Emmy Award Nominated 'Rob Tokarz', HBO 'Hacks'

0:00Rob TokarzI don't… when it comes to the actual creative a… I don't have a lot of habits because every project is so different. Whenever I'm reading scripts for the first time, I listen to Zoë Keating, who's a cellist, and there's something about the pace of her music, there's something about the sound of her music. It's all instrumental. There's no distraction, and it just aligns with my frequency.

0:30Jawad Mir. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the making of stories. I'm your host, Jawad Mir. Today, my guest is Rob Torcarz, who's the production designer of HBO series Hacks. He's been nominated for an Emmy. He worked on partially on season three, and on season four as a production designer, and he's all set to go for season five, in production up until the February of next year. Lovely conversation, for all of you who are fascinated with storytelling in an art form of production designing or creating sets or creating the visuals on camera. It's a… it's great for those people as well as for anybody in the film. The amount of, amount of work that goes into and challenges and what goes behind creating that world that we just see on two hours on a film screen or an hour on a TV screen, it's quite a fascinating conversation. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Rob. Before we talk about Hacks, I w… I'm always fascinated with people's journey and how they get to…

1:27Rob TokarzYeah

1:27Jawad Mir... Where they are, and the catalyst that brought them here. If you wanna share how it all began, your interest in film, specifically then production design…

1:36Rob TokarzYeah

1:36Jawad Mir... And your path to where you are today.

1:39Rob TokarzIt was completely by accident. So I came up, I came up doing theater and performa… on the performance side of things. And in college, I studied painting and graphic design, and I needed to figure out what s… what I was gonna do with my life. And I had decided I was gonna be a painting professor, and I was gonna study fine art, and I would be teaching, and that was what my goal was. And I came upon, a program, the scene painting program at the California Institute of the Arts, and I was going to do that. I was gonna get my MFA, and then I was gonna teach. And then my s… first or second weekend there, one of the third-year students came in and said, "Hey, I'm doing a student film. Would anyone wanna join me?" And I came up watching TV and watching movies and all this stuff, and I didn't realize people actually made that. I didn't know that was a job. I didn't know it existed. So I helped out, and all the cast made sense. So I reoriented myself. I completely shifted what my focus was going to be. I stayed in the same scenic painting path, but every opportunity I had, I would go work in the art department, learn what I could, learn what pro… propping would be, what s… how set design worked in film, and then s… did some classes and studied with some USC students and did some student films.

2:47Rob TokarzAnd right before I graduated, I landed as a PA on season four of Heroes, which was the carnival season, and kind of w… spent my time as a PA and got into the union and got to work on some really great projects. So came up and doing both features and TV, but, you know, just half-hour comedies always held a special place. I did two seasons of Parks and Recreation, which was, you know, transformative. But also got to work on some really great films like Bumblebee and Ford v. Ferrari. I worked on those projects. And, once I'd gotten my feet wet, I got to my first production design union, bigger show thing, was a show called Black Jesus, that I did the pilot and the first season of. Which is a Comedy Central show, which, despite it being a smaller budget Comedy Central show, we got to shoot in a really fun way. It was really cinematic. Mike Clattenburg really wanted to feel like a biblical epic, in Compton. So, but at least in the company, the imagination of people w… thinking of what Compton is as opposed to what Compton is actually right now.

3:47Rob TokarzBut I joined Hacks, season two as the art director, and then came in, two episodes into season three, and I've been there ever since. And I'm going to be back for season five in a few weeks.

4:02Jawad MirThat's awesome. Just to kind of point out the two films that you mentioned, Bumblebee is my favorite Transformer movie after the first one.

4:10Rob TokarzGreat, wasn't it?

4:11Jawad MirAnd, Ford v. Ferrari was... Oh, it was just very grounded, and that's something that's been missing…

4:17Rob TokarzYeah

4:17Jawad Mir... A lot lately. ... But, and also Ford v. Ferrari, I'm not a car person at all. But…

4:26Rob TokarzMe neither

4:26Jawad Mir... It was just an amazing film. Right?

4:29Rob TokarzYeah.

4:30Jawad MirIt was just…

4:30Rob TokarzYeah, I…

4:30Jawad MirIt's just one of those things that, and obviously... Sorry, go on.

4:35Rob TokarzNo, I'm, wasn't a car person either. It wasn't a thing that I was really into. But I shared an office with the person that was r… responsible for art directing all the cars, and that level of detail is so fascinating. Car people fascinate me, but e… even though it's not my, an interest of mine, the level of detail that he would go into making sure our replicas of Ferraris were accurate, the GTs were accurate, it's really remarkable the kind of detail that people get into. That's one of the fun things about what we do, is like we get to get into the weeds on all this stuff, and there's so much that's, you know, slightly out of focus on the edge of frame that have taken weeks of consideration in just about every show that I've done.

5:09Jawad MirYeah. No, that's awesome. Eventually down the road, I would love to talk to you about those two, but that's for later on.

5:18Rob TokarzYes

5:18Jawad Mir... You know, going back, going back, there is this, you know, there's the whole thing about having a traditional boat as opposed to having a yacht. ... Can you talk about that particular selection of your choice and why and the process of that, all that?

5:41Rob TokarzSure. So when we were in Singapore, scouting, one of the pieces that we needed to find is we needed to have this... It was a really emotional significant moment in that episode where, Ava finally confronts Deborah that her lifestyle has gone off the rails. The t… time she's taken off, she needs to get back to work. She needs to get back to writing. And so it's a really significant scene that needed to be treated in a really…... Authentically. So what the directive was, the brief was, we needed to find a boat that made sense for Deborah Vance, so it had to be a luxury boat.

6:10Rob TokarzAnd initially the ask was for a yacht, but this is where the technical realities of storytelling run into the story. The Singapore Harbor is blocked off from the main water, and the only access to the harbor is under these old bridges that have a limited height. So the only boats that can operate…

6:30Jawad MirOkay

6:30Rob Tokarz... In the harbor are barges and smaller boats, and the traditional boat that they have there are these, what they call bum boats. So we looked for a smaller yacht. We looked for something lu… but there's nothing that could get into the harbor.

6:42Jawad MirCan you… Sorry, I was just gonna ask you, can you... I didn't mean to interrupt you.

6:51Rob TokarzNo, it's okay.

6:52Jawad MirExplain for our audience what a bum boat is.

6:54Rob TokarzYeah, so the bum boat was about a, I wanna say it was, like, a 16, 18-seat wooden boat that was really beautifully made. It's really beautiful, but it is small, and it's compact. And for that scene we had to elevate it to make it feel like something that Deborah Vance would be in. So my team in Singapore, basically we added curtains, we added interior lighting that was matching, what was already on the boat, which were these red lanterns, and we, added cushions, we added drapes, we added tables, we added dressing that would seem like... That feels like it would be appropriate for the party that they were having, 'cause it was supposed to be a really great time with all of her newfound friends. And so we added all those on top of the traditional bum boat just to elevate it. But essentially they're ferries.

7:37Rob TokarzYou know, they're... You…

7:38Jawad MirOkay

7:38Rob Tokarz... If you hire them out and you get across the river, you get to where you need to go. So it's just a, it's a water taxi…

7:43Jawad MirYeah

7:43Rob Tokarz... Basically.

7:47Jawad MirGot it. Got it. I'm g… go on. C… continue with the, you know, basically how you sort of decorated that with cushions and all the other stuff… ... To make it look as authentic as possible to reflect the series and the characters in the series.

8:01Rob TokarzExactly. So that's, that was what the directive was, and really we had a very limited amount of time, and we couldn't take the boat to a shop or anything like that. So on that, on the day, we, my team was able to find these cushions and were essentially stuffing the cushions hours before the crew showed up, and we were doing finishing touches as everybody had moved from the, from another location to shoot it at night. And then once we were there, usually we'll have an onset dresser, and a props person, and an assistant props person, and all these people on hand to help shooting. But because the boat was so small, we really, we only had one or two people…

8:33Rob Tokarz... Representing our department that were able to fit on the boat. And so the boat was actually sailing when we were shooting, and there was a support boat, secondary support boat that was there in case of anything, and of course all the safety bits and pieces in case anyone fell over, which they didn't, luckily. But it was, it was really cool. And that, we had originally scouted that scene in, December. We went out for a scout, and it'd been my first time in Singapore, and it was probably one of the highlights of my career, there with our scouting group, m… in Singapore Harbor, looking at these beautiful lights in this beautiful city, in this incredible country. It was just, it was magical. It was really cool.

9:14Jawad MirI bet. And you know, one of the, one of the prominent sequences in the, is Deborah's performance, like, the red chair and how you were able to sort of, from what I understand, were able to design it remotely, like, you know, from a long distance.

9:29Jawad MirAnd some of the challenges, if you can talk about that chair, and that sequence itself, along with the other things that you had to, you know, go through, going through the Victoria Theatre, the, basically the gardening by… gardens at the bay I think it was, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

9:46Jawad MirSo just to kind of start off with that and challenges of all those sequences.

9:51Rob TokarzSure. So the way that episode came about was there was some early scouting before I had started prep that season. So some of the producers went out to Singapore to see what might be interesting with, like, a, just a bit of an outline of what it was, and then what, Jen, Paul, and Lucia, they wrote to the great things that we were able to find and what we'd actually get access to. So as we went through the season, as the negotiation with Singapore came about, we had access to certain things, no access to other things. Things fell through, things became more important, and the Victoria Theatre's one of those spaces. We knew we needed a theater, and we needed a theater for her to perform in, and that seemed to be... I mean, it was probably the best choice that felt the most, Singaporean to us, because Singapore is such a mix of local culture and also the colonial aspect of its history. So the Victoria Theatre…

10:45Rob Tokarz... Is kind of an overlap of those parts. When I was designing the show, and we've done a lot of stage shows for Deborah. Season Two we just, we, I think we were in 15 different stand-up setups. We've done big shows. The Palmetto was a big thing for Season 1. I want it to look different than what we've done in the past, and I want it to feel very local. So I found this really great reference image of a Chinese model fashion shoot that was all red curtain, red on red, very saturated and vibrant red, and came upon the idea of the half-circle centerpiece behind her to mimic, a fan, because that was a traditional thing that I also encountered in the research. And remotely, I do a lot of my drawing in Procreate, because I'm in a van so often, and I'm lucky that I don't get motion sick, so I can get a lot of work done when we're driving around scouting locations.

11:39Jawad MirOh, really, eh?

11:41Rob TokarzY… I, yeah, I don't get it. It's really nice. It's really it's kind of a superpower I find. I can read a script.

11:48Jawad MirThat is a superpower.

11:48Rob TokarzI think it goes down into a script and... Yeah, I'm really lucky. I'm really lucky. I get a lot of time…

11:53Jawad MirNo, read, reading I can get. Some people can, some people can't.

11:58Rob TokarzYeah.

11:58Jawad MirI can even understand drawing on the plane.

12:02Rob TokarzYeah.

12:02Jawad MirBut in a moving vehicle with turns…

12:05Rob TokarzYeah

12:05Jawad Mir... And unexpected bumps, I mean, kudos to you, man.

12:09Rob TokarzThank you. It's, it's not easy, and there is some adjustment and a little bit of cursing every so often when I'm really into it. But luckily digitally…

12:16Jawad MirOf course

12:16Rob Tokarz... I can always undo. So I'd specced out this whole set…

12:20Jawad MirGood stuff

12:20Rob Tokarz... And I had a great picture of the Victoria Theater. And one of the things that would've been a distraction, but if anyone ever has a chance to go there, is behind it is this beautiful organ that takes up, I mean, two-thirds of the wall of the back of the theater, that we couldn't show…

12:36Rob Tokarz... Because it would just take the focus away from Debra. So I just sketched over that. I sketched over my idea of it. The team in Singapore, me and my art director, surveyed it. And we, were able to find a fabric. And then basically when we landed in Singapore, we designed it all, we kind of built the armature for the fan. And when I landed, they ran up to me with swatches. They're like, "These are the fabrics that are available. Which do you pick?" And so I got to pick the swatches. We had narrowed the chairs down to two or three chairs by the time we landed. And, last minute, because it, you know, when you're designing something, it's great to try to anticipate everything, but inspiration is inspiration, and something felt very flat about the circle. So last minute we added this orange trim, on the outside of the circle, which created a really great, delineation, helped it pop out. And then once we saw the chair, the chair matched the chair matched the background really nicely.

13:37Rob TokarzThe red worked out. And we picked the red that was there, and it, I think it looked great. Scale wise, I think it was fantastic. And we were just really lucky that the parts came together. It was all pretty frantic. You know, it's, they had a really good team there. They were really professional, and I felt very supported, but it's not Los Angeles, so there's a different pace and there's different communication, but ultimately very positive.

14:02Rob TokarzIt's just, you know, you have to adjust, not expectations, but just adjust the way that you flow through things.

14:08Jawad MirYeah.

14:09Rob TokarzYeah.

14:09Jawad MirI'll, I'll con… I'll continue on the, on hacks, but you talked about inspiration, right? Obviously everybody in any kind of art form, even in any c… career, any kind of career, you get inspired to do something by being somewhere or by watching someone else, or by…

14:28Jawad Mir... A thing or whatever that is.

14:31Rob TokarzYeah.

14:32Jawad MirFor me personally, I'm a big nature nut. So when I am…

14:37Rob TokarzRight

14:37Jawad Mir... In nature, and specifically there's one spot in the west coast of Canada between the border of British Columbia and Alberta, where there is a little, you know, pond flowing and there's rocks around, there's a valley all around you. And that spot for me is, like, where... I'm not saying that's the only spot for me, but that is, like…

14:56Rob TokarzFor sure

14:56Jawad Mir... Where things happen. What is that…

14:59Rob TokarzYeah

15:00Jawad Mir... One spot or maybe person that takes you to that world of creation?

15:10Rob TokarzSo I don't, when it comes to the actual creative act, I don't have a lot of habits because every project is so different. There's this Jack London quote that I really like that… ... "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

15:24Jawad MirTrue.

15:24Rob TokarzAnd so every project has its own challenges, and I try to feed myself whatever meal feels appropriate to the, script. However, one thing that has happened organically over the last 15 years of my career is whenever I'm reading scripts for the first time, I listen to Zoë Keating, who's a cellist, and that becomes, that becomes the way that I jump. That's my through line through everything. And it, I've tried other music, and I keep coming back to her. There's something about the pace of her music. There's something about the sound of her music. It's all instrumental. There's no distraction, and it just aligns with my frequency when I'm reading and breaking down a script. So I think rather than a space, it's that music that is my jumping-off point. That's what I use to figure out where I have to eat to feed my appetite for what I'm making.

16:16Jawad MirAnd, I'm glad you mentioned music because movie scores are something that do a lot for me as well.

16:24Rob TokarzYeah

16:24Jawad Mir... Music for me, it used to be music, but lately I've been thinking about it's more of a spirituality thing. Would you agree?

16:32Rob TokarzYeah. I would. I would. There's, you know, the muses are a thing, right? And then music will hit you in different ways, and you'll, take you on different journeys. Totally, 100%.

16:42Jawad MirYeah.

16:42Rob Tokarz100%. I've been doing this thing too, when I'm designing, when I'm in the thick of it and trying to break, finishes or sketching or whatever, is, I kind of ask my team for an album that they love, and I start by listening through an album, 'cause it feels like something very old school to, like, start to finish listen to something the way... Usually it tends to be things that are older that were intended to be an album, as opposed to stuff that's, you know, an album now is just a bunch of hopeful singles. But, like, listening to all of, you know…

17:13Jawad MirYeah

17:14Rob Tokarz... A Led Zeppelin album start to finish, or listening to a Beastie Boys album start to finish, or listening to NWA start to finish when that, I mean, just anything, hearing it start to finish, it's, I don't know. Like Rick Rubin's book, he writes about the fact that you should just be listening to great stuff. Like, you should not cheapen your experience with bad art and bad music and bad things, which I don't necessarily 100% agree. I get the spirit of it. Like, listening to awesome stuff helps to lift you up. It's that whole, tennis thing, that you play to the level of your partner. So I try to…

17:50Jawad MirYeah

17:50Rob Tokarz... I try to live that as much as I can.

17:51Jawad MirWell, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's your surrounding, right? Being optimistic…

17:55Rob TokarzYeah

17:55Jawad Mir... Being positive.

17:56Rob TokarzYeah.

17:56Jawad MirBut I would agree, I would agree with you on one other thing, that watching not so great movies or not so great TV shows…

18:06Rob TokarzYeah

18:06Jawad Mir... I think sometimes that's important from…

18:09Rob TokarzYeah

18:09Jawad Mir... For pe… for people like you and I because…

18:12Rob TokarzYeah

18:12Jawad Mir... Then we can find…... Problems that we will try… ... To avoid. Now, it doesn't mean that we will not do anot… other mistakes, but…

18:20Rob TokarzYeah

18:20Jawad Mir... At least it teaches us.

18:22Rob TokarzYeah. And one thing I, not so great is not so great… ... And there are those instances, and I've been lucky, I've been lucky enough that I've been able to work on, like, really solid things, and Hacks is just out of this world lucky. But I've, I've learned to give, as I've gone into the industry further and further, even something that might be subpar to me or might not hit the way that it was intended to, I try to give it a lot of grace because it is so hard to make anything. It is so hard to get that number of people together to push toward a direction. And even if it's chaotic, y… you know, people are passionate, even, well, no matter what they're working on. And I'm, you know, my comrades in arms in the art department and set dec and props, like 99% of them are like, "Let's do the absolute best job that we can. Let's, let's elevate the work that we can." And sometimes you just don't have the money, and sometimes it's just, like, whatever we can add to get this guy's story told or this gal's story told is really, it's the best they can do. And sometimes it's really great. Like, it doesn't necessarily have to have giant budgets to tell the story. So we just try to elevate whatever we do as best we can.

19:30Rob TokarzIt's just hard to make stuff. Like, just, the fact that someone made a thing and they put it out there, it's like, that's, that's it. That's awesome. That's awesome. I always think about art that you don't share as therapy rather than art. You know, it's important, it's valuable, it's something…

19:42Jawad MirYeah

19:42Rob Tokarz... That feeds something. But if you don't share it's not sharing that. So someone else can share it's great.

19:49Jawad MirYeah. And I think also in our industry, the competition is so cutthroat that…

19:55Rob TokarzYeah

19:56Jawad Mir... People who do end up getting the work that they do, I would say 99.9% of them, there's always a few odd, you know, individuals…

20:04Rob TokarzYeah

20:04Jawad Mir... Will do their best. Even if the project fails, they'll continue… ... Working because they know there's, like, 1,000 people lined up trying to get in, and they…

20:15Rob TokarzYeah

20:16Jawad Mir... They may take over the job. So but yeah, no, that's a, that's a valid point.

20:20Rob TokarzYeah.

20:20Jawad MirAnd I'm, I'm glad that, you know, people really put their hard work into making anything. Now, if it turns out to be great or good or bad, that's a different story. Sometimes it's the timing, sometime it's marketing, sometime it is the story, sometime it is the performances.

20:38Rob TokarzYeah.

20:38Jawad MirBut that's okay, because that's how those people will learn to make something better after.

20:43Rob TokarzYeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we... It's almost like it self-selects or people get filtered out over time, or the people that make it through make it through. I mean, there's, right now it's just so hard because there are so many different avenues to take in stories. I mean, it's, there's some really great TikTok creators that are really interesting and doing compelling things at the same time as we have all the stuff that's happening in streaming, at the same time we have these great films that are coming out, that are under the radar because people, you know, there's the scripts happening. It's like, "Where's this actor been?" It's like, oh, no, they got 10, they got 10, seasons of this show on Paramount Plus that you just haven't seen, and that's why you haven't seen them in something. It's just there are so many different places…

21:25Jawad MirYeah

21:25Rob Tokarz... To see things. It's hard to break in a little bit.

21:29Jawad MirIt is. It is hard to keep up. I mean, yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Your work with, how did your work with the GP, in terms of, introducing, like, yard lights and LEDs and all that was? Can you…

21:46Rob TokarzYeah

21:46Jawad Mir... Can you talk about that?

21:48Rob TokarzSo Adam Brookner and I kinda go back to 2019. We did this show for Facebook Watch, that was, again, one of those really wonderful shows, called Sorry For Your Loss with Elizabeth Olsen, and it was a really beautiful show. So I was an art director on that, and I kind of started to at least see the way that he worked. And once I landed on Hacks in the second season, again, I was the art director, so I wasn't... You know, I knew him. We knew each other, so we talked. But, th… he had such a specific lang… language that he'd established with the show that I knew that supporting that language in my design work and also giving him places to break out of that language that benefited the show would be important. So one of the things that we love to do is we love a symmetrical shot. Adam loves a symmetrical shot. So we do think to symmetry a lot of times when we design a set or even when we dress a location. And when I say he likes symmetry, I mean, we're talking lasers, and we're talking tape measures on everything.

22:51Rob TokarzEverything gets to the Nth degree. One, anecdote is when in s… episode two of this season, maybe it's one, Deb does a press conference that's an introduction of her to everybody as the late night host. And we went to the, Scribble Center, and we found this really great room. It's a big open, round room, and it has this great wall. And we built this great stage and this backing, and we put it up. It's on a steel deck, so it's on rubber feet. And we land it center. We're measuring. Guys are there early. They measure it when they put it up. They measure it when they leave. We get a call later, "Hey, the stage isn't center." Said, "What do you mean the stage isn't center? How far off is it?" "Well, it's 5/8 of an inch off." Which just means that a couple of big grips were carrying something on the stage and it shifted, but it was enough to be noticed on camera. So we adjusted the stage. We fixed it. We center it. And there's some really good shots in that. I mean, there's, there's something to be said for it. Even though sometimes he makes me tear my hair out, it's in a really great, collaborative way. Because that l… it's really, I mean, that's, there's gotta be conflict, but some friction is good because friction kind of helps you prove which idea deserves, not to win out, but to advance.

24:01Rob TokarzSo Late Night stage was a great example. I mean, we were back and forth on everything. He had brought in old school studio lights that hit his contemporary lights. We put in almost 1,000 feet of integrated LED into the arches and the floors and the…... Desks and the light clock. I mean, we had so much lighting built into the set. And then we have a conversation like, "Wouldn't it be great if under the headers we had some marquee light bulbs?" So we're shooting in Vegas, and we're in Fremont Street, and I say, "Yeah, let's do marquee light bulbs." And I'm, like, sketching things out, sending it to my team back in LA while we're shooting the first week of shooting, and we get all these elements that come together. And we did the same thing in season two with the bus, like, we add this lighting. We like to build in the lighting. And one of the things that's, a through line is because of so many performances and we need light sources, foot lights become a big thing for us. Me and Adam are constantly talking about foot lights. So I wanted to make the foot lights on the Late Night stage the most integrated foot lights that I could, and I think they're my favorite foot lights of any foot lights we've ever done, if you can have such a list. So we do a lot, we have a lot of conversation.

25:01Rob TokarzWe talk all the time. He'll send me texts of Instagrams that he sees, like, "Hey, wouldn't this be great if we could do this sometime in the future?" So I like to,.. Yeah. So it's, it's great to collaborate with him. He's got a great eye. I really do enjoy my work with him. He makes my stuff look good. Like, that's really what it comes down to.

25:19Jawad MirYou know, it's, it…

25:19Rob TokarzLike, I just have walls, and then he makes it look good. I me… it's, his lighting makes things look good, so I have to, I have to give it to him. I've worked on sets where the DP might not have been that strong and it really, it's a bummer.

25:33Jawad MirI would, I would argue also that you make his work look good, too.

25:37Rob TokarzYeah. It's, really, it's a partnership. It's a partnership.

25:41Jawad MirAnd…

25:41Rob TokarzBut ultimately, I…

25:42Jawad MirIt is

25:42Rob Tokarz... Get to work for... Yeah.

25:44Jawad MirThat, I know you're, I... Go on. Go on, please. Please finish up.

25:50Rob TokarzNo. I just... But ultimately it comes down to, I have these great showrunners who make this great material that lets us do great things. Like, with Chia and Paul, when they direct, they know what their show is. Like, we're, we're led confidently in the choices that we make, so that's, that's a really important part of the filter. Because there are things we bring to the table, but ultimately someone has to decide, and the people that decide well. You know, they give us notes, and the notes make things better. There's, you know, there's n… some people might just make a change to make a change, and they don't. Like, when they say, "No, it should be this," they know. They're passionate about that change. It's important to make that change, and it does create a better show. It's a very collaborative group. It's really great.

26:31Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, I agree, man. This is, this is fascinating. Before we continue on your work, what is one thing that you have learned about yourself over the years that has been the most profound thing? Like, some, from your work.

26:56Rob TokarzI surprise myself about how calm I can be in chaos. I've jumped into the middle of a lot of shows in my career, whether as an art director or production designer, on shows that might be having some trouble for whatever reason, or they've made a change, or whatever it is, and very different from my personal life. I'm able to make a lot of calm out of chaos when it comes to working in the art department, when it comes to doing the film thing. It just, I think it goes back to the first time I helped out on that student film. It's like everybody's moving around. I'm like, "This makes sense." Like, my brain makes sense in this kind of chaos. So that's, that's one of the things that really struck me, and was something I've learned to appreciate and embrace over the years, 'cause I, at home it's not the same. Like, chaos is chaos at home. I'm just, I'm just hanging on. But walking onto a film set, walking into an art department, all right, what's the problem? How do we fix it? No problem. Let's do this.

27:56Rob TokarzOkay. Let's go.

28:03Jawad MirI'm, I'm, I'm smiling because I'm in a very similar way, the way I operate. I think.

28:08Rob TokarzYeah.

28:09Jawad MirI find that there's balance in cha… there's balance in chaos. And I think that balance is necessary and that chaos is necessary, because they both support and complement each other.

28:23Rob TokarzYeah. Yeah. And a film day, a film day is impossible. Like, it's an impossible task. Like, the ask of a day of filming, when you look at the page count, you look at what you're gonna do, and then oh yeah, there's a stunt after lunch and a changeover that has to happen. Y… and it's, it's impossible. And you're like, you only have 12 hours to do it, or 10 hours to do it, or whatever to do it, and it's like, you can't get this done, but we do, 'cause it's all these people pulling in the same direction that know what they're doing, that are the best at what they do, and that's really, that's really how we accomplish it.

28:53Jawad MirYeah. Has there been ever a time when... Because, you know, there are times when things can't be done in a certain amount of time frame…

29:02Rob TokarzYeah

29:02Jawad Mir... Whether it's through budgetary reason…

29:03Rob TokarzYeah

29:03Jawad Mir... Or resource, or, you know, physical objects, or whatever that is.

29:08Rob TokarzSure.

29:08Jawad MirHas there been ever a time in your career where a producer or director came up to you, or anybody in the crew, and said… ... "We need to get this done," or, "It's, it's in the, it's in the call sheet," or, "It's in the schedule. We need to get this done in X, Y, Z by this." And have you gone back to the assistant director, whoever the person running the show, on the set, "Listen, guys, I would love to do this, but I don't think it can be done. We need extra time or we need extra resources"?

29:38Rob TokarzSo, yes, that does happen, and I, and I always think about the fact that my job isn't to say no, my job is to tell you the parameters. Like, if they want this thing…

29:46Jawad MirYeah

29:46Rob Tokarz... My job is to say, "We can't do all of that, but we can do 75% of that."

29:53Jawad MirYes. Yes.

29:53Rob Tokarz"So let's…"

29:54Jawad MirYeah

29:54Rob Tokarz"... Let's negotiate about what the 25% that we can't do is. What's the most important thing?" And then creatively coming to a place where we can distill it down into what's accomplishable. And when you work, also when you work with really good producers, they know what the limits are. They wanna push you. We, you know, what's the thing we say all the time? Today's, today's miracles, tomorrow's expectations. So we pull off miracles all the time, but yeah, sometimes you just have to go in, hat in your hand, and be like, "This is all we can do. This is the most we can do." And that's my, as production designer, it's my job to go in… And say that, and that's, that's part of, that's part of it. And trying to figure out what the problem solver is. So, oh, yeah, that's normal. That's normal.

30:34Jawad MirCan you talk about two points, one being the Oscars and, also… ... The redressing of, Jimmy's, basically his space, his office multiple times…

30:48Rob TokarzSure

30:48Jawad Mir... In the process of doing that?

30:50Rob TokarzYeah. So Jimmy's was a fun one. Jimmy's, office, we saw at the end of season three as bare space. Do you want to go Oscars first?

30:58Jawad MirSo, yeah, no, so I just wanna make sure with Jimmy…

31:01Rob TokarzYeah

31:01Jawad Mir... Are we talking about just…

31:03Rob TokarzJimmy LaSack. So, Paul W. Downs's character Jimmy…

31:07Jawad MirThank you

31:07Rob Tokarz... Is Deb's agent and Ava's agent. Beleaguered agent.

31:12Jawad MirYeah.

31:12Rob TokarzAnd him and…

31:13Jawad MirYeah

31:14Rob Tokarz... Kayla have created an agency together. They've decided to partner up. And so at the end of season three they get their raw space.

31:20Jawad MirRight.

31:20Rob TokarzWe shot at the American Cement Building in MacArthur Park for that, which is this, a loft space that has, is enveloped with these beautiful concrete X's that are curvy and really beautiful from the outside. And from the inside they're very dramatic. And so when we were going to do his office, we knew that we'd have to start from scratch. We're s… we're starting the season from basically the end of last season. He hasn't had much time. It's not a big construction job. So what our plan was to create modular looking office walls that feel like they're a kit that clicks together to make the, to make the offices, to divide the space. And so in my mind I'm like, "Okay, so they painted the space, and they brought in furniture." But at the beginning of the season, there's very little furniture out. It's just big, broad strokes of furniture. Well, four weeks out from us shooting that, producer said, "Oh, by the way, we're not shooting that on location." 'Cause I'd been designing the interior of the location. Said, "We're gonna be building the location on stage." So I have four weeks to now send out my team to survey the location.

32:21Rob TokarzSo we're looking at, if I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get into the weeds a little bit, the aluminum extrusions around the windows, the way that the way that the windows are built, the exact kind of paneling that was in the lower half of the windows versus the upper half of the windows. What kind of lip is there outside? What kind of floor is there outside? What are the X's? We have to measure and survey these curved X's without actually being able to step out of it because they won't let me rappel a set designer on the outside of the building. So we're measuring that. That gets, that gets 3D modeled. We're looking at the duct work. We're trying to measure the concrete beams. We're trying to measure all this stuff. And we have to build it in four weeks. And then we need a backing. We need to look outside of these windows, 'cause we don't do a lot of green screen or blue screen on Hacks. So we now need a backdrop.

33:04Jawad MirYeah.

33:04Rob TokarzAnd luckily JC Backings had the image of that view from that location, because luckily it's been shot a bunch, and, they were able to slot us in to, print a, I think it was 120 foot wide backing. And all that happened in four weeks on top of building the interior and making it all come together.

33:22Jawad MirWow.

33:22Rob TokarzAnd the number of plasters. And so we built a white model for it. We 3D printed the X's at scale to make sure that we liked the way that they worked. And then we had, gosh, Janine Ringer, my art director, was run ragged with this one because we had to have all these X's made, I think there were 13 of them, with a foam company. I think we did DeRoche. And, then had to have them plastered and have it matched. And then Jen Lughart had to track all the changes that were gonna happen. So again, going back to it, we start off with boxes, and they're peeling plastic off of the glass, and we're just in the space. And then we shot three days in that space, but those three days spanned eight episodes. So we would come in each day and add more dressing. At one point there's a painting leaning against the wall, and the next time we see it's on a console table leaning against the wall. And in the end it's hung up and with a built-in surrounding it. So we had all of these bits and pieces to keep track of, to make sure that the space felt like it was evolving, and they were getting more established as the season went on. Ultimately in episode nine, we're in a finished space with a finished sign, and all the wood is built in, and everything was dressed.

34:29Rob TokarzSo we were kind of at our ultimate. It was really exciting. I mean, it was, it was crazy. It was again…

34:37Jawad MirWow. Yeah

34:37Rob Tokarz... Mi… miracle after miracle, and a lot of, you know, Drew Scheltz's team was fantastic, in construction. So it was really, it was an effort. It was a, it was an effort. But then there was also, the Oscars set.

34:50Jawad MirYeah, like I said at the beginning of this pod. Yes.

34:55Rob TokarzSo the Oscars, that was, another one of those fun set challenges that we knew that it was an Oscars press entrance. So we did the research on what that actually looked like. And there wasn't, it kind of all happened organically where it wasn't really clear what the set needed to be, but also how it needed to be arranged, and also the scale it needed to be. So we looked at a bunch of different locations that were exteriors, 'cause the Oscars are big. The scale of the Oscars are big. So we tried a lot of different configurations just on paper, and then we built, printed models to see how that space would arrange. And then we tried fitting it into a couple places on the back lot at Universal. None of it quite made sense. Ultimately we went through eight or nine different versions till we landed on the one that we needed. We ended up building it on stage, using everything from showing the set to Lucia, using white models and augmented reality on an iPad, like handing an iPad in the space, walk around, see how it feels.

36:00Rob TokarzBut ultimately, the model sold it. And the intention with the set was it needed to be this, side entrance off the street. So where Ava comes in, I kept it with, black carpet, black curtains. Wanted to feel very backstagey. And then the hallway wanted to be a little bit narrower leading to the main Oscars. And at the end in the deep background where Winnie comes from, that needed to feel like the actual red carpet. So it needed to be big, it needed to be bold. So we built these 10 or 12 foot tall letters, and dimensional and painted them gold, had this pearlescent paint…... Background. Did all the red curtains, did all the silks over the top so we can light it to feel like it's the Oscars. And the letters, 12 feet tall, we only made, O-S-C-A-R because I want it to bleed off camera so that it felt like this, red carpet would go on for a while, and it was a longer red carpet than it was. And that gave us enough runway for Winnie to come in. And once we, once we landed it was like, it was a joyful set. It was one of those, "We think it's gonna work," and then it really worked. So really pleased.

37:02Jawad MirYeah. What I was gonna say, that thank you for all that detailed breakdown because, again, going back to what I was saying in the beginning of the podcast, that production design is just such a pivotal job, and this does not mean any other job is not.

37:15Rob TokarzRight.

37:15Jawad MirBut just creating the feel and the environment of the space that, where everybody is working in… ... And that is going to be visual, you know, shown on the screen, yeah, I mean, kudos to you guys for doing all that you do because it's, it's fabulous work. I just sort of wanna talk about the last point is the LA fires, that took place. First of all, did that affect…

37:38Jawad Mir... Somebody, yourself or anybody that you knew?

37:41Rob TokarzM… luckily, me and my closest circles here were safe, beyond, you know, some of our coworkers that had to evacuate and come back. Luckily, you know, we're mostly whole. The biggest loss that we had was really Deb's LA mansion. We had finished shooting there by the time that the fires had happened. But it was still something that we'd been with since season two and, you know, you get friendly with the homeowners, and the homeowners are a really wonderful and warm older couple, and, they let the circus in. And, that house itself is really spectacular and the kind of work that had gone into it when it was built, I think it was built in, like, 1915. That was a huge loss. But it was... Yeah, I mean, w… watching the episodes, rewatching the episodes, it's really hard to know that's gone, to, you know, it's, it's a piece of history…

38:34Jawad MirYeah

38:34Rob Tokarz... In Altadena. We were also affected, we were supposed to shoot, the end of episode six at Gladstone's in the pa… in the Pacific Palisades. And that proved to be too toxic, by the time we were to shoot it, so we weren't able to shoot there. But, no, it was, it was a scary week. It was a scary week. But one of the really great things…

38:58Jawad MirYeah

38:59Rob Tokarz... That we were able to do in spite of that is location managers created the scoutphotos.org site, where if you're a homeowner who'd ever had filming, you could submit, and art departments and set dec departments have been contributing. 'Cause we all come in and we do director's plans and floor plans of your space when we shoot there, and we take photos to make sure we can res… restore the space. So we were able to provide a lot of photos to these homeowners as they're going through the insurance process to say, "No, actually, I did own this stuff. This is the hou… this is the house that I lost," and give them information that would help them, help make them, you know, at least partially whole. So that was a really great thing that came out of it that we were able to help out with.

39:38Jawad MirAnd there was a whole thing that you guys built a pool, right, as well?

39:42Rob TokarzYeah. So for that same episode six we…

39:44Jawad MirFor the ocean.

39:46Rob TokarzYeah. For that same episode six, so because we sh… couldn't shoot at Gladstone's and, Paul had some very specific blocking that he wanted to have, we ended up shooting in San Pedro. And we had the exterior beach stuff with her running into the water, just getting her f… basically her feet wet, and then we built the Slippery Oyster restaurant, 'cause we needed a restaurant, and we built that entirely at the beach. So it was a, we wanted to feel like something that had been there for 30, 40 years where people have been getting, you know, oysters. So the Slippery Oyster was built there. But then we needed some close-ups of Jean, and we weren't gonna put our number one on the call sheet into the ocean at night in February. So we ended up building a, I just looked this up, it was a 16 foot by 24 foot, four and a half foot deep pool that we built on stage. And we had to build it on stage because, this is stuff you learn accidentally, if there's more than a certain variance of temperature with the outside air and the temperature of the water, you get steam.

40:55Rob TokarzAnd we wanted to make sure the water was comfortable for Jean, so we heated it to, like, 90 or 92 degrees, and that meant we had to be on a stage because, again, it's February and it's cold, and we would get steam anywhere else. So we went through the engineering feats of l… what can we do to contain the pressure of that much water? Because the water pressure comes out the bottom corners is where it pushes up the most. So that's why pools are rounded at the corners, is because then you don't force the pressure. This is all stuff that you just learn. It just comes up, comes up, upon you. And so we designed the pool, we had an engineer approve the pool, and then we overbuilt the pool, and it's two shots. We green, I mean, there's green screen and everything, and it's, takes up a substantial amount of space. But it was for two shots. Really great. It's, like, 76 frames worth of television or something like that, so.

41:44Jawad MirI mean, but that's, that's, that's filmmaking, right? That's storytelling, like you…

41:47Rob TokarzRight. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to Shakespeare, right? Like, the s… they fight in a Shakespearean play. It could be anything, so. You know as well as I know, an eighth of a page can speak volumes.

42:05Jawad MirI agree. I agree. What's, what's next for you now? Are you, aside from the next season of Hacks, are you in development or in process of working on another project that you are able to discuss?

42:18Rob TokarzWell, right now the focus is on Hacks, and, we're having our second boy on August 11th. So technically that's in development.

42:25Jawad MirOh, congrats.

42:25Rob TokarzAnd I'll be focusing a lot of attention on that. Thank you. Thank you. So Yeah. I think it's plenty for now

42:33Jawad MirI loved how…

42:34Rob TokarzI'll worry about that in February

42:35Jawad Mir... I lo… I loved, I loved how you said that there's that in development, too. It's a nice little… way of saying it. But yeah, no, I'm, I'm... The reason I ask these questions, obviously, for the interest of mine and the audience, but also, you know, I've talked, I talked to pretty much everybody in the film industry, like visual effects…

42:55Rob TokarzYeah

42:55Jawad Mir... Production designer, DP, you know, you name every department, and almost every one of them, you know, they don't know what's coming up next. And I know a few people…

43:07Rob TokarzYeah

43:07Jawad Mir... Who have been out of work, and these are, like, Oscar-nominated folks

43:13Rob TokarzYeah

43:13Jawad Mir... For two years.

43:15Rob TokarzYeah.

43:15Jawad MirRight? So we are at a very weird time with the strike, with the fire, with technology and… ... All that stuff. So one day at a time, but work, and I'm sure that you are, you know, just willing take one day at a time.

43:31Rob Tokarz100%, and it's, I'm really lucky, but I've only been on Hacks since season three. I mean, there's the... I've been out for things, but I... Similar, I know people that have been out of work for a year or two or longer. Right now, I know…

43:44Jawad MirYeah

43:45Rob Tokarz... I know as much as I do that I'm on Hacks until February, and hopefully whatever's gonna happen with the tax credits and everything shakes out by then.

43:53Jawad MirYeah.

43:53Rob TokarzAnd I roll into something else. One of the... You know, I just got a, I just got my first agent. I'm just, like, doing all the things to be official and just praying we're not moving deck chairs around on this Titanic.

44:04Jawad MirYeah. Well, good, man. It's glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that, you know, I'm really glad that you first of all mentioned about for both Ford v Ferrari and Bumblebee because…

44:15Rob TokarzYeah

44:15Jawad Mir... Not that I... All the stuff that you have talked about doesn't mean anything. It means a whole lot. But to have that context, for me personally… ... Changed everything in the very beginning of the conversation because it just, you know, it's just something personal, right, because I love Bumblebee…

44:31Rob TokarzYeah

44:31Jawad Mir... And I love Ford v Ferrari.

44:32Rob TokarzYeah.

44:33Jawad MirSo I'm glad you mentioned that. Thank you for mentioning that, and it's been a fabulous conversation. I really appreciate…

44:38Rob TokarzI really enjoyed it

44:39Jawad Mir... All the... I, thank you. I really appreciate... Somebody comes in, does a paint job at your house or builds a basement, and they will do all those things, but sometimes they will leave the nitty-gritty details in the corner of the, you know, of the room…

44:56Rob TokarzYeah

44:56Jawad Mir... Or something. And that to me is everything. Just like you said, the details…

45:00Rob TokarzYeah

45:00Jawad Mir... Of the car, and those…

45:02Rob TokarzYeah

45:02Jawad Mir... Tho… those details that matter more in my view.

45:06Rob TokarzYeah. I mean, that's, that's what it is. It's all a collection of details.

45:10Jawad MirYeah.

45:10Rob TokarzThat's what a set is, it's a collection of details.

45:13Jawad MirAmazing. Awesome, man. Thank you so much, Rob, for your time.

45:15Rob TokarzAwesome. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure

45:17Jawad Mir... And I would love to have you back on when Hacks is done, to maybe speak about…

45:21Rob TokarzLove to

45:21Jawad Mir... Ford v Ferrari and, Bumblebee.

45:24Rob TokarzOh, it was, it was fun. Pro… I was a mere assistant art director and learning from really great people, but they were really highlights of my career, so it was great.

45:34Jawad MirOf course, man. No, every job is important. Every job is important.

45:39Rob TokarzCool.