Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512164
1 0 2 P E R S P E C T I V E | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 3 tirelessly for four seasons to build not just an impactful, hilarious and celebrated television series, but also a professional ecosystem that values her crews' humanity and health just as much as its creative output. It all starts with a brick of script pages that's typically over two hundred fifty pages long. We treat this like our bible. Before we begin the design process, we attend a two-day table read and witness the comic beats develop while actors work their way through the pages. Seeing the sketches come alive helps us understand each one tonally, get a sense for how blocking might develop, and note where the flex points are for designing things bigger or smaller to support the comedy. After this, we brainstorm concepts and bounce ideas off each other to come up with distinct looks and backstories for each sketch. We tackle sketches as though they are separate short films, with their own references, genres and approach. It's a great advantage to get all the scripts before preproduction even really begins; it allows us to have a long view of the entire season and make sure we don't repeat ourselves. Season four started with fifty scripted sketches; we ended up shooting a total of forty-six sketches, with more than forty sets shot in thirty days. To help communicate our ideas, we create a design website for every project we work on. We have been doing this for many years; it's a tool that as far as we know is unique to our process. For ABLSS, each sketch gets its own dedicated page with references for palette, textures, finishes, furnishings, graphics and props. The website is continually updated with images, overheads, mock-ups, ever- changing location photos, and finally, finished set photos. It is shared with our whole team across departments and keeps everyone informed as to where our Production Design is heading. The website is the first thing we start assembling, even before the rest of our department is hired, and it's one of the last pieces of documentation we tie up before the season wraps. Continuing with season four as an example, we hit the ground running with location scouts on our first day. We find locations that can accommodate A B C