Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1152740
9 2 P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9 glimpses of affection or maybe affirmation from patriarch Logan Roy, an 80-year-old legend of conservative news and media, worth billions, and played wonderfully by the veteran thespian Brian Cox. Succession, now shooting its second season, has a terrific ensemble cast and requires the appearance of being as expensive and absolutely entitled as its characters. Creating a world that achieves the illusion of limitless wealth, while allowing a high degree of flexibility for the writers and directors, is the grail the design team and I are constantly chasing. The show's visual style, established on the pilot and refined over season one, is at once cinematic and oddly lo-fi. While shooting on 35mm film gives the production a rich, lush look, we try to limit our appetites for big wide beauty shots—even when in grand, beautiful environments—favoring a scrappier, street- smart verité shooting style. I like to think of the cameras as being wielded by paparazzi, always spying and jostling to get a sellable angle. To that end, all the sets are necessarily 360 degree, closed tops, lit to a large degree by practical lighting, and ready to be shot by three cameras at a go. Often that level of flexibility is the only way to keep on schedule. The scripts are long, and first cuts often come in over the hour target. A bit about the creative team and how I came to the show, and I'll start with Jesse Armstrong, the creator/executive producer/chief writer/ show runner. Until Succession, my design work has focused mostly on features (Spotlight, Stronger and Can You Ever Forgive Me? are some recent examples). In my initial interview with HBO and Jesse, I gathered that these credits and not my meager episodic experience would be to my advantage. Jesse wanted the show's look to be fundamentally cinematic and keep strict respect for plausibility. There would be plenty of style (after all, rich people hire slightly less rich people to make their playgrounds stylish), but more importantly, we'd need to be faithful to the details of the all-too- real modern robber baron class the characters belong to. The juxtaposition between this ultra wealth that very few ever experience and the more familiar everyman world is part of what lets the humor land the way it does. Once hired, the first order of business was to get some key sets figured out, with limited preproduction time. As a side note, I didn't connect until halfway through watching the pilot that my friend and former boss, Kevin Thompson, designed it. I loved the choices Kevin made for the pilot, but understanding that returning to some of the locations used was impractical for a full season, I knew some things would need to be reworked. I expected if Kevin took issue with any changes, we'd sort that out over a drink at Julius'. Mind you, I didn't really know what the season would bring: there were scripts for the first few episodes, outlines for a couple more, and then it tapered off into sort of general ideas…i.e., "Wyoming Ranch," "Bachelor Party on Yacht," "Destination Wedding," that sort of thing. So I had to estimate where the season might lead, A A. LOGAN'S APARTMENT. FLOOR PLAN. DRAFTING BY MICHAEL AUSZURA. B. LOGAN'S APARTMENT. LIVING ROOM UNDER CONSTRUCTION. C. LOGAN'S APARTMENT. LIVING ROOM. SET PHOTO. D. LOGAN'S APARTMENT. DINING ROOM. SET PHOTO. E. LOGAN'S APARTMENT. LOUNGE. SET PHOTO. SET PHOTOS BY STEPHEN CARTER