Jeremy Hindle, Production Designer for ‘Severance,’ on Creating Lumon

There have been plenty of television shows set in workplaces, but there’s never been one that looks quite like “Severance.”Lumon Industries is a mysterious, cult-like corporation that alters employees’ memories to create two distinct consciousnesses. The Apple TV Plus science fiction series takes place at Lumon Industries headquarters. These “severed” employees work on their own floor in the company building, and it’s a world in itself: a sprawling labyrinth of stark white halls that stretch into eternity, and massive, void-like office rooms with eye-catching green carpeting.

When creating the sets for the series, Jeremy Hindle, production designer, drew on a variety of sources. He started with a 1967 French film. “Playground”to the aesthetics and design of pharmaceutical companies. Lumon’s aesthetic principles were inspired by the John Deere World Headquarters, Moline, Ill., built in 1960s by Kevin Roche and Eero Sabinen. While doing research into the building, he learned about how the offices are designed to be very classic, stunning work environments inspired from a time when people’s work lives and home lives were kept completely separate.

“All those companies in the 50s and 60s, they had so much style, they had the most beautiful spaces, and they were proud of what they were doing,”Hindle. “They believed in it and their aesthetic was part of that. It was about power and control and commerce and everything rolled into one.”

Hindle and his crew traveled to New Jersey with Saarinen to find the Bell Labs building that was recently restored for the Lumon building’s exterior. This massive complex, covering more than 470 acres, shares the same aesthetic. “work designed to do work,”As Hindle puts it, its sheer size helps communicate the series’ themes. The main character Mark (Adam Scott), is frequently portrayed as a tiny speck within the massive parking lot of his corporation.

Hindle had originally only two soundstages to construct the interior Lumon locations. He joked that they could have used five. His team constructed the main office spaces throughout the show on the first soundstage. Then, they built a corridor around the perimeter of the stage. Each run measured around 140 feet. The series’ maze-like corridors were created by the designers who rearranged the hallways to create different areas and then used VFX to expand the spaces. Every hallway was the same width, but on the third stage Hindle’s team built a series of wider hallway runs, representing the areas of Lumon the characters explore deeper into the series.

Lazy loaded image

Adam Scott in ‘Severance.’Many scenes are set in Lumon Industries’ stark white halls.
Courtesy Apple

The Macrodata Refinement Office, which houses Mark and his staff, is the main setting for the show and Hindle considers it the most important. It measures 80×40 feet and has low ceilings that create the feeling of being trapped. Hindle had envisioned the space as a kind of playground, where newly separated employees can be placed and monitored after their departure. “womb” –– the boardroom where they first awaken. He chose a green-colored carpet for the room to communicate that idea. It is the odd combination of sterile whites with deep greens that dominates series’ color palette. Hindle also imagined the color green acting as a lifeline for the severed characters locked within Lumon’s walls. There is no escape.

“Green is the most common color to your eye, like that’s the theory that it’s calming, it makes you feel calm,”Hindle. “Some of the colors, the theories were kind of who they are as characters and what they needed to survive. I think green is something you need to survive.”

Hindle’s vision of the MDR office as a playground extended to the designs of the employees’ computers, which are used to sort through mysterious data for a purpose unexplained to the audience and the characters. While creating the office supplies, Hindle established rules for the show’s world, chief among them that all items would be manufactured internally by Lumon as opposed to being outsourced from other companies. The computers were based on early, bulky computers such as iMacs. Hindle built the screen from CRT glass and a touch screen. To make the mouse feel anachronistic and alien, he designed a trackball that the actors could use to control it.

Lazy loaded image

Lumon Industries’ design computers ‘Severance’These were based on the original iMac desktops.
Courtesy Apple

“If they explained this to somebody, they’d be like ‘that’s insane, there’s no such thing,’”Hindle. “So it was something that had to be functional for them, functional for an actor to play that character, but it doesn’t make any sense to most people.”

As the MDR employees venture further into the depths of Lumon’s offices, they encounter more bizarre spaces, which Hindle describes as being based partially on the aesthetics of M.C. Esther. The Perpetuity Wing is one of the most prominent, which houses bizarre artifacts such as a shaman and a troll. “Wall of Smiles,” with photos of employees flashing their teeth, and a full-size replica of the company’s founder Kier Eagan’s house. Hindle says that the majority of the exhibitions featured in the wing are based on the script written by Dan Erickson. Hindle created a replica of a period-style house in full scale based on photos he took at a Bronx museum.

To finalize the Lumon aesthetic, Hindle’s team also had graphic designer Tansy Michaud design the logo for the company. Hindle says Michaud took about two months to complete the logo, after which he had to go through hundreds of drafts. “Lumon”A rendering artistically of a map of the world, with a droplet at the center. “O.”Hindle says they were inspired by various pharmaceutical companies for the design. The droplet was created as an indirect reference to the implant the company places in the heads of its employees.

Lazy loaded image

Britt Lower and Tramell Tillman in ‘Severance.’ The green floor of the Lumon office buildings was picked to represent the grass of a children’s playground.

However “Severance”While the film is supposed to be set in a world that separates work and personal lives, Lumon has an influence on more than just its workplace. Mark is a main character who lives in Nyack, New York, in corporate housing. Hindle visited at least 60 locations before settling on the location. It is situated on a hillside, and contains several blue houses of the same design. According to Hindle, what made the location interesting is that although all of the houses visually look very similar, there are noticeable architectural differences that make it slightly off; Mark’s neighboring house, owned by his boss Cobel (Patricia Arquette), is roughly half the size of his own.

“It felt like the same thing that he’s processing, he’s so twisted and fragmented and broken and it felt like it needed the same kind of aesthetic,”Hindle. “It’s cold. It’s also really comfortable like it’s beautiful. it really felt corporate but individualized in a really strange way, a really unsettling way.”

The show’s most common motif is the placement of a line in the middle of the frame to signify the division between two worlds. Mark and Cobel’s houses are often shown divided by plants, while inside the office, the divisions of desks are often placed at the center of the frame. Hindle, however, says that most of the shots aren’t truly symmetrical; the sets and shots have protruding walls or unequal divisions, which serve to disorient the viewer and remind them of the truly unequal division between the home and the workplace.

“It was trying to make things that were symmetrical, but it’s slightly wrong, because it’s the show,”Hindle. “Everything’s just a little bit off, which is really uncomfortable.”

Latest News

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here