Directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton now have an Emmy nomination to go alongside their Oscar recognition. The latter came back in 2007 with the wife-and-husband directing duo’s feature debut, Little Miss Sunshine, which earned four Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture while winning for Best Original Screenplay (Michael Arndt) and Best Supporting Actor (the late, great Alan Arkin). On the strength of the film, Faris and Dayton received a DGA Award nomination as well as a BAFTA nom for the David Lean Award for Direction, and won the Best Director honor from the Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Jumping ahead to just several weeks ago, that’s when Faris and Dayton landed that alluded to first career Emmy nomination--for directing the “Me-Time” episode of the limited series Fleishman Is in Trouble (FX). This was one of seven nominations bestowed upon Fleishman Is in Trouble, the others spanning casting, contemporary costumes, lead actress (Lizzy Caplan), supporting actress (Claire Danes), writing (Taffy Brodesser-Akner) and the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series categories.
Faris and Dayton also served as exec producers on Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Initially there were 10 episodes of Fleishman in the works, with Faris and Dayton slated to direct them all. However, the series got pared down to eight installments with Faris and Dayton early on knowing that even then, other directors had to be brought into the mix to do full justice to the show. Faris and Dayton wound up directing three episodes, with four helmed by another married team, Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, and the remaining episode directed by Alice Wu. Like Faris and Dayton, Pulcini and Springer Berman have an awards pedigree which includes a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for American Splendor, and a DGA Award nod last year for an episode of Succession.
While it seems somehow fitting that two married couples direct most of a limited series dealing with divorce and struggling marriages, such matchmaking wasn’t by design. Based on the novel by Brodesser-Akner, the series--which she also wrote--simply drew in Faris and Dayton who in turn gravitated to Pulcini and Berman, having been fans of their work for some time.
While matrimony wasn’t a directorial prerequisite, Faris noted that being part of a duo to “bat things around” helped as a dynamic when approaching the series--as did exchanging ideas as EPs/directors with another couple as well versed as Pulcini and Springer Berman.
But Faris explained that the prime attraction to Fleishman Is in Trouble for her and Dayton was that they simply loved Brodesser-Akner’s writing. “For us it’s always about the writer and a voice,” related Faris, who described Brodesser-Akner, also a series EP, as “a force of nature.” Faris also found the voiceover orientation of Fleishman to be creatively “liberating,” departing from her and Dayton’s directorial norm which up until then had been dialogue-driven storytelling. Dayton added that Brodesser-Akner is “so ambitious and so fearless,” pushing the envelope with inspired writing which in turn inspires her collaborators.
Additionally Faris said that she and Dayton felt simpatico with Brodesser-Akner and EPs Susannah Grant and Sarah Timberman, affirming this was “a great group of people to get into business with.”
Dayton and Faris marveled over the entire cast and crew. For instance, Danes gave a tour de force performance, perhaps most notably in the “Me-Time” episode. Up to that point, viewers of the limited series had seen the results of the emotional breakdown suffered by Danes’ character. But in episode seven (“Me-Time”), the audience experienced that breakdown, observed Dayton. “And Claire did it in such a fresh way.”
Faris recalled wondering how Danes was going to realize such a performance. Ultimately the directors trusted her first instinct. “She surprised us every time,” said Faris, noting that the actor brought so much to the role. Being able to see people like Danes at the top of their game was the fun, fulfilling part of the production, affirmed Faris.
At the same time, there were some aspects envisioned that proved a bit too ambitious and couldn’t be brought to fruition. Dayton shared that at one juncture there was an episode where “we were going to suddenly stop the story and see a musical” (‘Presidentrix,’ as featured in the story).” The idea of a musical within an episode “loomed large for quite awhile,” continued Dayton. While it qualified as a potentially fascinating addition, the musical ultimately didn’t make sense to pursue with a workload encompassing other episodes and time being of the essence.
Still, there was plenty of creative space in which to stretch out as eight hours of content afforded more opportunities for in-depth storytelling and character development. Dayton related, “The form of the limited series is an important new medium. There are times when films expand into three-and-a-half hours and push the limits of what a feature could be. Certain stories want to be told over multiple episodes. This experience has been very gratifying. We had more positive feedback about this show than anything we’ve done since Little Miss Sunshine. I felt we reached the public with this.”
Faris chimed in, “That’s part of the reason we do what we do. We find material that speaks to us. And we hope it will speak to an audience.”
On the flip side, Faris feels there’s no substitute for the shared big-screen experience. She would like to see more films--and content that is otherwise streamed--enjoyed in theaters. At the time of this SHOOT interview, Faris and Dayton the evening before had attended a theater screening of The Beanie Bubble, directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash. It was a special, fun experience to see such a beautifully made film on the big screen--in a theater full of people, Faris said.
However, asked if the intimacy and personal nature of content like Fleishman Is in Trouble are enhanced when seen in the privacy of one’s home, Faris said there was some validity to that argument. Yet at the same time, she wished out aloud that people could more often be able “to experience a certain intimacy together” in a communal setting such as a theater. That, she observed, is what’s missing in the world today--the lack of shared experiences to underscore our similarities and common ground, helping to push back against the isolation, fragmentation and dividing of audiences.
Faris and Dayton came together and made their mark on the filmmaking side across varied disciplines. It started with the MTV music documentary show The Cutting Edge and then spanned music videos (for the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers) as well as commercials before successfully dovetailing into features with first Little Miss Sunshine followed by the under-the-radar and underrated Ruby Sparks and then Battle of the Sexes, a 2017 release which delved deeply into the psyches and internal emotional battles of Billie Jean King (portrayed by Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) whose lives intersected in a historic tennis match held at the Houston Astrodome in 1973.
On the TV series side, Faris and Dayton have served as directors/EPs on Fleishman Is in Trouble and the Paul Rudd-starring Living With Yourself. Faris and Dayton continue to direct select commercials and branded content projects through production company Bob Industries. And Faris noted that their short-form endeavors inform their TV series and feature work, and vice versa. She observed, for example, that the voiceover orientation of Fleishman Is in Trouble translated for her and Dayton into “a language that is almost like music to us,” which is conducive to being able to play in “a much more free visual style.” She and Dayton said it very much reminded them of their past music video work and how that spawned new turns visually.
Declan Lowney
When jurors bestowed a Peabody Award upon Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) in 2021, they issued a statement which described the show as “a smart, funny, captivating celebration of good heartedness.” Jason Sudeikis portrays the title character, a folksy American college football coach who is enticed to the U.K. to lead a down-on-their luck Premiere League soccer team. The show’s heart comes from the quietly radical way that Lasso, a man in a position of power, chooses kindness at every turn without sacrificing his authority. He coaches a highly competitive group of athletes to perform at the highest level by embracing vulnerability, empathy and decency. Peabody judges characterized Lasso as “affecting change by being a deeply good human, one with his own quiet anxieties and pain. The Apple TV+ series is the perfect counter to the enduring prevalence of toxic masculinity, both on-screen and off, in a moment when the nation truly needs inspiring models of kindness.”
Being involved with a show that touches people in a positive way can be a transformative experience. When SHOOT first connected with director Declan Lowney to discuss Ted Lasso, he had earned his first Emmy nomination in 2021 for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series on the strength of the “Make Rebecca Great Again” episode. He observed back then that Ted Lasso is “a comedy series where people are nice to each other at a time when people are often horrible to each other in comedy.” While contributing to any hit show is gratifying, Lowney affirmed it is even more so when the show is centered on the power of kindness.
Fast forward to today, and Lowney has since received two more Emmy nods for Ted Lasso. As supervising producer he was part of the team that won the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy in 2022; and last month he again became a directorial nominee--this time for the “So Long, Farewell” finale.
Ted Lasso has proven to be transformative in another respect for Lowney. Prior to taking it on, he was looking to more firmly establish himself in the American market, having a foothold already as an accomplished director in the U.K.; he had already been a six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee and two-time winner (for the comedy series Father Ted on U.K.’s Channel 4, and Help from the BBC). Ted Lasso has given Lowney a high-profile perch in the U.S., also yielding a Producers Guild Award win for him in ‘22 in the episodic TV comedy category.
Though he lost out on a pitch to direct the pilot for Ted Lasso, Lowney wound up getting the opportunity to helm episodes seven and eight during that first season--with lucky number seven, “Make Rebecca Great Again,” garnering him his first career Emmy nomination.
Lowney’s first season showing also netted him the chance to serve in a hybrid director/supervising producer role during the second season. He went back to just directing in season three as an increased workload (including helming two episodes of The Big Door Prize) caused him to step down from his supervising producer capacity on Ted Lasso.
Still, looking back on it, Lowney shared that the producing experience on season two was an eye opener. He became involved in the hiring of other directors and got the opportunity to see what other directors did and how they worked. “I would think, ‘I am just like that. Or shit, I’m nothing like that.’ We all have our insecurities.” Lowney found great value in seeing “how different directors approach things differently. It was a golden opportunity to see other directors working. Most directors don’t want other directors watching them.”
Lowney also got a deeper sense of and appreciation for how the writing worked, how directors pushed to do justice to the story, and the importance of having structure yet being fluid. “Jason [Sudeikis] doesn’t like to tie anything down until he really has to. Comedy is an organic thing. What you thought at the beginning of a season might need to be re-thought a bit later. Certain characters may turn out to be stronger than you originally thought and so on.”
The supervising producer perspective, noted Lowney, informed his directing--as did Sudeikis. Lowney observed that conventional thinking has a director embarking on a shoot day intent on “having to do this and that,” completing a certain number of pages. “Your brain is conditioned to work that way in television. But Jason doesn’t work that way. He works kind of in the opposite way. He’s willing to bend a little to accommodate what’s happening. If something is working brilliantly, he goes with it. Maybe you won’t get this or that during the day. But what you’re getting is valuable and can put you in a position to make the work better. He has the confidence to challenge the norm and try to roll with what’s going on. If a guy is struggling, give him a bit more time to get it right. It’s a slightly more relaxed vibe which is important, particularly in comedy.”
Lowney’s body of work extends beyond TV comedy series (including U.K. stalwarts Little Britain and Cold Feet) to features (Alan Partridge) and commercials which include the famed ongoing Warburtons bread campaign which over the years has featured Sylvester Stallone, The Muppets, Robert De Niro and George Clooney, among others. (The latest being Samuel L. Jackson.)
Lowney is repped in the U.K. ad market by production house Merman; his U.S. spotmaking roost is Minted Content. Lowney’s commercialmaking has won a Cannes Grand Prix, Gold and Silver Lions, D&AD Pencils, British Arrows and Kinsale Sharks.
Lowney observed that his commercial directing has informed his TV series and feature work. “My visual end of things has improved massively since I started making commercials, working with fantastic DPs and designers, playing around with the look of things. That has upped my production value in television.”
On the flip side, he continued, “Working with great comedians, celebrity A-listers in TV, brings a special comedic experience,” which has befitted his spotmaking endeavors.
Ted Lasso--which earned 21 Emmy nominations this year, including for Outstanding Comedy Series--continues to open doors for Lowney. Before the actors’ and writers’ strikes intervened, he was scheduled to direct Kiss and Tell, a romantic comedy feature for Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Screen Gems.
Timothy A. Good, ACE and Emily Mendez
The Last of Us (HBO) made an impact on the awards show circuit well before any nominations were announced. The season finale drew 8.2 million people despite airing against this year’s Oscars telecast, continuing a run of impressive numbers. The series premiere garnered 4.7 million viewers in the U.S., which amounts to HBO’s second largest debut ever, just behind House of the Dragon.
Then last month, The Last of Us made its mark in the Emmy competition with 24 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series--the second highest tally this year, just behind the 27 nods for Succession. Clearly The Last of Us--adapted from a popular video game that bowed 10 years ago--has struck a responsive chord with TV Academy members, critics, audiences, gamers and non-gamers alike. Created by Craig Mazin, the architect of the Emmy-winning limited series Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann who developed the video game, The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, a smuggler who’s assigned the task of escorting a teenager, Ellie played by Bella Ramsey, across a post-apocalyptic U.S. The teen is immune to a fungal infection that has taken over the planet.
Among The Last of Us nominees are a mentor and a mentee--Timothy A. Good, ACE and Emily Mendez, respectively--who have been recognized in the Outstanding Picture Editing for a Drama Series for the “Endure and Survive” episode. This marks the first Emmy nomination for both. Mendez had been Good’s assistant for several years and they built a nurturing relationship. Describing himself as “a big advocate of mentorship,” Good noted that he’s made a concerted effort “to train every assistant I ever hired.” When he and Mendez first worked together on the series The Resident, Good afforded his assistant the opportunity to cut select sequences, ultimately translating into their co-editing a number of episodes.
Similarly with The Last of Us, Mendez served as Good’s assistant and got the chance to edit a couple of scenes for episode three, “Long, Long Time.” Also early on, Mendez connected with Mazin, bonding over their mutual love of sound design. With impetus from Good and the support of Mazin, Mendez dovetailed into co-editing four of the episodes, including the Emmy-nominated fifth installment.
An unabashed fan of the video game and over the moon when she got to work on the HBO series it inspired, Mendez characterized her progression on The Last of Us--starting as an assistant, co-editing episodes and now getting an Emmy nod---as being “like a dream. Working on a story I love, with a person [Good] I love, and Craig whom I love. We just understand each other. It feels like solving puzzles everyday with friends.”
Good, a 20-year editing veteran whose credits also include such shows as The Umbrella Academy and Fringe, related, “I’ve never really concerned myself with awards because I just love the work so much. But I’m so excited about this nomination because it includes Emily. With my journey as an editor helping and mentoring others, to be nominated alongside her is gratifying--as it is to be recognized by fellow editors, some of the most discerning people in the film business.”
Still, there are challenges to even a dream project. Mendez observed, “My biggest challenge was both a good and a bad thing. I felt so connected to the material and the storylines, I would bring it home with me, constantly feeling the emotions of the stories and our characters. Having that connection is wonderful--to put that into the work we are doing. But it also had me feeling that I can’t get it out of my mind--back home when I see my wife and our dog. The challenge was ultimately finding the right balance.”
For Good, a prime challenge involved the pilot. Originally that first episode came in at between 35 and 40 minutes and ended without establishing the character of Ellie, offering only a glimpse. The pilot centered on Joel and ended on a particularly bleak note. Good saw the need to take elements of episode two with its introduction of Ellie and mesh it somehow with the pilot. With Mendez’s help, Good did just that, deleting some scenes, bringing others together in new ways. With the support of Mazin and Druckmann, a new structure was fashioned, realizing a greater connectivity between the two episodes to create a singular pilot of about an hour and 20 minutes. Pickup shots done nine months after the original lensing were incorporated into the pilot. Making sure that the original photography connected emotionally with material shot nine months later was a major challenge which Good and Mendez embraced.
For their co-editing exploits on four episodes, Good explained that he and Mendez have a division of labor in which “each of us chase a specific character arc all the way through. We follow specific characters through their journey. At the same time we are always talking to each other. We show each other our work so that we can pinpoint ideas and things that are working in my sequences versus her sequences.”
Mendez said the major advantage they enjoy from the outset is the top-drawer quality of the story. “We are lucky that Craig Mazin is such a beautiful writer. We have beautiful scripts to work on as we keep pushing each other.”
Beyond the writing, Good said he’s benefited from another lesson imparted by Mazin. “What I learned from Craig was how to really restrain yourself when you’re telling stories that have such an emotional impact. Normally you might try to go big with certain sequences, to go operatic. But he’s very cautious about connecting with audiences organically. ‘Let’s not add music. Let’s keep things simpler.’ I saw how that paid off a lot of the times when you think you have to push to get an audience to connect.”
Similarly Mendez noted that when she started out working with Mazin on sound design for the pilot, there was a chaotic scene with characters trying to escape in the wake of a terrible disaster. At first, she recalled, there was a lot of sound design coming at you. Mazin proposed an alternative, little pockets of sound--a gunshot, a couple of people screaming. Mendez found that this more subdued approach added to the tension and fear. “This reverse approach makes such a huge difference. And we continued to do that for our sound design and editing in certain scenes.”
Good observed that this restrained approach reflects a trust in the intelligence and emotional wherewithal of the audience to fill in the gaps, making viewers more intimately involved in the narrative as it unfolds.
Jessica Kender
The story behind production designer Jessica Kender taking on Daisy Jones & The Six (Prime Video)--a musical drama for which she recently scored her first career Emmy nomination--began on the second shoot day of Little Fires Everywhere. Kender recalled Lauren Neustadter, president of film and TV at Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine, coming by the set and asking her how she felt about the 1970s. Kender recalled Neustadter handing her a book and imploring her to read it. That weekend Kender read it in one sitting and was hooked. The book was Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones & the Six.”
Scott Neustadter, Lauren’s husband, co-created and was a showrunner on the 10-episode series of the same title based on that novel. Like Little Fires Everywhere, Daisy Jones & the Six was a Hello Sunshine project. Daisy Jones & the Six centers on a rock band in the 1970s fronted by two charismatic lead singers: Daisy Jones (portrayed by Riley Keough) and Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) who have palpable onstage chemistry and a tumultuous behind-the-scenes relationship. The show chronicles a high-profile rock band’s skyrocket-like ascent to fame and then its precipitous fall.
The series struck a responsive chord with critics and viewers alike, scoring nine Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and Best Lead Actress for Keough.
Kender and her compatriots--art director Brian Grego, and set decorators Lisa Clark and Andi Brittan--share the production design Emmy nomination for Daisy Jones & the Six. It’s the first Emmy nod for each artist. Kender has a track record of collaboration with Grego and Clark. Daisy Jones & the Six, though, marked Kender’s first time working with Brittan.
Kender described Grego as “my work husband.” They have collaborated together over the past 10-plus years, going all the way back to Dexter. “We share the same aesthetic sense, the same work style,” said Kender, noting that upon fashioning the basic plan for a set, she can always count on Grego to take it “a step further.”
Similarly Clark consistently brings something extra to the table. Kender has enjoyed a collaborative bond with Clark for some seven years. “A set will be dressed in the way that I have in mind,” related Kender. “But with Lisa, there’s always something that goes one step further, something I would have never thought of and that is the icing on the cake.” Kender noted that she, Clark and Grego are a close-knit unit.
Kender explained, though, that Daisy Jones & the Six was such “a monster” of a project that another set decorator was needed. At the strong recommendation of a trusted friend, Kender gravitated towards Brittan who was a revelation, going on location to New Orleans at one point when Clark had to stay in Los Angeles. Kender noted that Brittan came on when much of the look of the series was established yet still managed to add her own creative spark while maintaining the overall continuity of what had been designed, successfully navigating a delicate balancing act.
The degree of difficulty was elevated for Daisy Jones & the Six when the decision was made to make this primarily “a location show,” particularly in terms of iconic venues like L.A. recording studio Sound City and performing venue the Troubadour, explained Kender. ”A lot of series are built around a permanent sets. You could have four big sets to go back to. For this [Daisy Jones] we built sets but none of them were an anchor point. We were constantly on location.”
Kender said that originally there were plans to build an ambitious Sound City set. Then one of the series directors, Nzingha Stewart, who came from a music video background, walked into the actual Sound City. Kender recalled that Stewart said, “If we shoot it here, we will give the actors the gift they would not get somewhere else--the ghosts of music past.”
Sound City, however, had been modernized, necessitating that Kender and her crew “build a set within the location.” Thankfully the original sound board was still intact. Yeoman work brought the Sound City setting to life, adding a feel and realism to the show.
Similarly, continued Kender, the Troubadour’s modern lights had to be scaled back in order to attain the desired 1970s’ look. The lensing for the series took place right around the time when the COVID pandemic had eased and live music had returned to the Troubadour and other venues. Bands got booked and the Troubadour was fully honoring that scheduled activity, meaning that there was no wiggle room for Kender and her ensemble in-between these concerts/performances. “We had to think ‘how do we cover up all this modern stuff to create the [1970s] era and then restore it to what it is today in just a day and a half [when the next band is scheduled to perform]?” Kender’s team managed to neatly turn that trick.
Kender added that her experience on Daisy Jones & the Six “gave me a new appreciation for how music is made. What I love about this job is I get to meet and in a sense become people you would never get a chance to know in your day-to-day activity. You get to see into these worlds that you aren’t let into otherwise. You see the way music is made and the passion for it, which is very exciting.”
The production designer noted that she comes away from every project “just astounded by my peers,” feeling lucky to get the opportunity to work with artists ranging from the writers to the directors, people in her art department and so on.
Kender’s Emmy nod for Daisy Jones & the Six adds to career recognition which also includes a pair of Art Directors Guild (ADG) Excellence in Production Design Award nominations--in 2018 for the series Future Man, and in 2021 for Little Fires Everywhere. Like for Daisy Jones & the Six, Kender shared these ADG noms with Grego and Clark.
Ariel Marx
A Small Light (National Geographic) means a lot to composer Ariel Marx both personally and professionally. On the latter front, she garnered her first career Emmy nomination for creating the original dramatic score for the “What Can Be Saved” episode of the limited series.
And personally, the story looms large for Marx. It is based on the inspiring true story of Miep Gies (portrayed by Bel Powley) who helped to hide the family of Anne Frank (Billie Boulet) from the Nazis during World War II. Gies and her husband, Jan (Joe Cole), along with several other everyday heroes, watched over the Frank, van Pels and Pfeffer families hiding in a secret annex.
Marx comes from a Jewish family. Her great grandmother fled Poland to escape the rise of antisemitism. The family eventually settled in the Bronx.
Composer Marx was drawn to the story--and to the creative approach that was adopted to realize it. Marx noted that she and costume designer Matthew Simonelli, for example, were brought onto the project even though they had never done a period drama before. “They intentionally asked people with other and more modern sensibilities to bring those values to the show,” related Marx, explaining that while A Small Light delves into history, the story carries modern-day relevance. The creative braintrust of the series wanted contemporary audiences to be able to relate to that story--thus the decision was made not to fall into the trap of taking a straight period drama approach. While period elements would be part of the show’s fabric, the feel of today was essential. The story almost asks us what we would have done in Gies’ shoes. And in modern times, would we have the courage to push back against hatred, injustice, racism and religious persecution?
Sadly, the question is painfully relevant today with the rise of bigotry, white nationalism, racism, anti-antisemitism and the villainizing of refugees. There’s much to be learned from Gies relative to what she means to the present era. While many stood by, Gies stood up and stood tall in A Small Light.
“The language of the show is as modern as it can be for that time. A solemn reverence is often given to people from different time periods and sometimes it’s hard to relate to them,” said Marx who described the protagonists in A Small Light as normal, fairly ordinary people. “Miep was kind of a hot mess before she was given the opportunity to do the right thing,” pointed out Marx. “She was unemployed, living with her parents.” Yet Gies and the families in hiding--ordinary, everyday folks--responded to harrowing circumstances in an extraordinary, courageous and heroic manner.
For Marx it was important to “not make the music bigger than they were essentially.” This underscored that ordinary people were capable of doing the extraordinary, particularly Gies whom Marx regards as the centerpiece of a “coming-of-age story” in A Small Light. Marx also incorporated avant garde, electronic music as well as elements of improvisation to again help bring the narrative to the contemporary world in which we live.
Similarly, A Small Light very much lived in its own present--not in the tragic ending for the Frank family and Anne in particular. “We were being very present with these people. Everyone believed that they would see the end of the war. We were not playing to the ending. We were playing in the existing light, the existing stakes.”
And in the penultimate episode (number seven, for which Marx got the Emmy nomination), the annex gets raided--as seen only through Gies’ perspective. “You don’t see the violence upstairs,” noted Marx. “We can hear it, with the helpers on the ground floor able to do nothing. They throw all the obstructions they can into the situation, trying to keep the families hidden as long as they can.” The emotion inherent in this scenario was challenging for Marx. This “What Can Be Saved” episode was “scored almost wall to wall,” said Marx, citing a prime musical challenge as being to maintain the tension for a lengthy period without being exhausted, gratuitous or melodramatic.”
The major lesson that Marx gleaned from her experience on A Small Light was, “We can take these historic stories and break them down into more evocative and effective stories by making them a bit more relatable. People are craving less distance from period drama.” Viewers, she observed, are responding to more modern and relatable moments along with being able to see historic figures in new ways, reflecting the good, bad and the ugly inside them, the flaws and the minutiae of everyday life. This truth, continued Marx, helps history and its stories to resonate.
Judy Rhee
Among the four Emmy nominations earned by the Rian Johnson-created Poker Face, the mystery-case-of-the-week Peacock series, is Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour or More) from a team headed by production designer Judy Rhee for “The Orpheus Syndrome” episode. Rhee is nominated alongside art director Martha Sparrow and set decorator Cathy T. Marshall. Rhee and Marshall are first-time Emmy nominees. Sparrow has received six career nods over the years, the other five for A Handmaid’s Tale for which she won in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
An admirer of director/writer/producer Johnson’s work over the years in film, Rhee was enthused over landing an interview for Poker Face with Ram Bergman, executive producer at production company T-Street. Johnson and Bergman are at the helm of T-Street, and Poker Face marked their first TV series. Rhee’s interview with Bergman led to a get-together with Johnson. “We discovered in our meeting that we shared a mutual admiration for Italian neo-realism films,” recalled Rhee who after reading the treatment and first script for Poker Face knew she had to work on the show. “I connected to the material on many levels; the reference and homage to the ‘70s and ‘80s mystery-of-the-week shows like Columbo and Rockford Files, which I thought was interesting and original, and the main character traveling across the country encountering different characters and stories. I was also aware this would be challenging on an episodic schedule.”
That schedule represented what Rhee regarded as “the biggest hurdle of the show,” which stars Natasha Lyonne (who also serves as a director, writer and exec producer) as Charlie Cale, a woman with the uncanny knack to detect if people are lying, which serves her well at poker tournaments and as a sleuth.
Rhee, who served as production designer on all 10 episodes of season one, explained, “As much as the premise of the series excited me, I was equally concerned how to accomplish the requirements of a new and different story every 10 days. Each episode posed its unique undertaking, but for ‘The Orpheus Syndrome’ the script written for Northern California presented a few dilemmas; the cliffside jump onto the rocks of the Northern California coastline, the geographically specific architecture of Laura’s house [Cherry Jones guest starred as Laura] and an uncommon building to represent [VFX studio] LAM, which was loosely based on Industrial Light & Magic. All had to be found and modified in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. The other considerable endeavor was to find and create a substantial amount of work to represent Arthur’s [guest star Nick Nolte] 40+ years in the industry as an animator, stop-motion filmmaker, visual effects artist and creature designer, among other things. Arthur’s character was loosely based on the legendary Phil Tippett, who designed and created the stop motion characters of ‘The Orpheus Syndrome.’ This aspect was helpful for our research. All while simultaneously prepping episode 10, and starting prep for episode 2 in New Mexico which were both filmed after episode eight.”
Helping immeasurably in meeting these and other challenges was a core team which included Sparrow and Marshall. “I feel fortunate to have had the crew I did on Poker Face,” said Rhee. “Without them, none of what we accomplished would have been possible. I first worked with Martha Sparrow in 2015 as one of the set designers on an Amazon pilot for Steve Conrad’s Patriot in Montreal. She displayed an uncanny ability to stay calm, produce eloquent work under extreme pressure in a condensed schedule. Her ability to anticipate and follow through on many tasks made her efforts on that pilot invaluable. Her progression into art directing a few years later was no surprise. I tried to hire her on other projects since then, but our schedules did not align until last year when she was available to join us on Poker Face.
“Both Martha and Cathy have the ability to efficiently spin multiple plates, which was necessary to meet the demands of the series,” continued Rhee who recalled being “equally thrilled when Cathy Marshall was available and decided to join us as our alternating set decorator. Although, we’ve tried to work together in the past, this was our first time collaborating. Cathy’s experience and self-motivated approach was key to managing the necessities of the schedule. She too had the ability to stay calm and focus on the tasks at hand while running her crew. Our dialogue and conversations sometimes consisted of fast, compact exchanges of ideas, since we rarely had time for extended meetings and discussions. This non- traditional arrangement somehow worked for our alliance.”
Rhee was also gratified by the nature of her collaborative relationships with Johnson and Lyonne. “Working with Rian Johnson was a great experience and I look forward to collaborating with him again soon. Although, he had clear and sometimes specific ideas for some of the scripts and story-points, he was also very generous and open to having a dialogue on some of my ideas. He was always accessible and able to make decisions quickly. He demonstrates a trust and allows space for discovery, which I think is key to getting the best performance from people.”
As for Lyonne, Rhee noted, “I was rarely on set during shooting, so I only really got to know Natasha when she was directing ‘The Orpheus Syndrome.’ Because she has worn many hats; acting, directing and producing, she’s aware of the broader picture of the best way to achieve what’s needed, but also attentive to details. I found her to be incredibly prepared, smart and creatively collaborative.”
Regarding lessons learned from her Poker Face experience, Rhee shared, “Every project is different so the takeaway from each show is unique to the specific circumstances of the pursuit. There’s no one formula that works for every show, but I can now add to my repertoire how to do a series with each script uniquely different, written for locations other than where you’re filming, on an episodic schedule.”
Beyond her initial Emmy nomination, Rhee has a pair of ADG Excellence in Production Design Award nominations to her credit--in 2003 for the feature The Hours on which she served as an art director, and in 2019 as production designer on a pair of Better Call Saul episodes. Other notable production design credits include the Jessica Jones series and El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.
This is the 14th installment of SHOOT’s weekly 16-part The Road To Emmy Series. The Creative Arts Emmy Award ceremonies are slated for the weekend of January 6 and 7, 2024, and the primetime Emmy ceremony is scheduled for January 15.