movies. Then, quite excitingly, I got swept into the James Gunn filmmaking arena in 2017, and I’ve worked almost exclusively with him for the last eight years. At the height of pre-vaccine Covid I did “Dear Evan Hansen” with Stephen Chbosky, and I’m working with my brother right now on a live action film for the Japanese franchise Gundam. It’s been a wonderful adventure for all of us.
Kirill: Outside of your work on “Deuce”, would you say that you are one of the rarer artists that stays in the feature world, and not crossing over too much, if you will, into episodic productions?
Beth: Not by choice, necessarily. It happened to be the projects that have come my way. There have definitely been many wonderful series that I really admire and would love to have been a part of if the stars had aligned. I’m hopeful that in the future I’ll be able to dive into world building in the TV side of things.
My brother is a writer / director, and he did the series “Sweet Tooth” with Netflix, which my husband designed. I always admired their work on that, and always thought that it would have been fun if I could have been free to be a part of that. I was on “Guardians of the Galaxy” at the time, so it didn’t happen.
Kirill: What bigger changes have you seen over the last decade or so since we spoke? Maybe some technical advances, or new materials or techniques that are directly applicable in your field?
Beth: There have definitely been advances when it comes to the visual effects [VFX]. Every year it feels that the VFX worlds get progressively more sophisticated with the finishes and the realism that they can achieve. Compared to 10 years ago, we are able to lean on them more and more as needed for resurfacing and for set extensions.
For physical builds, we did a lot of material testing on “Superman” to nail down how we were going to do the Fortress of Solitude. It’s a rare thing to have that much time and resources to be able to explore and experiment with so many materials. We definitely wouldn’t have had that luxury in the smaller filmmaking arena. It’s one of the joys of getting to work on some of these larger movies – you have time to develop techniques and fabrication to achieve what you want.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-beth-on-set.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="2100" /> 
Beth on the Fortress of Solitude set of “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: When “Avatar” came out in 2019, there was a period of a few years where a lot of productions did 3D – and then it slowly faded away. Do you feel that the audiences prefer “flat” images?
Beth: I remember being really excited about the 3D world. I felt that it was going to have great reception and great longevity. I don’t understand why it’s not been used more frequently. My husband did a number of 3D films, and in our discussions we thought that this new technology was going to sweep the industry – but surprisingly for me, it hasn’t. I keep reading about some of the 4D experiences where they’re bringing in motion in the seats and all kinds of effects within the theaters. It’d be interesting to see what that might end up doing.
And that brings me back to your previous question about technology – I should mention the volume [virtual production stage]. It’s a great new tool that is being introduced. It still has a little ways to go with being fully accessible for all the movies that might want to use it. But I think when used correctly, it’s a fantastic resource. As people get a handle on that technology, it will start to become more and more ubiquitous on films.
Kirill: Continuing to the Production Designers Collective, what is it and what is it for you?
Beth: I am thrilled that the Production Designers Collective has come into existence. <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2018/09/28/production-design-of-three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-interview-with-inbal-weinberg.html">Inbal Weinberg</a> is one of my dearest friends in the film world. She and I worked together when we were first starting out in the indies in New York twenty years ago. I remember she said to me how she strongly believed a community could be created of all the production designers out there, so that we could share resources and advice, and build a supportive community for each other. And I’m sitting there and thinking what a beautiful idea that would be, but what a Herculean effort it would be to actually bring that together.
So now here we are, ten years after she actually started this collective with Kalina Ivanov, and they’ve connected hundreds and hundreds of production designers around the world. You have all of these people that I have always admired from afar, and whose work I had always respected from afar, and whom I always wished I could be in connection with – and now we can talk about crew, about ideas, about approaches to work. You can ask what it’s like to work in the middle of Ireland or the middle of New Zealand.
I never had easy direct access to these wonderful designers, and with the Production Designers Collective, it’s so easy to get in touch with one another. It’s taken down these imaginary walls that may have been there before. There’s only one of us production designers on a movie, and that means that we’re quite isolated from other production designers in the industry – unless you really make an effort for outreach. You’re not always sure if designers across the world are all going to want to be in communication in that same way.
That is what this Collective has done – open all those doors, open all those lines of communication. Now we can be stronger as a community because we’re all connected.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-exterior-render.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1517" /> 
Render of the exterior of the Fortress of Solitude for “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Kirill: With the <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/">International Production Design Week</a> initiative, who do you want to reach with it?
Beth: Audiences in general is definitely a goal, but also more specifically people in our industry. We believe that outside of a film set, a lot of people aren’t fully aware of the contributions that production designers and their art departments bring to these films. They’re not fully aware of the extent of the world building and the efforts that we offer that go into creating what these films are. With the International Production Design Week the goal is to get more awareness out there of what our jobs entail and what we bring to these films – so that our work can be regarded and fully understood.
A lot of times people will reference the look of the film and would give credit to a cinematographer – not understanding the partnership that goes in with the production designer to get those visuals to come to life. So we’re hoping to put more awareness out there as to what it is that we do.
Kirill: Would you call it misconceptions about what production design involves?
Beth: I think it’s more a lack of awareness. I’m asked constantly, even by people in the industry, what do you actually do as a production designer. People often see it as only set design – designing that office space or that bedroom. Meanwhile, it’s this much bigger role that takes into account the entire tone of the film. It’s the color palettes that are used across the entire arc of a film. It’s the discussions about lighting and discussions about mood. It’s our job to bring all of that to the forefront.
A lot of times people could misunderstand it, or limit it to you sitting at a table and drawing floor plans for sets. But it’s a much bigger world building than that. I think it’s mostly a lack of awareness.
The production designer role has evolved over the decades. It didn’t exist in the early days of film. There was an art director, and people understood that that role is somebody who brought scenery together. Then, as production designer became an actual role – in surprisingly more recent times – I don’t think people fully understood the distinction between art direction and production design, and what that production designer role meant.
It’s so great with the Production Designers Collective to have this opportunity to be more vocal about it, and to help explain to audiences and to people on the periphery of the industry what our role actually entails, and how big of a scope our role really encompasses. It’s fascinating. We talk about it a lot, but it’s minimized – not by anybody’s intention, but ultimately minimized.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-crystal-fabrication.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1872" /> 
Fabrication of the crystals for the Fortress of Solitude on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: It’s interesting that only in 2012 the Academy renamed the category from best art direction to best production design, acknowledging that it’s not just the physical builds – that it is the art of creating the worlds for these stories.
Beth: And it touches all visual aspects of a film. It’s so wonderful that they did rename it with production design and then partnered it with the set decorator, but then the art directors ended up getting the short end of the stick. I believe they should be a part of it there with us. It should be production design, along with art directors and set decorators, who get nominated for Oscars. So we haven’t gotten it quite right yet, but we’ll get there [laughs].
Kirill: Getting closer to “Superman” and building these worlds, how do you take the probably very few words on the page and build these imagined worlds?
Beth: It starts with a conversation with James and the other creative department heads to figure out what the world is that we will want to build. We’ve all worked together for a number of years now, so we have a nice shorthand built in. We have a good grasp of what James’s aesthetic is – which is generally colorful and not shying from being experimental. We want to do something that feels original. And if there’s an opportunity to do something that has a little nod to nostalgia, that always works well with that mix.
After we have those conversations, we all go off and do our individual research. So Judianna Makovsky our wonderful costume designer and I will go off and do our own research, looking into the comic books, looking into the lore, watching the films that came before us, and starting to tease out how we want our world to be its own, while possibly paying respects to other versions that came before us.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” was fantastic for me. I had such wonderful groundwork laid by Charles Wood from the first installment where he developed such beautiful visual language for that film. We were able to pick up the ball and keep running with it there.
On “Superman” we were going to start with our brand new vision that we wanted to put out in the world. We started with figuring out our key points of the visuals. We wanted to be colorful, with a lot of use of primary and secondary colors. We wanted to use big bold geometric shapes in architecture or in patterns. And then we wanted to bring in a sense of nostalgia and a sense of timelessness. Those were the three key visual points for what we wanted the whole world to look like. From there it was applying all of those keystones across all of the sets that were going to be in.
It was an exciting process. We had several months to develop what the visuals were going to be for the film. By the time we got into building the sets, we already had a handle on what the film was going to be.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-crystal-inspection.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1800" /> 
Beth inspecting a fabricated crystal for the Fortress of Solitude on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: Compared to the previous phase of the DC Universe, this movie feels lighter, more energetic, and a bit more inviting – sort of a fun environment.
Beth: Yes and that was purposeful. We definitely did want it to feel brighter, and definitely did want it to feel more hopeful. I love that you use the word inviting. We wanted it to be a world that people wanted to spend time in. That way when we do go to Lex’s underworld, it feels more nightmarish. You’re more hesitant to be in there for too long. You’re excited to get back out to the bright sunny world above.
Kirill: You have two iconic places where Superman spends most of his time – the Daily Planet and the Fortress of Solitude. How do you take these established environments and put your spin on them?
Beth: For the Fortress of Solitude we definitely wanted to pay homage to the original Richard Donner films with Christopher Reeve. It was that beautiful ice fortress that we all remember from the ’70s. I loved that place when I was little, and I was excited and honored that we had the chance to get to do a reimagining of that.
I wanted to come up with something that felt sculptural, something that had a silhouette, something that leaves an impression. So I started with something that was asymmetrical, and that feels that it was exploding upwards – much like Superman almost exploding upward into the sky. What can we do with these crystals to have it feel like it’s reaching and bursting upward? That was the first nugget of inspiration that I had when I first started considering this.
We looked at crystals, and we ultimately ended up looking at the way waves hit stone surfaces and burst off of them. Then you think – what if it froze in midair? Would it give us that sense of propulsion? Once we figured out that for the exterior and nailed down that exterior shape, we brought that feeling inside. We had that same propulsive, explosive feeling inside of these crystals that burst up and outward. Referencing nature and geology was the hallmark of what his world was going to be.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-finishedset2.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1767" /> 
Finished set for the Fortress of Solitude on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
The other thing that James wanted for the Fortress of Solitude was from the <a href="https://superman.fandom.com/wiki/Silver_Age">Silver Age</a> that had a great, somewhat mid-century feel to them. It felt a bit like a man cave with these little compartments and areas that were all part of the comic book lore that we wanted to integrate – the supercomputer area, the lab area for the robots, the charging stations for the robots, etc. All the technology has a slight mid-century feel to it, even a little art deco – as a way of keeping it from feeling too futuristic and intangible. Once we got all those elements together, that helped us land where the Fortress of Solitude ended up.
Going to the Daily Planet, it is art deco in the comic books, and originally it was planned to be an art deco build. But ultimately, we weren’t going to have the resources to build it to the size that we needed. I felt that it would feel like a much busier newsroom if it was two levels, and it was becoming too expensive to do as an actual stage build. We didn’t have the stage space to be able to build it to the size we thought we needed, so we ended up looking for locations.
We ended up coming up with a train station in Macon that had this gorgeous classic architecture. It was more turn of the century and not art deco per se, so we had to let that go. But we ended up bringing in a lot of art deco touches. There are six key murals that you see throughout the space, and if you’re looking closely, they’re all done very much in an art deco period style.
In an effort to bring the timelessness into the space, we dressed everything with slight vintage pieces. All of the desk lamps are vintage gooseneck work lamps. All of the chairs are all ’70s chairs that we’ve reupholstered in our pumpkin color. There’s metal tanker desks. There’s landline phones. Things like that help it feel a little bit suspended in time. And then of course, it’s modernized with all the screens that you see around the space. We wanted that space to feel classic and timeless, but also still contemporary with all the news footage that was happening around them all the time.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-still02.jpg" alt="" width="2100" height="1159" /> 
Final still of the Daily Planet on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: How much went into the Pocket Universe? What was the description on the page, and how did it translate to the screen?
Beth: James said that it was a world that was built out of arithmetic, so there were a lot of fun conversations about what does that mean. I think he put it out there as a way to get all of our minds going in a direction of this world having some kind of a mathematical structure to it. It was a way to push us to dissect that phrase and come up with our own interpretation of it.
We ended up interpreting that as being a simple shape – the cube that is compounding, replicating itself, and growing in these clusters to build architecture. We thought everything should be geometric, with right angles everywhere. A lot of our passes took the right angle and repeated it outward, so that you get these cool sweeping shapes in all directions. That world was confined to that geometry interpretation. There is nothing organic in it, or any other materials.
Then we found this mineral called bismuth. It grows in strict geometric ways, and it has this gorgeous blue and pink iridescent finish to it. That’s what you see on all the surfaces that go in all directions. It all felt like it was made out of that one material.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-still07.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200" /> 
On the set of the Hall of Justice on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: Would you say that the Hall of Justice is the direct opposite of it, being light and open and going back to the Art Deco style?
Beth: Yes, it is a perfect diametric opposite to the Pocket Universe. It’s also the absolute hallmark of what Metropolis is, which is that big beautiful Art Deco architecture steeped in history. It’s a big expansive space, with big bright colors and big bold shapes. It was such a thrill to shoot there. It was just as jaw-dropping in person as it is on screen.
The original Hall of Justice comes from the comic books and the “Super Friends” series, and it felt so meaningful to be able to go back there and actually film within the walls of it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-still04.jpg" alt="" width="2162" height="1200" /> 
Final still of the Hall of Justice on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: Is there such a thing as your favorite set, or are they all your babies?
Beth: They are all near and dear to me for a lot of different reasons. The Fortress of Solitude is definitely the most exciting challenge and the biggest honor to tackle. But we also put a lot of thought into the Daily Planet, and into the apartments of Lois and Clark. The Pocket Universe was quite exciting to come up with something that felt original that we hadn’t seen before – which is tough to do these days. So many roads have been explored with all the movies since the advent of CGI. And the Hall of Justice was our last day of principal photography with our full crew, so it was a beautiful and memorable day.
Kirill: Was there any color that you didn’t want to use or is it all in there?
Beth: We tried to avoid using the tertiary colors – pinks, purples and aquas – anywhere but in the Pocket Universe. In Metropolis you largely see the primaries – yellows, blues and reds, and the secondaries – greens and oranges. That’s the distinction we wanted to keep. If you see pink, purple, or aqua in Metropolis, we either couldn’t control it, or it’s in there for a specific reason.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-supercomputer2.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1946" /> 
On the set of the Fortress of Solitude on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: How do you see generative AI at the moment? Do you see it as a tool, do you see it as a threat, or something else?
Beth: I definitely see it as a tool. There are great applications for generated images to crack open ideas. You can use it to put things out there, to unturn stones that your mind may not have unturned on its own.
I believe that the voices of artists and filmmakers are going to be needed to keep the AI slop – for the lack of a better term – separate from storytelling and world building. Storytelling and world building are original and singular, and they follow the direction of a voice that is trying to tell that story. That’s where filmmakers, writers and artists will always have a place in these creative industries. This is why AI is just a tool to help them with those processes.
Kirill: It is a little bit exciting, and also a little bit frightening.
Beth: It can be frightening if you decide to only see it as an existential threat. We can look at a lot of previous things that were seen as existential threats, and they turned out not to be so. We’re in a period of seeing where this develops. Using it ethically, using it wisely, using it for idea generation is a great application of it at the moment.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-midbuild.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="2100" /> 
On the set of the Fortress of Solitude on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: Which productions do you consider to be the golden standard of the field of production design?
Beth: “Anna Karenina” by Joe Wright is right up there. It’s one of the most beautiful and thoughtful films ever made, and it’s one of my absolute favorites. The <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2012/11/15/the-art-and-craft-of-production-design-conversation-with-sarah-greenwood.html">entire story is set on a stage</a>, as they didn’t have the resources to do a full big sweeping period piece. It’s such a beautiful way of telling that story.
The world building in “Mad Max: Fury Road” was the absolute best. I love every choice that they made there. And my heart sticks with some of the older ones – “The NeverEnding Story”, “Labyrinth” and “The Dark Crystal” – they were formative films for me when I was growing up. I’ve always loved their handmade tactile quality, and a lot of those visuals still hold up in a lot of ways.
Kirill: If you could go back in time to give a piece of advice to your younger self, perhaps about what you thought was important, but turned out to not be as important, what would it be?
Beth: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. When you’re starting out, you have this sense that in order for people to have confidence in you, you need to show that you know a lot of things you might not know. In my early days when I was starting out in the indie world, I definitely was misled by that belief – as all of us are. It’s absolutely OK to not know everything. It’s absolutely OK to ask questions and to want to learn more. People actually respect it when you show that you’re not aware of something, you’re not an expert on something, and you want to be educated. I think it goes not just in our industry, but in all industries. People admire the courage that it takes to ask the questions.
I would also say don’t be afraid to speak up. It might be that you feel in your heart that the way something is being done isn’t right, or the way that people are being treated isn’t fair, or an approach that’s being taken isn’t the right one. Value your voice no matter where you are in your career, how high up the ladder or how far down the ladder you are. Do not be afraid to use your voice. I would have appreciated hearing this when I was first coming up.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-still09.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1362" /> 
The final still of the Daily Planet set on “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Kirill: Despite long days on sets and long stretches away from your family and friends, what keeps you going in this industry?
Beth: I’ve been extremely lucky to work with a lot of the same team now for almost a decade. We’ve all become a wonderful support system to one another. We’ve all seen each other through a lot, including Covid. We’ve all supported each other through a lot, through loss of family members, through changes in the industry, through difficult shows. It’s a remarkable team that I’ve been lucky enough to work with repeatedly, and it’s been an absolute lifeline for me. We’ve all become dear friends, we all spend a lot of time together even outside the office. We all do things on weekends. Now, whenever I’m going away on a show, I’m actually getting to go spend time with all these people I care about, whom I enjoy and who I really see as a family. That has been irreplaceable.
Outside of that I have a supportive family. I’m lucky that we’re all in the industry – my husband, my brother, my sister-in-law. We all keep in good touch even when we’re apart. My brother and I talk almost every day. That’s a big lifeline.
One last thing that people hear me say a lot is looking after my well-being. I’m quite cognizant of the importance of protecting my downtime, and of having time to recharge. I get out for walks almost every single day. It sets the pace, clears my head, helps me take in things and appreciate things around me before going into the fray of work. I’ve been doing that for about ten years, and it’s been hugely important to set a healthy, happy base for each new day that I’m out there, wherever I might be in the world.
It’s physical health, as well as mental and emotional health. It is one of the things that I’m vocal about in Production Designers Collective – well-being in the workplace and life-work balance. We’ve been working on an initiative for the life-work balance and mental health at the collective, and I’m excited for that initiative to come together. We’re going to be offering some great things to the members.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/superman-bts-art-department.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="2100" /> 
The art department of “Superman”. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
And here I’d like to thank <a href="https://www.bethmickle.com/">Beth Mickle</a> for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Javier Irazuzta and Stephanie Pfingsten for making this interview happen. “Superman” is streaming on <a href="https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/superman/umc.cmc.21bcbvncmlxz9o7gtxlxfe771">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMKZIgQieIc">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Superman-James-Gunn/dp/B0F9YGF5G4">Amazon</a>. To stay up-to-date on the latest news from the International Production Design Week, <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/participate/">click here</a>. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/inmotion/">click here</a> for additional in-depth interviews in this series.
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<title>Production design of “The Penguin” – interview with Kalina Ivanov</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/08/15/production-design-of-the-penguin-interview-with-kalina-ivanov.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 16 Aug 2025 03:06:56 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[inmotion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Interviews]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19753</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Kalina Ivanov. In this interview, she talks about what production design is, our need to tell stories, the meteoric rise of episodic productions over the last decade, how she sees generative […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome <a href="https://www.kalinaivanov.com/">Kalina Ivanov</a>. In this interview, she talks about what production design is, our need to tell stories, the meteoric rise of episodic productions over the last decade, how she sees generative AI, and what keeps her going. Between all these and more, Kalina dives deep into her work on “The Penguin”.
This interview is the first part of a special initiative – a collaboration with the <a href="https://www.productiondesignerscollective.org/">Production Designers Collective</a> that Kalina founded about 10 years ago together with <a href="https://www.dadafilmdesign.com/">Inbal Weinberg</a>. This collective brings together over 1,500 members from all around the world, sharing ideas, experiences and advice across the industry. We talk about how it came to be, its goals, and the upcoming second <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/">International Production Design Week</a> scheduled in mid-October this year.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 18px; float: right;" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/kalinaivanov.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/kalinaivanov@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="360" height="469" />Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Kalina: I am originally from Bulgaria. I came to the United States when I was 18, and I wanted to study theater design. I studied and practiced to become a theater designer, and I couldn’t find a job in theater in America. It was completely different than in Europe, and it was a quick switch to storyboarding movies for me. Once I was in, I was hooked.
Kirill: Looking back at the time when you started in early ’90s, what would you say are the biggest changes for you in this field since then?
Kalina: It’s clearing moving more and more towards special and visual effects, and now we have AI is coming for us. We all have to be prepared for it. That’s coming, and I find it challenging, but also great. And at the same time, I’m hoping that young filmmakers will find their way to tell a good story with this new format. I keep up with new technologies, like drawing on computers, but I still draw a lot of it by hand.
Kirill: Do you feel that it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical tool or a digital tool, and that the art is more important than the tools?
Kalina: Absolutely. Every production designer brings a unique point of view. No two people are the same, even identical twins. There were two production designers who were identical twin brothers – Richard and Paul Sylbert, and they were not the same [laughs]. We bring a unique point of view to the field, and no technology can take that away from us.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-redlightdistrict.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1363" /> 
Sketch of the Red Light District for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Can anybody be an artist? Can art be taught?
Kalina: It depends on what kind of artist you want to be. I don’t consider myself a phenomenal artist in terms of drawing, but people find my sketches evocative. I look at them as working drawings. I don’t look at them as a piece of art at all. It all depends on your point of view. An artist has the sensibility, and that can be expressed in many different ways.
Kirill: How would you define what production design is? What kind of an art form is it?
Kalina: It’s about creating the environment. Every project is different. Every journey in every project is different. For me it starts with a script. As long as I can get under the skin of the character, as long as I can become that character, I’m good. If I can’t become that character, there’s trouble brewing on the horizon [laughs]. My process is quite intuitive. I read the script carefully, I think about the characters, and then I draw. Then, through these drawings, the atmosphere starts showing in.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-render-redlightdistrict.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
Render of the Red Light District for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Sounds like you are in the camp of a picture is worth a thousand words.
Kalina: Absolutely. I’m not eloquent, so I prefer the drawings to talk.
Kirill: What is the biggest misconception that people have around what production designer is or what do they do?
Kalina: Most people consider us set decorators. They don’t see production design for what it is, especially in contemporary movies. Sometimes I also feel that the cinematographer gets credited with production design, believe it or not. All sorts of people get credited, but production design is a unique art. It requires the mental capability of thinking of all the colors, and all the textures, and all the shapes and forms that come in into the world.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-prison.jpg" alt="" width="2790" height="972" /> 
Sketch of the Blackgate Eye Prison for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: <a href="https://www.productiondesignerscollective.org/">Getting to Production Designers Collective</a>, how it came around to be and what is it?
Kalina: It was me and Inbal sitting down in a coffee shop, and discovering that we had the same idea, but with different titles. I wanted a society, she wanted a collective, and we ended up with collective. We started with 50 of our friends, and slowly growing the organization over 10 years to have over 1,500 members. There was a tremendous amount of vacuum out there, and nobody thought about connecting production designers all over the world. The international aspect of our organization is vital.
Our newsletter is widely read, and over this decade the advances in technology made it easier for our organization to exist in this digital world. A big focus of our work has been on transforming the collective into organizing gatherings and the <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/">International Production Design Week</a>. Our <a href="https://www.productiondesignersgathering.org/">first gathering</a> of 250 designers was in Spetses Greece in 2024, and it was a monumental task for two people to put together.
Kirill: What are the primary goals of the Production Design Week?
Kalina: The main goal is connecting people from all over the world and exchanging ideas freely. We want ideas to flow without any boundaries. We want to find out how similar the processes are, even though technology is different in different countries, and also how unique they are to each person. It’s been an extremely rewarding journey in that way.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-iceberg-lounge-exterior.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1456" /> 
Sketch of the exterior of Iceberg Lounger for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: In this context, is there such a thing as universal art, or do we have cultural differences that make it a little bit difficult to make a story that resonates around the world?
Kalina: I think we all are becoming borderless. A story in Russia nowadays today is equally as valid a story in America. Take Japanese films as an example. I love Japanese films, including the animated ones. They are made in Japan, but they’re also wildly influenced by French art. You can look at all the influences, but what matters in the end is the story. The story is the heart of everything, and stories are universal.
Kirill: Do you feel that we are hard wired to need stories, to tell them and to listen to them?
Kalina: Absolutely. As production designers, every day we tell stories through color and architecture. And other people tell the stories differently, but the goal is still the same – tell that story in the most unique way you can.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-render-mausoleum.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1637" /> 
Render of the Falcone Masoleum for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Going back to this initiative of sharing ideas and spreading awareness, do you want to have it reach beyond the field of production design? Do you want to have people inside and outside of the industry to be more aware of this specific craft?
Kalina: Yes. One part of our goal is to educate everybody about production design. It doesn’t matter if you work in the film industry. You can be absolutely a person who simply loves film. We’re here to educate you about production design and what it means. It’s a misunderstood art.
It used to be more respected at some point. It feels that it’s starting to lose its core on one hand, but on the other hand, bigger movies get bigger budgets for design. When you look at small stories, production design sometimes gets lost, but the amount of work of the production designer in a small movie is the same as in the big movie.
Kirill: It feels like over the last 10-12 years the rest of the big streaming networks took the midsize budget feature films and “turned” them into episodic shows. You have the big movie blockbusters, and a lot of indies. But then, something like “The Penguin” that might have been a mid-budget feature a decade ago is now an episodic show on HBO.
Kalina: I wouldn’t say that the midsize feature is disappearing, but it’s certainly shrinking. I’m constantly traveling between film and television. I’ve been in the television world for two years, and now I’m back to doing a midsize budget feature with Brad Pitt’s company that can afford to be in that space. How many people are able to afford that? I don’t know.
You can get a hundred million for an action movie, and you’ll fulfill the needs of the market, but you won’t win any awards. And you can make a movie like “Anora” for $6M and win the Oscar. In a strange way, what we are seeing is the smaller budget movies that have a bigger impact.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-onsets0.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1100" /> 
On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: How do you feel about this explosion streaming episodic productions?
Kalina: It’s a natural state that everything is changing all the time.
If we talk about “The Penguin”, it’s a big budget that takes over from the movie, setting it specifically in New York. Doing it in the episodic format allows you to develop the characters. If we make the movie called “The Penguin”, it wouldn’t be the same. His story would be maybe one quarter of the story that we were able to tell. You’d need four movies to fulfill that. Television allows you to give a complex portrait of the character. That’s why people are loving the show. It’s also probably the first time that we so realistically portrayed Gotham, and people are really taken with it.
Kirill: Now that we’re officially talking about “The Penguin”, how did you get to it? Did you chase it, or did it happen to fall into your lap, so to speak?
Kalina: I did not even think about it. It was a call from a producer that I worked with. I did “Lovecraft Country”, a beautiful and imaginative show for HBO, and later I got a call from its line producer about “The Penguin”. I made a look book, I interviewed, and I got the job. Lauren LeFranc the showrunner wanted it to be realistic, and I was quite intrigued by that aspect of it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-onsets1.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Did you know that you would be doing all the episodes, and that you would have different cinematographers on it?
Kalina: I did know that. I knew that I would do all eight episodes, but I didn’t have all eight scripts straight away. We started with two scripts, and then Lauren was asked two more to get the show greenlit. Then in number five she brought the trolley depot, and that surprised everyone [laughs] inducing the producers who had to find a million and a half for that set.
Kirill: How much time did you have on pre-production and production itself?
Kalina: It was an unusual because the strike happened in the middle of it, exactly at episode 5. I had a lot of time in prep, from August 2022 til January 2023. Then we started shooting, the strike came, and we finished in February 2024.
Kirill: Was it impacted by the lingering effects of Covid restrictions?
Kalina: Yes, but it wasn’t as extreme anymore. It was more normal than when it started in 2020.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-onsets2.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: You had some big sets on this show.
Kalina: The interior of the Falcone mansion was a big set, and it took a lot of time. The trolley depot is a 4,500 square feet set. We had so many sets on the show. Sometimes I would design it as a set thinking that I would build it, and then they would tell me that we’d be going on location. And then ironically, I would transform the location into the set that I had in mind [laughs]. They all ended up looking like what I wanted it to look like.
Kirill: Was there enough time and enough money, or are you always running short on both?
Kalina: You always wish you had more money, but the producers had to do what they had to do.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-falcone-house1.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1237" /> 
The set of the Falcone House of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Is the Falcone house a single set, or multiple places stitched together in camera?
Kalina: It’s one single set. Then we had the practical location for the exterior, where we had some individual rooms that we wove into the narrative – a corridor, the basement, the greenhouse. Those were shot in such a way that they’re all mimicked the built set.
Kirill: I loved when Sofia talks about the interior design of the Falcone house and asks “You afraid of color or something?” What was the idea behind the interior styling of it?
Kalina: I had created all this backstory of the characters. I didn’t share it with anybody, but I had it all mapped out. So the great grandfather started bootlegging in the ’20s and the ’30s, then the grandfather came, and then we meet Carmine. By the time we meet him, he’s almost a legitimate person. He’s wearing bespoke suits. Look at John Turturro in “The Batman” and how well dressed he was.
I went with the idea that he took upon himself to find a mansion of the great Gatsby era – the ’20s and the ’30s Italian style villa – to bring stuff from Italy, and to make it all Italian. That’s why I had all these Renaissance and pre-Renaissance frescoes in there, and Simone Martini’s “Duke of Padua” famous painting behind Carmine Falcone. The most wonderful thing about it is that the set was a two story set. That gave it the scope that you needed to have, and I got to do the biggest fireplace that you can possibly have in a house like that [laughs].
The solarium came from the actual location, and it was exciting. I changed the textures and everything, but the general shape of it was quite evocative.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-falcone-house2.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1100" /> 
The final still of the Falcone House of “The Penguin” with the painting behind the characters, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Was the crypt a set?
Kalina: The crypt was the basement of a real church. Some of it was in VFX, but you won’t know that.
Kirill: The story is about the Penguin’s insecurities and ambitions, failures and successes. How do you approach designing an apartment for a man like that?
Kalina: He’s a conundrum. He has a lot of anger in him. Most of the time, he seems to be OK with everybody and everything and where his place is, but he’s not OK. He desperately wants to be on the top.
He likes to be like Carmine. He likes to think of himself as Carmine Falcone, but not quite. That was the whole idea for his apartment. Here you are on the third floor of the diamond district – not on the top, and you’ve taken over an abandoned jewelry repair shop. I gave it all this backstory, including an ad for the jewelry shop that used to be there.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-penguin-apartment3.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
The set of the Penguin’s Apartment of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
You set your bedroom in the safe room of the jewelry shop. It has all the drawers and the compartments. It’s shiny and it’s right to him, but it’s not Carmine. Carmine has an excellent taste. Carmine probably went to Harvard [laughs]. He’s a very well-educated gangster, but the Penguin isn’t. The Penguin likes shine. That’s what I went for there.
Kirill: What about the Arkham state hospital? Was it a location or did you build the set for it?
Kalina: It was both. We recreated a part of the movie meeting room set, and the cafeteria was in another church basement location. We added two walls, one for the security area, and one for the cafeteria area to tie it into Arkham. I didn’t want it to feel a different space.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-onsets3.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: What went into thinking how the underground trolley facility is “supposed” to look like?
Kalina: I did two different concepts. One was a working class space, and the other was a working class cathedral, and Lauren chose the cathedral. She loved those vaulted ceilings.
This was an easy set. By that time I knew who the character was and what he would like. I had in mind this very specific location where we put the set to marry it to the lobby and extended the set. By marrying it to that lobby, we got to bring in some of the details that the lobby had, and it worked out perfectly. The combination between the set, the lobby and the tunnels were important. The trolley cars were important, and we built all of those cars. The last trolley car in New York was in 1959, and those don’t exist anymore. So we got to recreate a lot of that.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-onsets5.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1238" /> 
On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: And then you have the Monroe club set in two different time periods separated by what looks like about 30 or so years. Was it the same set?
Kalina: It’s the same set, and we were given one day to change it. We started with the old time when it was new and pristine, and then destroy some of it to get to the present time. We did the changeover on a Sunday, something like six hours. There was a lot of prep and rehearsals involved beforehand. It was marvelous. I had this idea of the chandelier because I wanted a giant gesture there. It came up very well.
The backstory is that this jazz club is there since the ’30s. I brought in columns, and I covered the stage with a curtain. The space had murals of Bosch, and I ran the blue drape in from of them because it didn’t match what we needed. We changed the shape of the stage, and a lot of other things. When it was all done, it really looked like my original sketch from when I thought I would build it as a set.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-monroes-1988.jpg" alt="" width="1472" height="909" /> 
Sketch of the Monroe’s Jazz Club in 1988 for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-monroes-2022.jpg" alt="" width="1497" height="902" /> 
Sketch of the Monroe’s Jazz Club in 2022 for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: How do you approach deciding what gets built physically, and what gets extended with VFX?
Kalina: It’s up to the budget. Every VFX supervisor that’s worth their money will tell you that you need to build to 15 to 20 feet around the actors, depending on how big the scene is. You build it for real, and extend from there. I do all my concept work, and I give the concepts to the VFX for what it should look like at the end.
I did the concept sketch for the “La Couronne” hotel for the end scene of the last episode, and I convince Lauren to use that name. It’s important to the story. It’s the crown. It’s on the verge of Crown Point. Let’s make it the hotel to be the crown.
Kirill: It’s a beautiful shot, and it’s a poignant one. He’s reached the peak, and yet he is a world away from where he wants to be.
Kalina: Exactly. There is a great amount of sadness in the last scene. You feel what an empty man this guy is. He goes with a prostitute who’s pretending to be his mother. There is no relationship between his mother and him left. I wanted for that moment to have all these pissed off women looking down on him. That’s where you have the furies looking at him angry.
This location was basically a white box, but it had the windows we needed. I took it over and I completely transformed it. If you look at that location, it doesn’t look anything like what we ended up with.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-sketch-cityscape-couronne.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="1575" /> 
Sketch of the cityscape with the La Couronne hotel for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: In this gritty story, was there any color that you wanted to stay away from?
Kalina: Lauren told us that we should be careful about purple, because it’s Penguin’s color, so we stayed away from it most of the time. In general, I used jewel tones for the show. Those tones work well with dark stories.
Kirill: After all these productions, is it still sad or difficult to walk away from all these magnificent sets, to know that they are going to be torn down?
Kalina: When I was younger, I cried the first time when I saw the scenery being thrown in a dumpster. Now I just walk away and it’s onto the next one.
Kirill: You mentioned the rise of AI earlier. Do you see it as an existential threat, or as another tool that will be used by artists to bring these stories to life?
Kalina: I really see it as a tool. I find that it can be very helpful in the brainstorming period. I don’t think we’re going to end up with ChatGPT stories [laughs].
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-render-mushroom-growing-tent.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1246" /> 
Render of the mushroom growing tent for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: If you had a time machine and you could travel back to when you were starting out to give an advice to your younger self, what would you say you thought was important, but it turned out to be not as important?
Kalina: Back then I thought it was very important to be an artist. But that is not so much so in production design. What is important is to get along with people, and to get along with the producers, and to work cohesively as a team. The environment is always different on every movie, and you have to find your way to fit in that environment.
I would say your artistry is going to be always there. Work on your people skills. That is my advice. Don’t worry about the art. The art is there. You are the artist, but how you get along with people – that will make or break that movie.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-still0.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1076" /> 
Final still of the mushroom growing tent for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
Kirill: Which movies would you consider to be the golden standard of your craft?
Kalina: I will take Bertolucci’s “The Conformist”, and then Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” and the first two “Godfather” movies. Dean Tavoularis is my favorite production designer, I worship that man. Those movies are remarkable.
Kirill: What keeps you going in this field?
Kalina: It’s the hunger for learning new things. I always want to be surprised, and I have been fortunate to do wildly different projects. If you look at my resume, you won’t see the same kind of movie or the same kind of project done. I’m very fortunate that way, and that’s what keeps me going.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/thepenguin-penguin-apartment2.jpg" alt="" width="2200" height="1237" /> 
The set of the Penguin’s Apartment of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.
And here I’d like to thank <a href="https://www.kalinaivanov.com/">Kalina Ivanov</a> for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Javier Irazuzta for making this interview happen. “The Penguin” is <a href="https://www.hbomax.com/shows/penguin/5756c2bf-36f8-4890-b1f9-ef168f1d8e9c">streaming on HBO Max</a>. To stay up-to-date on the latest news from the International Production Design Week, <a href="https://productiondesignweek.org/participate/">click here</a>. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/inmotion/">click here</a> for additional in-depth interviews in this series.
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<title>Production design of “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” – interview with Toni Barton</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/06/26/production-design-of-fight-night-the-million-dollar-heist-interview-with-toni-barton.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jun 2025 23:42:35 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[inmotion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Interviews]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19708</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Toni Barton. In this interview, she talks about what she sees as the biggest change in this industry in the last 25 years, her approach to creating the worlds for her […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome <a href="https://tonibarton.com/index.php">Toni Barton</a>. In this interview, she talks about what she sees as the biggest change in this industry in the last 25 years, her approach to creating the worlds for her stories, building layered sets that reflect the history of the place and the characters, how she sees generative AI, and what keeps her going. Between all these and more, Toni dives deep into her work on “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist”.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19742" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 18px; float: right;" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tonibarton.jpg" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tonibarton@2x.jpg 2x" alt="" width="360" height="366" />Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Toni: From a very young age I had a fascination with architecture – and was very excited when my cousin introduced me to her youngest brother in law, Julius Haley, who was the first architect I would meet. A few years later while on summer break, my mother directed a children’s theater production of the musical “The Boy Friend”. She enlisted my sister and I to paint all the sets. I did not know what I was doing, but this experience planted a seed. That seed grew in high school, where I took many drafting classes and eventually interned at an architecture firm.
With the sole purpose of becoming an architect I attended the University of Southern California, but that singular focus broadened quickly. Songfest was an annual fundraiser held by students at the Shrine Auditorium. While practicing with the Black Student Union, someone asked if I could design our backdrop. So, in the middle of the night I was painting a large backdrop on top of the parking structure. Once again, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was having fun. Over those years I learned more about architecture, designed more plays and musicals, worked in the scene shop, and designed several short films. After graduation, I moved to New York and studied scenery for stage and film at NYU. For a few years I assisted several Broadway set designers and worked at a couple of industrial set design firms – and once I was accepted into the union, I started working in film.
I was an assistant art director for many years, drafting, learning while crying and trying to figure it out [laughs]. I worked with some amazing people, including art director Patricia Woodbridge. She brought me on “Mona Lisa Smile”, “Hitch”, “Freedomland”, “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Bounty Hunter”. She taught me what to do as an assistant art director and put me in places to learn. Patricia was my film mom, and I will forever be grateful for her. Later, I started art directing on a lot of different TV shows, and eventually collaborated with the production designer Loren Weeks. He was hired to design the first seasons of the Marvel Netflix series “Daredevil”, “Jessica Jones”, “Luke Cage”, “Iron Fist”, and “The Defenders”. After that, as a good boss does, he pushed me out of the nest, saying “Now go fly and design”, which was scary, but wonderful. All of this thankfully lead to production designing “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist”.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tonibarton-artdepartment.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
Toni Barton and the art department of “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Looking back at the first 25 years of your career, what do you see as the biggest changes in this field?
Toni: The biggest change for me is how we consume media. When I was growing up, the entire family would sit down and watch a show, whatever was on. There were 4 or 5 channels, and everybody would want to have that water cooler moment the next day. You didn’t want to come in the next morning without seeing what happened on your show the night before, because everybody would want to talk about it together.
Now, everybody is in their private space – watching it live or for the fiftieth time on their phones or three seconds after it’s left the movie theater and is streaming.
My preference for episodic shows is to drop weekly – giving the audience a chance to breath with the story and to anticipate what’s going to happen the next week. I like that much more than digesting content all at once.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tonibarton-lancetotten.jpg" alt="" width="2800" height="2100" /> 
Toni Barton and Lance Totten, the set decorator of “Fight Night”, on the set. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: From design perspective, did you start designing on paper, or was it already in the world of digital devices and tools?
Toni: When I was in architecture school I mainly drew by hand, not learning much on the computer until later when my studio professor told us “I don’t want anybody to think of AutoCAD as the designer. It is merely a tool. It is no different than using a pencil on vellum or ink on mylar”. Realistically, when I was an assistant art director drafting sets, I drafted only on the computer. But as a designer, I think with my hand. When I’m designing a set, a lot of times I’m on my drafting table. I’m figuring it out with a pencil, trace paper and a scale ruler. I’m constantly moving the pencil, sketching through ideas, or tearing off a piece of trace and taping it on top of another to develop my ideas from concept to reality.
At a certain point, I may hand off a sketch to my set designer. And sometimes they give it back digitally so I can modify my ideas in AutoCAD, thinking through the details. Designers use all sorts of tools today for 2D and 3D modeling. These tools might be on a computer or iPad. It might be the set designer or the illustrator making a 3D model or fly-through animation. It’s just the tools that we utilize to tell the story, but they’re not designing it. They are simply how we communicate our ideas.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-plan-materials.jpg" alt="" width="3052" height="1716" /> 
Floor plan and materials for the Hyatt Regency set of “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.

Kirill: Do you find that viewers today have higher expectations from episodic productions than it used to be 15-20 years ago?
Toni: As an artist and a designer, I’m translating the written word to build a world visually for the audience. On “Fight Night”, my task was to build Atlanta in the year 1970. I do not want the audience to think about what I am doing, if that makes sense. I want them to think about the story. The audience will hopefully believe in the created world, in which these actors are wearing the costumes, hair and makeup. The director and the cinematographer are telling that written story in this world. With more money and time, one can build a lot more, but it still needs to tell the showrunner’s story.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/chickenman-party-house-floorplan.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="2036" /> 
Floor plan for the Chicken Man party house set of “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Isn’t it a bit disappointing when you spend all these long months on a show, and the audiences only talk about the characters and the story?
Toni: That’s OK with me. A couple years ago I designed Netflix’s “Archive 81” .We built a lot of sets, because we could not shoot safely on many locations in 2020 due to the pandemic. One of the sets that I designed was a massive two-story, Brutalist concrete compound for the main character Dan. Everybody that watches it assumes it’s a location. Honestly, I take this as a compliment because they don’t believe it’s a set on a soundstage. That’s a testament to the design, to the lighting, and to how the cinematographer and director are filming the sets. I want people to feel that they’re real. And if this means they focus on the story – then great.
On “Fight Night” I filled four soundstages with scenery, and even more scenery was built on location. There are no aspects of current day Atlanta that we can shoot as is without making major changes to fulfill the needs of the script. One of the many settings in the script was the Hyatt Regency Hotel, originally built in 1967. We filmed inside the lobby at the real location, recreating its original design, but had to build its iconic rotating rooftop, Polaris Bar and penthouse suite on the stages. When you look out the windows the skyline is nothing like it was in 1970, so a VFX set extension was also added to match that time. I hope the audience believes it’s real, but I don’t want them to dwell on it. I want them to get engaged and engrossed in the story. Of course if they love it, that’s awesome too.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/police-department-still.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="960" /> 
The police department on “Fight Night”.
Kirill: The ’60s and the ’70s are two of the more formative decades in our recent history, and there are quite a few stories set up in those periods. How do you find the balance between what the audience expects, so to speak, of the look of that time and carving out your own visual space for this story?
Toni: Here’s where it gets interesting. “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” mainly takes place in October and November of 1970, but that really means most of the architectural spaces are from the ’40s, the ’50s, and the ’60s. This story is based on the 10-episode podcast with the same name by Jeff Keating. He interviewed many of our characters before they passed. One of the interviews was with Detective J.D. Hudson’s daughter, who said that his favorite color was blue. Detective J.D. Hudson, played by Don Cheadle, integrated the Atlanta Police Department in the late ’40s. I didn’t have any photos of his police station, but that timeline was my starting point, to start building the architecture that goes back to his early days. I designed blue linear glazed tiles with grout lines for the police station walls with various blue colored VCT floor tiles. When I was designing that set, I asked the set decorator for schoolhouse pendant lamps to hang down from the ceiling. The gaffer requested a dropped ceiling instead, since that would be so much easier to control the light. But knowing that drop ceiling retrofits would have probably been added to our building a few years later, it was important to stay true to this time period.
Continuing with JD Hudson’s house we added the blue palette throughout his house. It’s in the wallpaper textures that were prevalent in the late ’50s, and in the textiles and dressing throughout. It’s a tight palette, but it’s not necessarily so methodical. It feels real for the ’50s and the ’60s. This family didn’t just redecorate their entire house the previous year, and it’s a family that is a little older compared to Chicken Man.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/jd-hudson-living-room-set.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1781" /> 
J.D. Hudson’s living room set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Chicken Man, played by Kevin Hart, was a hustler with a fourth-grade education. He is a guy that is taking care of the entire neighborhood. He’s taking care of his church-going family, and he knows how to connect anyone in his hometown. Chicken Man drives a gold Cadillac. So, to push this, we created a red and gold palette in all his settings: the party house where the heist occurs, his family home with muted pinks and ochres, and even the Clermont Lounge.
These are not necessarily ’70s colors, because I’m building a world of ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s leading up to it. The showrunner, Shaye Ogbonna, said Chicken Man purchased the Party House in 1968, only two years before the heist. We used several colorful reflective mylar wallpapers in the living room and kitchen, and a created a shag carpet with oranges and yellows and browns. And the same colors were used to build the linoleum flooring in the kitchen and hallways. This tight palette works in the time period. Not only using the color palette to define each character but also building an arc to tell the entire story.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/chickenman-party-house-model-materials.jpg" alt="" width="3082" height="1446" /> 
Model and materials for the Chicken Man house party set of “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
During the penultimate episode, the robbers travel to Jekyll Island, about a five hour drive from Atlanta, close to the Florida border. In the early ’60s it was a beach destination where the southern portion of the island was the segregated St. Andrew’s Beach. That’s where the chitlin’ circuit Dolphin Club was located where Black artists could perform for Black patrons. In our timeline, this venue has been boarded up and abandoned since integration closed many of the clubs. It is also a point in our story where JD Hudson and Chicken Man are working together so I mixed blues with reds and golds in this club.
Kirill: What about the Hyatt Hotel? Did you want to have it a little bit more modern to 1970?
Toni: We shot on the first floor in the Hyatt Regency’s lobby and replicated the space to its original John Portman 1967 design. Currently, there are chrome railings and glass walls all over the lobby floor, all high-end and very different from before. We built low plastered walls to cover the existing, built tree structures, added red carpets, and white and gray modern furniture. Above the main escalators, there was a beautiful glass and metal sculptural Parasol Bar, which was removed a while ago. We made a 3D model of this sculptural bar structure for a VFX set extension. When we filmed the lobby, there were some Hyatt Regency employees that had been there for over 40 years, and said it is just how they remembered it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-penthouse-still-materials.jpg" alt="" width="3078" height="1722" /> 
The set and materials for the Hyatt Regency penthouse set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Then we go upstairs to the Penthouse and the Polaris Bar where the architectural structure is the same as the existing hotel: doors, terrace balcony, elevators and windows. But we had freedom to play with everything else – creating a sunken living room with zigzag carpet with red, gold and black wallpapered walls, terrazzo floors and a burl wood and black marble bar. Sometimes you just have to play, because it’s fun and an interesting way to tell a story. When I read the first drafts of the scripts, to determine what to build, there were only two scenes in the penthouse, in only two episodes – that was it. But once the showrunner saw the set, he added more scenes in later episodes.
The same thing happened with the Polaris Bar. Initially it was in the first three scripts, and it was more of a restaurant. You came up out of the elevator, and the carpeted area closer to the windows rotated. I designed the main bar in the center near the elevator so that the backdrop of the skyline would be in most shots. It doesn’t mimic John Portman’s original design, but it plays with it well.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-polarisbar-set.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="2133" /> 
The Hyatt Regency Polaris bar set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: I’m not sure what’s the right term for it, but it’s these heavy mahogany panels that you see inside old houses all throughout. When did we lose them? When did they go out of fashion?
Toni: You see them throughout architecture in the ’50s and the ’60s, and they span a little bit into the ’70s. I refer to them as peekaboo panels.I started on the “Fight Night” in early December of 2023. During Christmas, I flew to Los Angeles to visit my family. My grandparents moved into their house in the early ’60s, and up until my sister moved in about 15 years ago, the house had panels with the circle cutouts between the living room and the kitchen. I referenced these panels for Chicken Man’s Party House, passing along photos to Justin Jordan, assistant art director, who then translated them into our world. He also designed decorative panels for the Hyatt Regency in Frank’s Penthouse, Lola Falana’s Suite and in the Polaris Bar which I painted iridescent black.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/municipal-auditorium-floor-plan.jpg" alt="" width="2752" height="1678" /> 
The floor plan for the municipal auditorium set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: What went into making the venue for the boxing match?
Toni: The Municipal Auditorium was the venue for the fight, which still exists in downtown Atlanta. It was built in 1909, and resurfaced I believe in the late ’40s. About 45 years ago Georgia State University purchased and built inside the large interior, breaking up the massive arena, only allowing our production to film the exterior location. When Muhammad Ali fought Jerry Quarry, there were hardwood floors and simple wooden chairs, with two tiers of balconies above low walls that lead into dressing rooms.
Most sport venues today have fixed seating and ballroom spaces required major building on location, so we opted to build this on the soundstage. We couldn’t find the blueprints with the true dimensions of the arena at that time, so we had to guestimate based on the exterior and the many photos and videos from the fight. My proposal to the director, showrunner and cinematographer was to build the first balcony, two entrances, and about 120 degrees of wall between the entrances. Almost all of the floor seats surrounding the boxing ring would exist and the rest was bluescreened for VFX set extension. Then, during the shooting, our director Craig Brewer rotated the audience and kept shooting mainly into the built scenery walls.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/municipal-auditorium-plan.jpg" alt="" width="2546" height="1874" /> 
The floor plan for the municipal auditorium set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
In the boxing ring each fighter has their own corner. One corner has three red ropes on either side and the opposite corner has three dark blue ropes on either side. The set dressing team matched the research perfectly from the Everlast padding, exposed turnbuckles, draped electrical cords on the balcony walls, to the colors and placements of the rope. But due to the constant rotation of the audience, we had to make sure the ropes were the same on all sides. It worked well, and it allowed us to have what was necessary to film the fight.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/municipal-auditorium-set1.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
The plans for the municipal auditorium set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Which set took the longest chunk of your time?
Toni: From the very beginning we had about two months to build around fifty sets for the first two episodes. I don’t know that I was breathing at all during that time. The set that I spent the longest on was the set that I had the most time to do design and breath at the same time – the Dolphin Club for episode seven.
About two months out, I went to Jekyll Island with writer Erika Johnson and line producer Dianne Ashford to gather as much research as possible since the venue was torn down more than fifty years ago and very few photographs remain. We walked the beaches where these buildings used to stand, to understand how big they were, understand the culturally context and the climate of this beach community. Of course, at this same time I was prepping and shooting episodes three through six designing new smaller sets, but the Dolphin Club was by the far the largest set since all of the initial built sets created for the show were completed. I took those two months to make sure that my research was correct, that I was telling the right story.
I designed the Dolphin Club ground plan and presented it along with the research to the team. The director Craig Brewer took my ground plan and digested it, calling me later stating all works perfectly for the script, with a few small additions. This process was wonderful, because we could really get to the gist of what was needed and make sure that it worked for every single aspect of the story.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-penthouse-set2.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1970" /> 
The Hyatt Regency penthouse set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: You have this beautiful and immaculate penthouse set in Hyatt, and this abandoned club that lays in ruins. Is one more interesting to work on than the other?
Toni: Not at all – they are both just as exciting. From the beginning, the first assistant director said that he wanted the party house to be ready early. I designed and built the first floor and the basement on one of the sound stages, to meet the schedule. The next sets I designed were the Hyatt Regency Penthouse and the Polaris Bar, doing those at the same time. And the last set that I designed, because it was supposed to be the last set we were supposed to shoot during the first two episodes, was the Atlanta Police Department. Then I got a call saying that they were going to shoot the APD set in two weeks, and I had not even begun to design it. I drew it in one day, and the next day handed it off to my set designer, and then two weeks later, we were shooting on that set – which was absolutely crazy, but we made it happen.
The Penthouse was refreshingly fun. I was exploring some interesting patterns and shapes that I shared with Lance Totten, the set decorator. Justin Jordan, assistant art director found a zigzag patterned carpet, and Lance found a trapezoidal seating that were upholstered in a gorgeous, maze patterned fabric. This seating became the basis for the sunken living room. We mixed deep reds, golds, chromes, burl wood, zigzag carpet with the black iridescent peekaboo panels.
At one point we were standing there on the soundstage with all the white walls around us, looking at all the samples before anybody had started painting anything, and Lance turned to me and said “Toni, I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I’m down for the ride”.
I do wonder how different our Dolphin Club set would have been if it hadn’t been influenced by the Hyatt Regency Penthouse set. Truly many of the concepts and patterns inform one another.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-under-construction.jpg" alt="" width="3080" height="1652" /> 
Construction in progress on the Hyatt Regency sets on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Is there such a thing as the most challenging set that you’ve worked on for this production, or did they all have their own different aspects to it?
Toni: Everything in the beginning of production is challenging. The challenges are about building all of it and building it within a budget. When I start, I try to get as many scripts as written, so that I can read through them, break them down and I look at all the sets that the showrunner and the writers are requesting. A lot of times they may write more sets than we can realistically build or spaces that may be duplicated in one. Maybe, instead of building a bedroom in the penthouse, the scene could happen in the sunken living room. Those are the lovely discoveries of what we do. All those challenges are good challenges because then they hopefully lead to many more interesting solutions.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/chickenman-party-house-set.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
The Chicken Man party house set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Is it still painful to see these sets that you build get destroyed or dismantled after you are done with them?
Toni: Absolutely not. I love it, because that means that there’s something else that we have to do next. When I was in grad school, I designed the play “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”. It was such a small production that the actors had to help me build, paint and wrap the set. They were young undergrads that put their heart and soul into this show.One of them asked me your exact same question through tears. And I told them that there’s another show that’s coming soon. There’s always new stories to tell, new worlds to build.
Now what is sad is the amount of waste that can be created at wrap. I try to be as sustainable as possible, reusing materials, repurposing, or providing salvaged windows, doors, flats to another production or non-profit organization at wrap.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hyatt-regency-penthouse-set1.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="2133" /> 
The Hyatt Regency penthouse set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Is there any artwork from the show that is still around? My personal favorite is the painting that hangs on the back side in the penthouse.
Toni: Oh, I will have to tell Lance, the set decorator. I believe his parents had a similar postmodern painting in his childhood home. This painting in Frank’s Penthouse was a rental from Omega Props in Los Angeles. Due to clearance issues, many of the artwork is either made by our scenics, graphic designers or rented.
Kirill: I love the aesthetic of the ’70s, the interior design, the graphic design, the fashion. You don’t see that anymore. The modern interior design is so boring. It feels like we lost that richness along the way.
Toni: There’s an interesting thing about the Hyatt. It was built in 1967, so it’s the most recent thing in our show. We are recreating John Portman’s work, and that’s where I spent the most money. I can’t necessarily do that in a detective’s house or a number runner’s party house, but I can do that at the Polaris Bar and in the Penthouse suite for the Hyatt Regency. But we also had fun in Cadillac Wheeler’s, NJ Warehouse. A deep purple shag carpet office filled with stolen goods with camel colored leather sofa and painting of Wheeler’s father which was a creation by the Shaq Simmons, graphic designer and Keenan Chapman, scenic meshing Terrance Howard’s look with an early 1960’s Adam Clayton Powell.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/cars.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
Cars of “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: There’s one more thing that I love about the ’60s and the ’70s, which is the cars. We don’t see those long bodies, those beautiful lines, the chrome highlights and the colors anymore. It’s all just the same raindrop shape, and the same grey or beige everywhere these days. What goes into getting all those cars from that period on the screen?
Toni: Jason Geigerman was our picture car coordinator and he’s lovely to work with. When we sat down to discuss options, the most essential thing for me was a clear color palette, but it was just as important to determine economically and culturally the correct options for each character.
In addition to Chicken Man’s 1966 gold Cadillac DeVille and JD Hudson’s blue Ford Galaxie 500, the robbers, as organized by McKinley, was in a green palette. The first time we see the two guys scoping out the party house, they are in a 1961 rusted green Chevrolet van. Jason searched for the right vehicle and painted it to match my original illustration of the Ext. Party House.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/chickenman-party-house-exterior-illustration.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1418" /> 
Exterior illustration of the Chicken Man party house (with the green van) on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Jason would carry 12 to 20 different cars and rotate the non-hero cars in and out between episodes. He had to increase his quantity to fill a drive-in movie theater in the early episodes, and for a nighttime street scene where Detective Hudson is walking with Muhammad Ali.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/atlanta-street-night.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2001" /> 
The nighttime street scene on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Do you feel that productions such as this become a visual reference of how, in this particular case, Atlanta looked like in 1970? Is there a certain responsibility to portray this period and this place in a way that becomes a reference for the next generation of artists that will be using you as their visual reference?
Toni: That’s an interesting question. The mantra that Lance and I kept repeating to ourselves was that we are not making a documentary, that we’re creating entertainment. Our Art Department had two long walls, about 100 feet long each filled with research. We had research on Ali’s fight, on the Hyatt Regency, on African American homes in Collier Heights, Pascals, chitlin’ circuit venues and everything else. We did as much research as we could on what was real of the time. We are doing entertainment, but our scenery is still real. We’re still building real worlds. I don’t think that people can watch this show and take it as a documentary. It’s entertainment.
Kirill: A week or so before this interview opportunity came along, I was watching “Dolemite” from 1975, and now I’m thinking about how do I know what the ’70s looked like. That is all from entertainment – the movies and TV shows that were either filmed back then or are portraying it, or from glamorous magazine covers. But I don’t really know how much of it is true, and how much of it is an elevated version of how it was.
Toni: Wow, “Dolemite” and one of my favorites, “Cleopatra Jones” are so rich with textures, but because they are filmed after our dates and the stories do not relate, I cannot use it as research. “Dolemite” was filmed and takes place in Los Angeles in the mid ’70s. It’s not that long after “Fight Night”, but architecture, art and fashion has changed during those few years, plus it has nothing to do with Atlanta and the world I need to create.
However, since this is based on a true story and there were two films that referenced this time, I did take an initial look at them. At the fight, there were many Black celebrities, two of which were Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. Sidney Poitier wrote and directed “Uptown Saturday Night” in 1974 and “Let’s Do It Again” in 1975, both of which are a based on the facts surrounding the fight and casino night heist. But once again, this is 5 years after my story takes place. You must be very clear on where you’re getting your research, and make sure that the time period is correct.
The same goes for architecture. When I go to Atlanta now and I look at the wrought iron railings, many are painted black. But in 1970 it was all painted white. I need to recreate that look or bring in metal window awnings to return it to that time period to make the Collier Heights neighborhood in our story believable for 1970.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/dolphin-club-greenroom.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
Dolphin Club green room set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: You mentioned that Covid caught you right after your work on “Invasion”. Looking back at these five years, do you feel that the industry is back to what it used to be and how it used to do things?
Toni: Well, not only did the pandemic change things, but the writer and actor strikes of 2023 had a major factor in the industry over the past five years. One of the things I mentioned earlier was how differently audiences digest media. The amount of content that is coming out has decreased. Where studios are filming now, including which cities and countries have changed significantly.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/dolphin-club-location-before.jpg" alt="" width="3078" height="1642" /> 
The location for Dolphin Club before work started on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: How do you see generative AI? Do you see it as an existential threat? Do you see it as yet another tool? Or is it too early to say?
Toni: I don’t think it’s too early to say. I do not currently use it because I have not seen proper regulation of it yet. I do want to see the precautions in place for all unions – not only artists working in film, but artists outside so that their work is not stolen. I must go back to that conversation that I had in architecture school with my professor. The key is that AI cannot be the designer. It must be a tool only. When we have regulations in place that protect the designer, then it becomes an extension that helps the designer, and not a replacement for the person doing the job. When that is in place, I see it being an asset. I don’t see it going away. It’s all in how it’s regulated.
Kirill: It’s all changing and evolving so fast, and I’m not sure if regulators, here in the States or abroad, will be able to match that pace and catch up to it.
Toni: It has to, without a doubt. On every single union project, it falls under a contract signed by a studio, the producers and the unions. Within that, there are rules and regulations that protect copyright and other legal matters. Every contract, every union project, no matter where it is, has a regulatory signature of whatever studio and whatever union that represents whoever is working on it. And that is there to protect the studio as well as the artist. So, yes, I think it needs to be there.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/dolphin-club-plan-graphics-materials.jpg" alt="" width="3078" height="1726" /> 
Dolphin Club floor plan and materials on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: Your job takes you to new places and new cultures, but it also takes you away from your family and friends for those long periods of time. What keeps you going? What makes you stay in this field?
Toni: I don’t know how to do anything else [laughs]. Do you ever love something so much? I remember walking down a street here in New York probably 25 years ago, and I passed this police officer who was talking about his retirement plans. He was about 45 years old and set to retire in a few years, and when I asked him why he would retire, he said that his job was for money, and then he wanted to open a business of his enjoyment later.
And here I am, sitting at my drafting table right now, and that’s where I want to be for as long as I can. I love what I do. Now, don’t get me wrong. I cry when it’s hard, when I’m not getting enough sleep because the hours are long. When I’m working, I’m waking up in the middle of the night, thinking about what we can do differently in that set or something. But when I’m not doing it, I don’t know what else to do.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/municipal-auditorium-set-construction.jpg" alt="" width="3200" height="1800" /> 
During construction of the municipal auditorium set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
Kirill: If you were born 500 years ago and you could choose what to do, without restrictions, what would it be?
Toni: What a lovely question. I don’t think I want to be Da Vinci, but I’d love to be able to be a painter – someone working on a crew, to paint a mural or something else. I imagine that it would be a collaborative job, working to complete another artist’s vision. That would be quite interesting. I don’t know why that came to mind.
There’s another thing. I was a professor at NYU for many years, until I started production designing. I love seeing the next generation of designers. I don’t think there would be such thing as teaching design back then, but maybe as part of that crew I could also participate in the education process.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="fullbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/clermont-lounge-materials.jpg" alt="" width="3054" height="1714" /> 
Visuals and materials of the Clermont Lounge set on “Fight Night”. Courtesy of Toni Barton.
And here I’d like to thank <a href="https://tonibarton.com/index.php">Toni Barton </a>for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Marilyn Lintel and Sarah Meyer for making this interview happen. “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” is <a href="https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-tv/fight-night-the-million-dollar-heist">streaming on Peacock</a>. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/inmotion/">click here</a> for additional in-depth interviews in this series.
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</item>
<item>
<title>Chroma color system – part IV, surface containment</title>
<link>https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/06/24/chroma-color-system-part-iv-surface-containment.html</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirill Grouchnikov]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jun 2025 19:11:01 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Design]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Ephemeral]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Radiance]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Swing]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/?p=19691</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After looking at how Radiance draws Swing components using container color tokens, we’re going back to the surface color tokens available for each container type (active, muted and neutral): containerSurfaceLowest containerSurfaceLow containerSurface containerSurfaceHigh containerSurfaceHighest containerSurfaceDim containerSurfaceBright Why do we need multiple surface color tokens? Why not provide a single containerSurface and be done with it? […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[After looking at <a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/06/17/chroma-color-system-part-iii-drawing-radiance-components.html">how Radiance draws</a> Swing components using container color tokens, we’re going back to the surface color tokens available for each container type (active, muted and neutral):
<ul>
<li><code>containerSurfaceLowest</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurfaceLow</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurface</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurfaceHigh</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurfaceHighest</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurfaceDim</code></li>
<li><code>containerSurfaceBright</code></li>
</ul>
Why do we need multiple surface color tokens? Why not provide a single <code>containerSurface</code> and be done with it?
For quite some time now, Radiance supported the concept of <a href="https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/radiance/blob/sunshine/docs/theming/painters/decoration.md">decoration area types</a> – recognizing that application menu bars, toolbars and status bars are common examples of special containers found in most user interfaces. These containers create functional grouping of application controls and bring order to complex screens.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/decorationareas-radiance-dust-coffee.png" alt="" width="2252" height="1692" />
This is the main Radiance demo app under the Dust Coffee skin. At the top, we have the window title pane and menubar, rendered in a darker shade of grey. Under that we have the toolbar, rendered in a slightly lighter shade of dark grey. At the bottom we have the status bar, in the same darker shade of grey. The main application content is divided into two panes – control pane on the left and main / general pane on the right.
The visual grouping and separation of application content into distinct decoration areas follows the logical grouping of application content. The so-called “chrome” parts of the UI – title pane, menu bar, toolbars – are grouped to be visually distinct from the main app content. The same applies to the bottom status bar.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/decorationareas-radiance-mariner.png" alt="" width="2252" height="1692" />
This is the same demo app under the Mariner skin. Here, a different design decision has been made. The title pane and the menubar are rendered with dark brown. The rest of the “chrome” – toolbars, control pane on the left, and the status bar are rendered in medium shade of grey. The main content is rendered with a noticeably lighter shade of grey.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-intellij-light.png" alt="" width="3264" height="2382" />
Here we have <a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/platform/2025/06/testing-a-fresh-look-for-jetbrains-ides/">the latest iteration</a> of JetBrains’ IntelliJ, the so-called One Island style. The visual styling of various areas follows the logical grouping of relevant functionality – the title pane at the top, the tool window bars on the left and the right, the left sidebar with project and structure views, the right sidebar with the Gradle view, the bottom tool window with the Run view, and finally the main editor pane in the middle. This new styling uses different shades of grey to convey the logical hierarchy of the different tools and panes, from darker shades along the edges, to medium shades for tool windows, to the lightest shade for the editor.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-intellij-dark.png" alt="" width="3264" height="2382" />
The same visual grouping and separation is applied in the One Island dark variant, starting with slightly lighter shades of dark grey along the edges, to the darkest shade of dark grey for the editor.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-claude-desktop.png" alt="" width="2504" height="2002" />
The Claude Desktop app is another example of staying with the same desaturated yellow tones, using slighly darker one for the side bar, medium one for the main panel, and the lightest one for the user reply panel in the bottom right.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-nav-drawer-jackie-brown.png" alt="" width="2567" height="1984" />
This is a concept mock of a sidebar by <a href="https://x.com/CJfromJBW/status/1934572089744539694">Jackie Brown on X</a>, visually separating the product bar on the left from the inbox / selected product bar to its right. Using a slightly darker shade of grey for the product bar provides a clean separation between the two, without being too distracting.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19701" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-weekstack-ios.png" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-weekstack-ios@2x.png 2x" alt="" width="720" height="562" />
And finally, the minimalist note taking Weekstack iOS app uses a gradation of shades of grey to separate the days of the week, both in light and in dark mode.
The common thread between all these examples is that this visual grouping and separation is achieved by using a variation of shades (or tones, in the language of Material and Radiance Chroma) of the same main color. Let’s take a look at how the different surface roles look like in Radiance:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19699" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-mariner.png" alt="" width="620" height="636" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-mariner.png 1240w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-mariner-292x300.png 292w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-mariner-998x1024.png 998w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-mariner-768x788.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />
These are the surface roles under the Mariner skin, for neutral and muted containers. On the left is the hierarchy of surface roles from lowest to highest, and on the right is the hierarchy from dim to bright.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19698" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade.png" alt="" width="625" height="630" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade.png 1250w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade-298x300.png 298w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade-1016x1024.png 1016w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade-150x150.png 150w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-nightshade-768x774.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px" />
And here are the same surface roles under the Night Shade skin.
Comparing the Radiance surface color tokens across light and dark containers, it is important to note:
<ul>
<li>The hierarchy of dim to bright will always have the bright token at a lighter tone</li>
<li>The hierarchy of lowest to highest will have the lowest token closer to its “side” of the tonal spectrum, and the highest token going “towards” the opposite side of the tonal spectrum. For light containers, it means that the lowest token is the lightest, and the highest token is the darkest. For dark containers, it flips – the lowest token is the darkest, and the highest token is the lightest.</li>
</ul>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-19697" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic.png" alt="" width="628" height="633" srcset="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic.png 1256w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic-298x300.png 298w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic-1016x1024.png 1016w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic-150x150.png 150w, https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-greenmagic-768x774.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px" />
This also works for more “colorful” skins such as Green Magic – all surface color tokens are taken from the same tonal palette, preserving a strong visual connection between them.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/surfaces-radiance-visormail.png" alt="" width="2092" height="1292" />
This demo app bundled with the Radiance shows the related concepts of decoration areas and surface containment working together. This app has three decoration areas – the light blue destinations on the left, the medium grey thread list in the middle, and the light grey thread on the right. And then, inside the thread panel on the right, this demo is using surface containment – <code>containerSurface</code> role for the overall panel, and <code>containerSurfaceHighest</code> for each one of the smaller nested boxes.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="halfbleed" src="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/decorationareas-radiance-gemini.png" alt="" width="2252" height="1692" />
Going back to the main Radiance demo app, it is using the <code>containerSurfaceLow</code> color token for the nested configuration panels in the left-side control pane. This creates a visual separation for everything related to configuring the demo table, without being too distracting (since it’s using the same tonal palette that is used on the overall control pane) – and without the need to define a separate decoration area type for it.
In the next post we’ll take a look at the world outside of user interfaces to see it through the lens of color tokens, containers, and surface containment.
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