For set decorator on “Severance” Andrew Baseman, creating story and meaning with sparseness was a challenge for the self-proclaimed “maximalist” artisan. Through meticulously placed details in the sets of the Apple TV+ series, Baseman aimed to create a sense of contrast between the interior and exterior worlds.
“We wanted the outside world to have much more warmth and color, rather than the very tight color palette or Lumon, which is predominantly green and blue,” Baseman said in a conversation for Variety Artisans presented by HBO. “And then there’s one room that’s purple, you see a little bit of it. That’s for expansion. I think we’re in there a couple of times, you get a sense of it. The desks were covered up with tarps so you didn’t see a lot of it, but that’s probably Season 2. We’ll get into the purple world.”
Baseman dove even deeper into the Emmy-nominated production for the sci-fi series (which includes work from fellow nominees production designers Nick Francone, Jeremy Hindle and art director Angelica Borrero-Fortier) explaining their plans for the big Helly reveal, what every character’s home said about their outie selves and the secrets hiding in plain site in Lumon.
“The whole point of dressing Lumon in contrast to the outside world was to make it vague,” Baseman explained. “The time period is vague. So it’s intentionally neutral. So the furnishings harken back to the 40s, there’s a lot of industrial pieces. In the viewing room, the table in there is like a steel case 1940s-50s desk. And the chairs are probably, again, era of 1940s-50s propellor base chairs that are classic, but they would probably use in Lumon for the past 70 years or so.”
He continued: “Those who work at Lumon, everything is kept there. Even in the supply closet in the MDR, you see a few scenes of them standing against reams of paper. Everything is, of course, anal and straight and lined up, but off camera you don’t see that there is years of lamps from their desks that they no longer use but they’re all stored there. So there’s like three different eras of lamps. There’s old staplers, there’s tape dispensers, all of the things that would be on their desks, even picture frames.”
Watch Baseman break down the intricately sparse sets of “Severance” in the video above.
