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henryjenkins_feed at 10:02pm on 22/10/2025
Having worked in the Art Department for the last twenty years, and as a production designer for ten of those years, across feature films, short films, commercials and television, I have come to believe that, put simply, production design is about creating worlds that are believable. Worlds where the audience is unable to tell real locations from created sets. I have very often overheard the line, meant as criticism, “what did the production designer even do here?!” But to me, this is the highest compliment the production design team can receive. It’s what we strive to do in our profession. The audience knows what they see is not real, yet if the world feels true, they can surrender to it. My job is to make that surrender possible.
To the outside world, the term “production design” conveys something glamorous and creative. But, in reality, this profession is a constant battle between creativity, logistics, deadlines and budgets. Even the weather and changing shoot schedules shape what we finally build. Every project turns into a balance between vision and adjustment. You start with a clear plan, but the plan never survives the ground reality. And so, you learn to adapt, all the while ensuring that the set never suffers.
John Lennon once said, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. But I’d tweak it a little to say, “production design is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”!
When I started in this field, the work began with hand-done sketches and physical models. Now, with the major technological advances available to us, we begin with screens: digital renders, previsualization and virtual production tools. These have changed how we plan and build, and they certainly help when you’re putting together large-scale productions. But personally, I still find that there is no match for the details one can bring to elements by hand, especially in a culture of resourceful ‘hacks’ like India. Technology is useful, but it’s not design. Real design happens when your hands are dirty, when you’re mixing colours on site and when you find a new tone under natural light. A render can show a space, and it can’t give it life.
Every film or series I’ve worked on has taught me something new about how the spaces a story is set in shapes how we feel about the story itself. I pick two of these projects as examples to shed light on my experience in this business across two decades: Gold (Dir. Reema Kagti, Excel Entertainment, 2018) and Dahaad (Dir. Reema Kagti, Amazon Prime Video, 2023). Both these productions could not be more different to each other: one is a period sports drama, set against the backdrop of pre- and post-independent India; the other is a thriller series set in present-day rural Rajasthan and in the context of the Indian caste system.
Though diametrically different in the brief I was given, my challenge on both projects was the same: to bring the screenplay to life visually, in such a seamless manner that the audience should feel like they’ve entered India in the 1940s or rural Rajasthan as it stands today, all while sitting in the comfort of their seats. A personal challenge I set myself, as I always do, was to create a space that would inspire the actors to perform, the cinematographer to shoot, and the director to direct, from the moment they walked onto set.
As production designer on Gold, I had to recreate a colonized country striving to find its identity back in the 1940s. The story of India winning its first Olympics gold medal in hockey after independence was not just about sport. It was about pride, self-belief, and reclaiming dignity. That feeling had to live in every frame—not just through dialogue, but through the world we built.
India has changed so much in the seven decades since its independence that few visual elements from that era still exist. While some places retain an old charm, modern life has seeped in everywhere — glass, steel, signboards, and cables. For this film, our challenge was to erase the present to find the past. Extensive research went into every element, from the props and set dressing, to the colonial Indian architecture, and the color palettes. We fabricated props and recreated objects like cameras and furniture from archival photographs we discovered. Some period elements were even sourced from London to capture the colonial influence visible in India during that time.
the finished hockey field.
making the hockey field
hockey stick props
Gold was an extremely labor-intensive film. An anecdote that comes to mind pertains to one of the key props in the film: the hockey sticks. We needed 350 of them, all wooden and appropriate to the period. After scanning my database, I found a vendor in Punjab whose grandfather had crafted hockey sticks for India’s Olympic team decades ago. We discussed every detail of these hockey sticks — the shape, the weight, the finish. Once the sticks arrived in Mumbai, my team and I refined each one by hand. We dyed the thread and grips ourselves, used toweling fabric to wrap them, and matched their texture to the old sticks used in the 1940s. By the end, these hockey sticks went from being mere props, to being an integral part of the story on screen and behind the scenes for the team of Gold. The actors too rehearsed their hockey games with these sticks for the shoot, to create authenticity on set and in their performances.
One of the largest structures we built for this film was a monastery and the area around it. Everything was built on one large piece of land: the mud hockey field, dining hall, kitchen, hostel rooms and so on. The monastery had to look timeless and completely free from any British architectural influence. It was designed as a Buddhist place of calm and focus, with simple geometry, earthy tones, and raw textures. The hockey field itself came with its own set of problems. The ground, which once used to be a paddy field, was soft from years of cultivation. We spent days draining it, layering it and stabilizing it before the players could train on it. It took us more than a month to build that entire world, and every day brought new challenges: structural, aesthetic, and emotional.
We also had to build an entire market set outdoors for this film. It was beautiful on paper, but nature had other plans. For a week straight, thunderstorms hit every evening like clockwork. Each time it poured, the street became drenched, the paint washed off, and large parts of the wooden structures swelled or warped. The next morning, my team and I would start again: repainting, replacing damaged plywood, drying out props under whatever sunlight we got. Because the schedule couldn’t shift, we lost the chance to age the walls the way we had planned. The surfaces looked too fresh for the period we were recreating. That set was never quite what I wanted it to be. It’s hard to admit that, but it’s part of the truth of our work—some frames carry your pride, others carry your struggle. This experience taught me more about the limits of control than any technical challenge. You learn to adapt, to make the best of what remains after a storm, sometimes literally.
Another incident that comes to mind is how one afternoon, while the set was still being constructed, a violent thunderstorm hit. In the chaos that followed, one of our carpenters got struck by lightning. He was seriously injured and had to be hospitalized for months. That moment stays with me. It continues to remind me how much unseen risk goes into creating what appears effortless on screen. After this lightning incident, the mood on the Gold set changed completely. What could have torn the team apart brought us closer. Every member became more careful, more connected. This incident taught me an important life lesson which I carry to this day: production design is not just about visuals, but it’s about people—the carpenters, the painters, the set dressers, and the workers whose hands built a whole world from nothing. Every beam, every wall carried human effort. Every set is a record of hands that built, painted, and carried. These are the invisible architects of cinema. Their names appear briefly in the credits, but their presence lives in every frame. Film production is, and must always be, a culture of collaboration. Each person brings their craft, and everyone depends on each other to complete the film. The hierarchy may exist as hierarchies do, but what truly matters is trust and teamwork.
Whether it’s a massive historical film or a contained streaming series, the foundation is the same: shared labor, patience, and a belief in the story we’re telling together. Dahaad wasn’t a grand period piece, but a grounded story about real people and the social constraints around them. The team was smaller than Gold and more intimate, but the effort was just as extensive. When I began work on this series, I wanted the setting to act like a character. This story lived in ordinary spaces — small towns, police stations, homes—but each of these spaces hid tension, and the quiet dread that something terrible might exist in familiar places. There was no scale or spectacle to hide behind on this project, which ultimately became our biggest creative and technical challenge.
During the location scout, we found an abandoned building that we finalized for the main police station set. It wasn’t ideal. The rooms were tiny, arranged around a large central courtyard, the corridors were narrow, and camera angles were difficult. But there was something that just clicked about the space. To turn that cramped building into a workable set became one of the biggest tests of our design skills. Because the rooms were small, every surface mattered: the color, the texture, and the light all had to come together seamlessly to create an atmospheric and visually appealing, yet realistic, police station set in rural India.
I decided to keep the look bare and stark. Too much set dressing would make the set feel false. The walls, the dust, the cracks were all created by hand, with minimal dependence on technology. Since regular paint on the walls looked too clean, we decided to use limewash to get a rough, uneven texture which caught light differently at every hour. That surface gave life to the frame: it looked like a real government building that had seen years of use.
The limited space also influenced how scenes were staged. The tension between the officers, the fatigue, and the moral unease of the investigation in the screenplay all lived within that confinement; it left the viewer feeling like the killer could be anywhere, maybe in the next room, maybe outside that very wall. That’s the thing with production design—it has the power to make or break a film.
Shooting Dahaad wasn’t easy. The heat and the dust of the crowded sets in Rajasthan tested everyone. But that discomfort became part of the story. The actors weren’t performing in comfort; they were surrounded by the same exhaustion their characters carried. Designing Dahaad taught me that realism isn’t just about accuracy. It’s about feeling the truth of a space. When a wall has history, it speaks without dialogue.
Some of my favorite memories from Dahaad are from smaller moments. We turned a 17-seater van into a moving library for children, filled with toys, bright colored books, and Hindi poetry on its sides. That set brought me pure joy because it carried lightness in a story filled with tension. At the other extreme were the public toilets featured in the cold openings of each episode. We built them in real public spaces, and they had to feel unsettling and dirty.
In streaming projects like Dahaad, the pressures are different—longer schedules, tighter budgets, and the need for consistency across episodes. The pace is slower, but the demands are constant. You’re always maintaining a visual rhythm while staying realistic. The constraint shifts from weather to time, but it still tests the same thing: patience.
__________________________
To summarize, production design is often described as background work. But for me, it’s where the story begins. It gives actors a world to inhabit and audiences a world to believe in. Production design is not just about how a space looks: it’s about how it feels. The walls, the surfaces, the props all carry the weight of the story visually, even before the characters speak.
This line of work continues to teach me so much more than just visual world building. Every day is a philosophy class and a therapy session that teaches me life skills. I learn about detachment because these worlds we build with our blood, sweat and tears are temporary—they get dismantled, repainted, or replaced. I learn about coping with disappointment when sometimes you build sets that never make it to the final cut—a scene gets rewritten or a sequence is edited out, and the entire set you built with so much effort quietly leaves the film. I also learn about going with the flow and about adapting to change and dealing with difficult scenarios (sometimes people!).
Your patience is tested, you’re pushed to limits you didn’t know you have, all the while learning new things about yourself. In production design, you learn to let go and build again. Every project becomes a lesson in resilience. You learn to let go of perfection, to trust your team, and to find the beauty in what survives. You learn to build worlds that disappear, yet somehow, continue to live on in emotion, forever immortalized on the celluloid.
I truly believe that you have to either be totally mad, or totally passionate to be in this profession. I think I’m a mix of both.
Shailaja Sharma is a Mumbai-based production designer. She began her journey in Bollywood nearly two decades ago, starting out as an assistant and learning the craft on the job. Over the years, she has worked on films like Gold and Yeh Ballet, and on Dahaad—the first Indian series to premiere at Berlinale in 2023. She also completed a course in Production Design at the London Film School. In Japan she also studied the language and absorbed its design sensibilities, which continues to shape the way she sees detail, texture, and balance in every project.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 07:00pm on 22/10/2025Let it bring you some joy!
The post Monique Lhuiller’s Bridal Collection Is VERY Pretty first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 06:00pm on 22/10/2025Come eyeball what she's wearing.
The post Tessa Thompson Is Out and About first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 05:00pm on 22/10/2025And I appreciate this about her.
The post Taylour Paige Is Wearing Something Structurally Interesting first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 04:00pm on 22/10/2025Why not.
The post Brie Larson Is Peddling a Cookbook first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 03:00pm on 22/10/2025Global domination!
The post All’s Fair Had a Paris Premiere first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
go_fug_yourself_feed at 02:00pm on 22/10/2025Guest-starring Alicia Silverstone.
The post Emma Stone’s Next Stop on the Yorgos Train Is Here first appeared on Go Fug Yourself.
cakewrecks_feed at 01:00pm on 22/10/2025The big day is coming, people, so before you hit the streets to go trick-or-treating, here are some useful "guidelines" for having a safe and scream-worthy night:
Never accept rides from strangers.
Especially if you see fingers hanging out of the trunk.
Wear reflective clothing:
Or just something so unbelievably hideous that people won't be able to NOT notice you. You know, like Crocs and a Speedo. (As a bonus: EVERYONE will want your picture!)
Watch out for roving gangs of lower-case Ms:
They're vicious this time of year. VICIOUS.
If you're trying to scare someone, don't yell "Boo!" It's not scary enough.
Instead yell, "SCARY BOO!"
It also helps if you throw spiders at them.
Never assume you know what someone's costume is.
One person's Elvis is another's Dracula, and you really don't need that kind of awkwardness.
"I vant choo to stay off of my blue svade shoos! Muah! Ah! Ah!"
ALWAYS SAY "THANK YOU."
Even if they give you crap candy like generic lollipops and little bags of candy corn*:
*Actual candy we will be giving out on Halloween. Plus little boxes of Milk Duds. Y'all come by, y'hear?
And try to look grateful when you're saying "thank you," too - not like this:
"This is my happy face."
Lastly, and mostly importantly...
BEWARE THE TOILET PAPER TERROR:
He also goes by "The Spirit of Gasses Past."
Thanks to Carly T., Leah K., Catherine S., Chryss A., Kris D., Chris B., Brianna M., Denil B., & Jennifer G. for really wiping the floor with these wrecks.
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
dinosaur_comics_feed at 12:00am on 22/10/2025| archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about |
| ← previous | October 22nd, 2025 | next |
October 22nd, 2025: This continues the tale of Timmy, who you'll remember we first encountered in 2013 and then 2018! In 2018 I said you'd have to read for six more years to find out what Timmy did next and I didn't lie! You had to read for six more years and then some extra time too. Thanks to Jan for the reminder!! – Ryan | ||
otw_news_feed at 11:35am on 22/10/2025Are you fluent in a language other than English? Do you have graphic design skills and enjoy creating social media content? Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Are you fluent in a language other than English, passionate about AO3, and want to help us better reply to users all around the world? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We’re excited to announce the opening of applications for:
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don’t see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
If you enjoy working collaboratively, if you’re fluent in a language other than English, if you’re passionate about the OTW and its projects, and want to help us reach more fans all around the world, working with Translation might be for you!
Translation volunteers help make the OTW and its projects accessible to a wider global audience. We work on translating content by the OTW and its projects from English to other languages, such as site pages, news posts, AO3 FAQs and AO3 Support emails. (However, we do not translate fanworks.)
We really need volunteers who speak Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Estonian, Filipino, Galician, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, European Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh—but help with other languages would be much appreciated. If you’re interested in starting a team for a language we don’t have yet, you’re very welcome to!
(Please note that our Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian teams are not accepting new members at this time. If you are fluent in one of these languages and interested in volunteering, please consider volunteering for another team within the organization instead. The User Response Translation Committee is currently recruiting for the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese, as well as Russian. For more information, please refer to the Volunteering page.)
Applicants will be asked to translate and correct short text samples and will be invited to a chatroom interview as part of the selection process. More information about us can be found on the Translation committee page.
Applications are due 29 October 2025.
Apply to be a Translation Committee Translator at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Would you like to help Fanlore reach more fans and get new editors? Do you have graphic design skills and enjoy creating social media content? If so, we need your help! The Fanlore team needs designers to create graphics and banners for social media posts, editing challenges and other outreach projects to help us reach more fans and potential editors. We have a lot of amazing fan history and fandom content, but we need you to help others find out about it. If you think you might enjoy that, come and join us!
If you’re interested, please prepare a portfolio of your work to submit with your application. As part of our design review process, applicants will also be asked to create a sample graphic for Fanlore. Further directions will be given upon applying.
Applications are due 29 October 2025 or after 40 applications.
Apply to be a Fanlore Graphics Designer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Do you enjoy spreadsheets, self-paced projects, and helping protect fanworks from getting lost over time? Are you interested in the rescue and preservation of fanworks? Do you still guiltily–or not so guiltily–love the first fanwork that opened your eyes to fandom?
Open Doors is a committee dedicated to preserving fanworks in their many formats, and we’re looking for volunteers to support this goal. The work we do preserves fan history, love, and dedication to fandom: we keep fanworks from offline and at-risk archives from being lost, divert fanzines from the trash, and more.
Our import assistants contribute to our goal by:
The training is self-directed, and so is the work for the most part, though we also have weekly working meetings/parties for people to all chip in and work on tasks together! Import assistants can generally alternate the types of tasks they work on. At any one time, we usually have several tasks of different types available.
To apply for this role, you must be at least 18 years old and legally of age to open explicit fanworks in your local jurisdiction.
If you’re interested, click on through for a longer description of what we’re looking for and the time commitment. For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task within 3 days of submitting your application.
Applications are due 29 October 2025 or after 50 applications.
Apply to be an Open Doors Import Assistant at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Are you fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, or Spanish, and want to help us better communicate with AO3 users all over the world?
User Response Translation (URT) volunteers help AO3 committees to correspond with users in other languages. URT translators will assist the Policy & Abuse and Support committees by translating correspondence between these committees and AO3 users into specific languages. URT does not translate AO3 or OTW site pages, news posts, or fanworks.
We are looking for volunteers who are at least 18 years old and fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, or Spanish. Applicants will be asked to translate and beta (edit) short text samples as part of the selection process.
(If you are fluent in languages that are not listed above and interested in volunteering, please consider volunteering for another team within the organization instead. The Translation Committee is currently recruiting for the following languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Estonian, Filipino, Galician, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, European Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh. For more information, please refer to the Volunteering page.)
Applications are due 29 October 2025.
Apply to be a User Response Translation Translator at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
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