Tina Kakadelis
Martha Wells’s The Murderbot Diaries tells a story of a dystopian future where corporations rule everything. Her novel has been adapted by Paul and Chris Weitz into the Alexander Skarsgård-led Apple TV+ series Murderbot. Skarsgård plays the titular character, a private security construct made from human tissue and mechanical components who has gained autonomy. Murderbot is both drawn to and repulsed by humans, finding itself more and more conflicted as it gets closer to a team of scientists. It’s up to production designer Sue Chan to translate the world Wells created for the page onto the television screen.
TV Obsessive: You started working in architecture before moving to theater and film/TV. How did you make that transition? How does your architecture background play a role in your production design process?
Sue Chan: My architecture training was very helpful in thinking about three-dimensional spaces and how to build them as sets. Love of architecture still informs how I approach design, and it was easy to shift the skill set from one to the other. Also, the way of thinking about narrative and storytelling through built space translates to film sets.
You’ve already worked with Paul Weitz on three films. How has your working relationship changed over time?
I started my career as an art director working on Paul’s films, so not directly with Paul but as the right hand to his collaborator, Bill Arnold (Production Designer). Sixteen years after we last worked together, I became a production designer.
I still had, in my professional DNA, memories of the kind of movies that Paul does and how he approaches character. When we became direct collaborators, there was a comfort level from having known him for many years, even though we hadn’t worked together, and knowing that we were both embarking on capital “S”‘ Science Fiction for the first time. I think we share a fundamental affinity for finding humor and humanity in our different corners of the story. He with the characters, lines, and performances, and me with the sets and world building.
Did you read the books in preparation?
Absolutely…they’re fun to read! It’s great that they’re so rich in the textures and culture of the world without locking the reader into specific physical features. As a result, my team and I can go to town building the worlds, but with a good foundation to build upon.
Because this is a science fiction show, VFX plays an important role in building the world. Can you talk about the collaboration between your department and the VFX department? What factors go into deciding when something is built physically and when it’s built on a computer?
I love working with our VFX team. On day one of prep, I reach out to them to discuss some of the underpinning ideas for the main sets so we can develop our individual builds together. I have a team of concept artists who work with me early on. We not only conceptualize what we will build and dress physically, but what the VFX team will need to set, extend, or create as well.
During the entire process, on a show like Murderbot, they’re as much or more my collaborators than the DP or the directors sometimes. There are certainly details we might workshop together before sharing them with other departments or even the show runners, because we don’t want to offer ideas we can’t execute well. In that way, they’re as much my creative partners as the show runners.
I read that Blade Runner was a huge inspiration for you to study architecture. There are glimmers of the world of Blade Runner in Murderbot. How did it feel to have the opportunity to craft a version of human life that’s been distorted in some way?
One of the reasons Blade Runner still resonates is that it tackles existential questions such as what does it really mean to be human and is that something we can learn? Science fiction is a great lens through which to examine the things we take for granted, and Murderbot tackles many of the same issues. In that sense, we’re also looking at how our human existence might evolve in all the good and bad ways, just as Blade Runner did.
Beyond that, our show is a comedy. We strive to have a lighter, less “serious” tone than some of the classic sci fi dramas, but I always have a special place in my aesthetic brain for the look of Blade Runner, so its language likely seeps into all that I do!
There are very few right angles in the show. How does this design reflect the central themes?
Good observation! The practical answer is that we’re highly informed by parametric architecture, which has very few right angles. Brutalism is also a style that we lean into, and its use of concrete and 3D-printed textures means we can move away from rectilinear shapes and have more fun with geometry. We have a lot of inflatable architecture in our sets, and the notion is that corporations will always lean into cheap, fast and recyclable rather than durable and well-made.
Brutalism also supports symbolic language in a way that’s helpful when conveying core ideas like corporate strength and economic grip. Parametric architecture is also founded on the ability to do complex calculations to build curved geometric forms. That requires a strong technological base. This speaks to a future when supercomputing is cheap, easy, and can be integrated into everyday life. That’s already happening, and we just amplify it and put it front and center.
I interviewed Amanda Jones, the composer, and she mentioned that the show within the show gave her a chance to run a little wild. Did you find a similar freedom in designing the world of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon?
Totally! We threw every possible sci fi trope into the stone soup that became Sanctuary Moon and supersaturated every aspect of the sets, colors, lighting, and so forth. In Season 2, we go even further. So much fun.
The emotional arc of Murderbot is being torn between wanting to exist in the shadows and wanting to be part of something. How do you see that arc manifesting in the design of the show?
Another good question! Because Murderbot is its own world unto itself, it’s the juxtaposition between it and the humans it encounters that drives the story. Our job is to give the audience a physical manifestation of what the humans in its orbit stand for in order to empathize with its responses to said characters.
Pres Aux has a warm, colorful, living, and bright existence. The Corporation wears the equivalent of a power suit in the form of its boardroom that is dominated by their logo. Deltfall habitat is all business and is kinda like a haunted house…all dark and spooky. Port Free Commerce station is a brutalist factory like Metropolis. And lastly, the SecBot factory, where Murderbot is built, is a sketchy third world sweatshop with dubious sanitation.
You also designed an alien alphabet. Was this your first time doing so? Anything unexpectedly easy or difficult about this project?
This is actually my second alien alphabet and language. The hardest thing about doing it this time was that we needed dozens of font variations to service all the ways in which words would turn up in the world.
In Season 2, which we’re filming now, the galaxy expands even more, so our bot language needed even more iterations. Beyond that, we tried to create a credible alphabet that coalesces aspects of all the human languages we use into a single tabula rasa. As if the evolution of this language naturally grew out of how we now communicate.
The world of Murderbot is technologically advanced, but also needs to feel like it has human roots. How did you strike this balance? In what scenarios did you skew one way over another?
We always applied the logic that fundamental things humans need—food, sleep, companionship, and entertainment—will always be primary, and that in a future where space is both abundant and highly controlled you will still need to accommodate those needs. So we developed technology that melds these ideas: 3D-printed food from recycled or engineered nutrition, multi-sleep pods, common spaces over private spaces, easy and abundant access to media. These ideas turn up in one way or the other as the basics of most of our sets.
Season 1 of Murderbot is available on Apple TV. Be sure to check out the rest of our coverage of the series!
