DESIGNING FOUNDATION

PRODUCTION DESIGNER RORY CHEYNE REVEALS HOW HE BUILT THE VA RIOUS WORLDS AND SPACESHIPS OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE FOR THE FIRST SEASON OF FOUNDATION

WORDS: DAVE GOLDER

IMAGES COURTESY OF APPLE, ODYSSEY STUDIOS.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE on Foundation was the number of sets that had to be designed in a very short time. I think I had about 170 sets to design in roughly three months. Because this show is not like any other TV show I’ve ever done. Basically the entire show had to be designed before we went to camera. Everything has to be figured out beforehand, from how the directors are going to block their actors through the sets to how they’re going to be lit; every little detail would have to be figured out. It was a new adventure for me, for sure. It was daunting. It was a bit frightening.

When I first pitched for the show, I only had a week. I dove online and started searching art history and architecture. The other thing I thought about was, what would people look like 10,000 or 15,000 years from now? I think that was maybe something that set me apart from the other pitches, because I was looking at people’s faces: are we still different colours? Or are we a sort of blended civilisation?

1 ALL SPACESHIPS BIG AND SMALL

I drew every ship. I would start sketching the designs, and then I would work with my designers on site in Ireland and also some illustrators all over the world. We’d go back and forth, and then finally, we’d get to a point where we would release it to the entire crew to say, “This is what the ship’s gonna look like.” The way I was working this year, we would create finished 3D digital models that would go straight to VFX, who could tweak them a little bit, but they had something right away that they could run with. Odyssey [Studios] worked with us as well, because some of the ships were a combination of a large practical model and a model in virtual space. So the 3D models I was producing could either be 3D-printed or go to a VFX house to use digitally.