‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Production Design Interview

Whether or not they’re modern flats that give us essential context a few most important character or impossibly implausible starships and castles that present us the character of a fictional setting, manufacturing design transports us to locations that simply really feel proper. However it’s usually under-appreciated simply how shortly these settings come collectively and the way a lot element escapes even our capacity to pause on any body. Be part of IndieWire in spotlighting the manufacturing designers and artwork groups who sort out spectacular logistical challenges to do spectacular visible worldbuilding.  

“What We Do In The Shadows” has made Staten Island a gothic paradise for vampires — or a minimum of a suitable secret headquarters for Vitality Vampires from throughout the world — for 5 seasons now, with a ultimate Season 6 arriving in October. One in all the joys of a collection that will get an prolonged run throughout a number of seasons is that the manufacturing workforce has that many extra alternatives to broaden the world and play with current places. The tone and aesthetic and the key places are already locked in. The arduous half’s executed, proper? 

In no way. Preserving a present visually contemporary is a part of what retains it attention-grabbing. However that sort of collection longevity additionally creates the problem of sustaining all the areas the present wants — or would possibly have to return to. 

“What We Do in the Shadows” has its most important Vampire Residence, in fact, and it must return that area to its regular look even after Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) falls by means of the ground or an experiment of Lazlo’s (Matt Berry) goes awry. However the FX collection additionally has to maintain observe of in all places The Information (Kristen Schaal) takes our vampires, or in all places they stumble into in their varied quests for friendship, acceptance, or holding Nandor (Kayvan Novak) from discovering out his Acquainted might need extra vampire blood than beforehand believed. 

IndieWore spoke to manufacturing designer Shayne Fox, who began as a set decorator on Season 1 and progressively expanded her portfolio from curating ornate lamps and baroque materials to, on Season 5, designing and supervising the constructing of vampire-resistant cages and tall belfries for Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) to fall by means of. 

Fox’s work on the later seasons of “What We Do in the Shadows” has to stability the present’s current areas and belongings and the new places wanted particularly for Season 5, with each needing to return collectively as a part of the half-hour comedy’s fast-moving shoot. Already having standing units doesn’t essentially make a manufacturing designer’s work simpler, but it surely inventive methods for “What We Do in the Shadows” to reuse its vampire horde of dusty rooms and treasures from throughout time. 

This interview has been edited for size and readability.  

IndieWire: While you shut down a season, what do you do to all of the builds and props? And once you open a season, what do you’ve got readily available and what do you could rebuild?

Shayne Fox: There are such a lot of variables at play. We had been fortunate sufficient to get greenlit, I feel at the finish of Season 3, for 2 extra seasons again to again, so we knew we had a piece of time. We knew we might hunker down, and we didn’t should put all the pieces away. We had been additionally fortunate we had a lease on the studio so the mansion and the standing units might keep up — which doesn’t all the time occur in tv. 

A few of the issues which might be in the standing units are long-term leases, so generally if there’s a piece between seasons, now we have to ship them again to the warehouses, or we pay for an prolonged rental to maintain them. 

Like as an illustration, the chandelier in the lobby of the home, we rented that from Warner Brothers in L.A. for the complete six seasons of the present. We would minimize them a verify each six months for an prolonged rental, as a result of once we began in Season 1, we didn’t understand how lengthy we had been going to go. So that you simply pull issues and also you lease stuff as a result of the manufacturing doesn’t wish to pay to personal all the pieces. In hindsight, it could have been extra logistically and financially clever to buy one thing, however that is the means TV goes: No one desires to purchase all the pieces. 

So, we rented stuff after which over the years we began changing issues that had been leases with issues we discovered. Like, “Oh, that armoire looks just like the armoire, and it’s $60 bucks. Let’s just buy it and paint it to look like it should.” After which throughout the road from our studio was our warehouse for all the set ornament and props, rooms filled with lamps and sconces and stacks of rugs and mattresses and all kinds of stuff. Pallets of the rooms that now we have established beforehand that we don’t all the time know if we’re going again to. 

Jenna’s [Beanie Feldstein] dorm room from Season 1, we held onto that as a result of there was a slight probability it could come again, so it’s simply in our warehouse. Then slowly over the years, we began pilfering issues from Jenna’s warehouse pallets as a result of we knew she wasn’t coming again. 

We attempt to be conscious of what makes the most sense to carry onto and what we are able to recycle. We recycle a lot on “What We Do in the Shadows.” I do know I might reupholster that sofa or I might paint it or we might use it in a scene the place a sofa must explode. So we maintain onto issues as a lot as area permits us. 

That’s spectacular as a result of how a lot area does a half-hour comedy get to have, even? 

One factor we don’t have, particularly on a half-hour comedy, is a complete lot of time. We don’t get an enormous runway once we’re approaching prep for a season. We don’t ever have the luxurious of time, area, and cash.

It’s like an Iron Triangle factor. 

Yeah, it looks like Einstein, like the time-space continuum. You throw the {dollars} in there after which it’s like mathematically difficult. 

So, for Season 5, we had been approaching the design idea and dreaming up all the pieces in Morrigan Manor and there was 5,000 different issues occurring. That’s the means episodic TV is, you understand. You’re prepping episodes, you’re wrapping episodes, you’re taking pictures episodes, your workforce is throughout the place. It’s not like I had weeks to sit down and take into consideration Perdita’s world and ideate this manor. We needed to go shoot it in a few weeks. We have to determine it out. 

One thing that occurred to me — and I’m glad we did — was construct out as a lot as we might from the current areas. We discover that once we’re constructing units, versus being on location, it’s all the time higher as a result of there’s normally quite a lot of stunts or particular results. It’s actually arduous to do these issues on another person’s property, you understand. So I’m making an attempt to push for these sophisticated units that stuff has to occur in to be in the studio, however we didn’t have quite a lot of area and studio units aren’t low-cost to do. 

So, we took the Chamber of Curiosities from Season 3 and the Archives Library, which we’d had taking on area, and we used that for Morrigan. We reclad, repainted, repositioned, added partitions, took out partitions, and added a fire. However the drawing room of Morrigan Manor is definitely the Chamber of Curiosities area. 

Additionally, for the fencing fitness center, we did the very same factor: reclad, repainted, added home windows, new flooring, plug this, plug that. And it was the Archives Library.

It feels very aligned with the “What We Do in the Shadows” aesthetic, too. Completely different exhibits would possibly take totally different approaches.  

Completely different approaches and totally different aesthetics and totally different budgets and totally different studio areas and totally different showrunners and writers. Typically, being on location is best since you get the actual world in the background, and generally exhibits want to manage all of the components so studio builds are higher.  COVID had a big effect on how we shot “What We Do in the Shadows” as a result of we couldn’t exit into the actual world. That was once we constructed the Chamber of Curiosities and the Archives Library and quite a lot of different standing units as a result of we might management our little hub of individuals and check all people. The pandemic affected us that means. 

TV exhibits seem to be miracles anyway, however particularly underneath these circumstances. Like, it’s wild to me anyway that exhibits usually don’t have all the scripts once they get began. 

Really, like I usually say I’m so shocked we’re in a position to do something due to all of the bonkers parameters — simply constructing a taking pictures schedule is mind-blowing and the way you stability all this stuff like [shooting for] daytime and nighttime and so and so’s not obtainable on this present day. 

I feel in the starting, we had a smaller funds, and we needed to get extra artful and extra inventive, and that’s how the base look was established of portray furnishings and portray cloth versus reinforcing as a result of we didn’t have time or cash.

And that simply turned kind of campy and have become its personal kind of design aesthetic that we established. We did lots with paint as a result of it was quick. You might take a $100 chair you discover on Kijiji that’s acquired good bones and hastily we’re including fur to it, and a few tassel trim, and portray the cloth, after which possibly we’ll screw on some antlers, with some huge bizarre tassel, and now it’s one thing. It’s ridiculous, however you place Nandor in it doing a speaking head confessional to the digital camera, and it simply works. 

“What We Do in the Shadows” is on the market to stream on Hulu.