Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1539634
incredible work by construction and set decoration. What we were able to accomplish can be credited in no small part to the strength of incredible Art Director Jeanine A. Ringer and Assistant Art Directors, Victoria Tam, Brontë Campbell, and the entire wonderful Art Department. It started with Ava's Office. Early on in prep, Lucia Aniello, one of our showrunners, wanted a one-er that took us from the writer's room at the end of season 3, down a hallway with a tall, curved wood wall to a fake door to Ava's Office. On stage, the crew would need to reproduce nearly everything we saw at the end of that shot. The interior of Ava's office established the color story for the production offices. Paul W. Downs, another of the showrunners, introduced the term "beautifully banal" into our show lexicon. The production would embrace the realities that mirror our own work lives and the quirks of inherited spaces. We stuck to cool white tones, we ran a coaxial cable from a ceiling tile into a very high socket, a detail we matched from one of our actual producer's offices, we matched drop ceilings, and track, cove molding, windows, doors, aluminum extrusions, down to the ubiquitous plastic torchiere lamps. We would shoot out the entirety of Ava's Office's arc in a day, showing her increasingly buried in the detritus of her work. Four days later, it would shoot as lead producer Rob's office, which needed to feel established and lived in. The crew did a subtle paint change on the walls, flipped the orientation of the desk and dressing to maximize our footprint, then built an entirely new hallway outside to feel deeper into the production office world. We did a full redress that made Rob feel like he'd spent years here. My favorite piece of set dressing is a drawing my son made of eggs and toast featured behind Rob, buried in layers of the character's mementos. Next, to nail the flavor and feel of a late-night writers' bullpen, the Art Department used images from our third showrunner, Jen Statsky's time in New York writing for late night as reference. We aimed to create an authentic space for all our writers. We extended the hallway, repainted and changed the window wall to more closely match A. & B. AVA'S "LATE NIGHT" OFFICE. SET PHOTOS. C. & D. "LATE NIGHT" WRITERS' BULLPEN. SET PHOTOS. A B C D