'Griselda', Production Designer, Knut Loewe

0:08Jawad MirHow do I pronounce your name?

0:10Knut LoeweWell, it's, it's a Danish name. It's Knud.

0:12Jawad MirKnud.

0:13Knut LoeweBut in English language, people always say Claude. But, because K-N and U in English one after another doesn't really work, in fact.

0:27Jawad MirYeah. No, but I... Knud. I… it's easy to pronounce, not difficult at all. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

0:34Knut LoeweWell, thank you so much. I guess it's an honor. So, I looked at your format a little bit and checked out other designers that you have been interviewing in the past and some of the people that were on this platform are like very prestigious, industry partners. So whoop, I'm impressed.

1:01Jawad MirNo, please don't do that. It's, it's... The honor is all mine. I mean, you have done remarkable work on this series, which I'm on episode three right now. I haven't finished it yet.

1:11Knut LoeweOh.

1:12Jawad MirAnd I, and I don't wanna ru…

1:14Knut LoeweWe're good with schedule.

1:16Jawad MirNo, it's fine. It's not a problem. I mean, I can... We can talk about it. I… for me, it's... A… a… again, I don't wanna mispronounce the series name. It's Gaz… Gazero?

1:28Knut LoeweGriselda.

1:29Jawad MirGazelda, right. Really great work in it. Really great work.

1:34Knut LoeweGreat. I'm, I'm…

1:34Jawad MirI mean, I was transported back to the s… you know, '70s era, and it really looks phenomenal. Just hats off to you for your work.

1:43Knut LoeweI'm glad you like it. Yeah, it was great fun. But have you had a chance to look at my website or my IMDb so you get an idea where I'm coming from?

1:56Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, I have. I mean, that's one of the things I do always, obviously, is IMDb is because a lot of work that you have done, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not familiar with it other than the series that you work on. It's mostly been, based in, i… in Europe?

2:16Knut LoeweYeah.

2:16Jawad MirOr if it is... Right? So yeah, no, this is, this is great. And it's, it's... And for the fact that you're in, you're in Berlin, right?

2:26Knut LoeweYeah. Right now I am.

2:28Jawad MirYeah.

2:28Knut LoeweLast week I was in Paris.

2:30Jawad MirYeah.

2:30Knut LoeweBut, there were so many things going on…

2:33Jawad MirYeah

2:33Knut Loewe... That I didn't have any time to accommodate the interview.

2:37Jawad MirThe... No, that's fine. The reason I asked you that is because, I mean, your background being Danish, you're living in Berlin. And Europe, I mean, you know, there's different elements to European countries, but, you know, there is a lot of similarities, too, in terms of culture, in terms of design and all that stuff.

2:53Knut LoeweYeah.

2:53Jawad MirAnd I, and I understand your work in this series. B… I've been to Berlin several times, and I've been to Denmark and I see a lot of, what's the right word? Like, small elements somehow being translated into your work through that skill set. So, you know, that comes probably natural because that's who you are. Like, not from Berlin…

3:15Knut LoeweYeah.

3:16Jawad Mir... But, you know, from Denmark. So yeah. A… again, before, you know, we talk about the series, I'm always curious how people start their journey, like how they get to… how they have sort of started their first step to being who they are in terms of the career. If you wanna run that story by me, I'd be thrilled to know. It'd be very exciting and honored.

3:40Knut LoeweThat's, very easy.

3:45Jawad MirOkay.

3:45Knut LoeweAnd I… after I fini… graduated from school, I thought I was, going to become an architect. And…

3:52Jawad MirOkay

3:52Knut Loewe... I worked for an architecture company that was based in Dubai and in Stuttgart, in Germany. I did an intern, and then I started to major in architecture until the bachelor. And then I worked for Auer and Weber in Munich, which is the company that has built the Olympic Stadium together with Spanish in Munich for the 1972 Olympics.

4:21Knut LoeweSo that was quite interesting. And I worked on the modules, I must say, of the Munich Airport, which was, relocated in, like, the mid…'90s. And, so I was doing bathrooms and tiles and stuff, and it was the same thing over and over again. And at one point I felt, well, I'm not going to be an architect. And, I did a couple of other internships with,.. My first ever feature actually was a low-budget art house movie in New York. And I was doing props and set design and set dec. And it was so low budget that there wasn't even a proper production designer as such. So everything that had to do with the decoration and the locations of the movie was basically done by two or three people.

5:23Knut LoeweAnd the other ones were interns even younger than me. So since I had this background in architecture, I turned out to be the leading person. And then I thought, "Well, this is, this is brilliant. This is what I really want to do." That was an adaptation of so-called Katnussa Kids, which used to be a, quite a well-known comic at the time.

5:50Knut LoeweAnd the writer and director, who was the same person, based her story on the Katnussa Kids, comics. And we knew each other, in fact, we met with one of the architects, for a dinner party, and I was like, "Oh, what do you do?" and they said, "You know, we're about to make a movie in New York." And I was like, "Oh, that sounds interesting." and I joined, and they said, "Well, it's a low budget movie, but what we really need is somebody who takes care of the..." They didn't even say design. They said, they, somebody to take care of the decoration. So we are going to find locations, and then we need to redecorate them a little bit. I said, "I can do it. I can do it." So, I had to pay for the flight myself. I was paying for the accommodation myself. But hey, I was doing a movie in New York. How cool can it get when you, when you... I think I was, like, 26 or something at the time. And then it became more and more apparent that this is what I want to do. And then I enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London, and I moved to, after New York, I moved to London, and I started to go to film school in London.

7:17Knut LoeweAnd this is where I graduated with a master degree. And, that in my pocket actually helped me to get a foot in the door. So I did a couple of smaller projects in England, but that was also in, that was the early '90s. And recession was on. A lot of companies went bankrupt. The, Gulf War had just started.

7:46Jawad MirYeah.

7:47Knut LoeweSo that wasn't very pleasant. A lot of American people were afraid of flying. So a lot of…

7:53Jawad MirSure

7:53Knut Loewe... The international productions that usually would take place in England didn't take place. So that politically, that was all a very difficult, situation, and that was reflected in, seeing in the film industry. So I packed my bags and then I thought, well, in that case, I might be going back to Germany. And funnily enough, I relocated back to Germany, and all the jobs I was offered were in North Africa. So for, I worked in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Nigeria, in Niger, in Burkina Faso. And it's, it's, it's really funny. You come back from one of these productions and people say, "Oh, haven't you just been to Africa? We are planning something that is like," da. Here goes the conversation. And I say, "Yeah, I've been there, and I'm happy to go again."

8:54Knut LoeweAnd so the jobs I was working on got bigger and bigger, but essentially I was always doing the same thing. So then if I work with young people, I'm, I'm also teaching at schools, I advise them to always do what they want to do. Don't work your way up. So I didn't do the thing like junior draftsman, junior art director, assistant art director, art director, and eventually become a designer or even go down the prop lane or something.

9:32Jawad MirRight.

9:32Knut LoeweI've always been at the helm of the department, regardless how small that was. But I was the one who was talking to the director and, to the DOP, and we were figuring out what this thing should look like. And as I was doing that, the production, the project itself became gradually bigger and bigger and bigger. And, yeah, and eventually I work, I worked more and more internationally in North Africa. In South Africa, I did this Laconia show for the BBC. And then all of a sudden I was back in England, and then I actually do another miniseries in England, The Other Child. And eventually the line producer or physical producer of, Counterpart asked me, "We're doing a show that is partly in Los Angeles and partly in Berlin, and actually part of the story is set in Berlin, and we're looking for a designer who's comfortable in both worlds.

10:43Knut LoeweWould you like to pitch?" And I said, "Yeah, of course. Fine. Fair enough." I felt confident enough after... Well, by that time I had, like, twenty or twenty-five years of working experience. So I met with Justin Marks and, with Dan Bishop at the time. And we got on, and, yeah, we weren't speaking the same language. Justin Marks had, his major in architecture as well. So we both had a great affection for architecture. And then I ended up doing two seasons of Counterpart, which was my biggest show until I started to work on with Zelda. And yeah, so and since then I did more and more international shows. But…

11:40Jawad MirYeah

11:40Knut Loewe... Even as we speak, I just finished a rather small piece in, for German television, which is a miniseries that we shot in South Africa. So you go where the projects are going.

11:54Jawad MirYeah. No, that makes sense. And I find it, you know, you talked about this, th-this particular series that you worked on, a lot of times now, I mean, even though Hollywood is to Hollywood, right? But, I know I'm in, I'm in the film business as well… And I've noticed that with, Netflix and Apple and even Hollywood, a lot of the se… a lot of those sound stages they film on are in UK. But especially Apple, Amazon, and Netflix, a lot of series that they're working on, they're working on with production companies based in UK. Is that how you kinda got involved in this project too, or was there a different path?

12:39Knut LoeweSo I th… I see it differently.

12:43Jawad MirOkay

12:44Knut Loewe... So there are studios and stages in the UK, and if I look at the grid of upcoming shows, there's a lot of shows that actually want to go to the UK. But, the workforce in the UK can't possibly accommodate that many shows.

13:03Jawad MirRight.

13:04Knut LoeweFull stop there. The other thing is that companies go a lot to places where they have, let's say, financial benefits.

13:14Jawad MirRight.

13:14Knut LoeweIf, I worked on a, on a series in Brussels after I finished Grizelda, because Brussels in Belgium, they offer a maximum of 40% tax break.

13:27Jawad MirRight.

13:27Knut LoeweVery attractive. Then, the last show I did was in South Africa because at the moment the exchange rate is phenomenal. Usually you get, like, 10 or 12 rand for the, for the dollar, and nowadays you get 20 rand for the dollar. So just for the exchange rate you have like 30, 35% more budget that you can spend. And then in South Africa you have this absolutely wonderful workforce. The, I mean, some of the best people I ever worked with in construction and in painting, I came across in South Africa, so that's quite phenomenal. And then of course there's all of these countries in Eastern Europe. You might have seen that I did this show Survive with Mark Pellington…

14:15Knut Loewe... That was set in the Rocky Mountains. And when we started scouting we thought, well, the Rocky Mountains even if you are at 10,000 feet or 12,000 feet up, it doesn't really look in, so spectacular. So we started to look around where else on this globe we find dramatic mountains, and we ended up in the Dolomites in Northern Italy because they look like Maleficent. It's like they're so pointy and even if you're only like 8 or 10,000 feet up, it looks like you're in the Himalaya somehow. But then you're, you're very close to Milan and you're very close to Venice, and you get all the infrastructure. We worked a lot of, with a lot of people that came up from Rome. And then the interiors we recreated on stage in Riga because Riga in Latvia, in the Baltic States. So we did a combination of the…

15:15Jawad MirWow

15:16Knut Loewe... Of the Baltics and Northern Italy. And we were creating Rocky Mountains. So it's, it's, I wouldn't limit anything to the UK. Yes, there's a great…

15:33Jawad MirYes

15:33Knut Loewe... Film industry there, and they have a long tradition of film industry, and they have the most beautiful clock houses, the most beautiful furniture, and everything you could possibly need to make a movie look great. Definitely get this in the UK. But as a…

15:52Jawad MirOkay

15:52Knut Loewe... Shooting location, as a…

15:53Jawad MirYeah, of course

15:54Knut Loewe... Production hub, there are so many places that are very…

15:59Jawad MirYeah

15:59Knut Loewe... Very interesting as well.

16:01Jawad MirEurope is very interesting, and I think those mountains you're talking about, I... But tell me if this, these are the same ones, because I remember I was flying from London to Florence.

16:12Knut LoeweYeah.

16:12Jawad MirAnd we went, we went over these mountains that you're talking about.

16:15Knut LoeweRight.

16:15Jawad MirIt was like…

16:16Knut LoeweThe Alps.

16:16Jawad MirRight. Yeah.

16:16Knut LoeweAnd the Dolomite Mountains are just one section of the Alps.

16:20Jawad MirBecause they're connected to the Swiss Alps, right? And then they go all the way down.

16:23Knut LoeweIt's, it's all the same thing.

16:24Jawad MirYeah.

16:24Knut LoeweThat's it. It's like Hadrian's Wall going across…

16:28Jawad MirYeah

16:28Knut Loewe... Across over Europe. It goes Austria, Switzerland…

16:32Jawad MirYeah

16:32Knut Loewe... All the way to Chamonix to the French Alps, but it's, it's all the same mountain range. And…

16:38Jawad MirYeah

16:39Knut Loewe... The eastern part is Veneto, which is the Dolomites, but that is part of the Alps. Yes.

16:47Jawad MirYeah. What's your favorite city in Europe? Tough one.

16:54Knut LoeweI don't really have a favorite city. Depends what you want to do. So last week I was in Paris for work, and Paris is absolutely beautiful.

17:02Jawad MirYeah.

17:03Knut LoeweAnd I w… I didn't even have a car. I did everything by bicycle because with nowadays you have an app and you…

17:10Jawad MirYeah

17:11Knut Loewe... Just grab a bicycle and I took a bicycle everywhere where I had to go. So to work in Paris is absolutely wonderful, because you get around so easily from A to B, the Metro system works, and then you have this absolutely beautiful city, these big boulevard, good restaurants.

17:31Jawad MirYeah.

17:32Knut LoeweIt's, it's wonderful. Privately, if I want to do something really nice I go to Venice in off season.

17:43Jawad MirYeah.

17:43Knut LoeweAnd then I'm going to look at some of the smaller Venetian palaces and check out the interiors.

17:49Jawad MirIt's beautiful there. It's beautiful.

17:51Knut LoeweYeah. And then they have contemporary art exhibitions, so Palazzo Fortuny is always great and…

17:59Jawad MirYeah

17:59Knut Loewe... So inspiring. And then…

18:02Jawad MirYeah, I mean, that's the thing, right, in your line of work and the way Europe is. I mean, Berlin, Amsterdam and, Venice and I would say Rome At least from the ones that I... I mean, I've been to all over Europe, but those are some of the... And Prague. Those are the cities that stand out for me. Berlin, I really enjoyed because I think I stayed at Alexanderplatz, the down…

18:25Knut LoeweYeah

18:25Jawad Mir... The central station around there, and I walked everywhere. I mean, that's a great thing about Europe. Like, you can just walk anywhere, you can take the train anywhere from country to country, and it's just…

18:36Knut LoeweYeah

18:36Jawad Mir... It's amazing. And, you know, there's a lot of bicycle access and y… for your line of work, I mean, in film world in general, but specifically for design, like, it's like a mecca of design, right? Like, there's building everywhere that you can get inspired from every right, left…

18:53Knut LoeweOh, yeah

18:53Jawad Mir... Kind of turn.

18:54Knut LoeweAnd Berlin is not particularly beautiful, but the good thing about Berlin is it's, it's, it's big, it's affordable, it's not so expensive.

19:03Jawad MirYeah. That's one of the things I enjoyed about it.

19:05Knut LoeweVery affordable compared to London. And Berlin is very liberal, so you can basically do what you want and if…

19:12Jawad MirYeah

19:12Knut Loewe... If you go to the bakery in the morning in your pajamas, nobody will even turn their heads. It's like…

19:18Jawad MirYeah

19:19Knut Loewe... You can do what you want and people leave you alone. And if you play loud music at midnight or 1:00 in the morning, nobody would complain.

19:27Jawad MirIt's, it's a, it's a historical city too, right? I mean, there's a lot of history. So does Europe, but Berlin, I mean…

19:32Knut LoeweOh, yes. I mean, Berlin was a divided city for…

19:35Jawad MirYeah

19:35Knut Loewe... For 50 years, and you can see the traces of history everywhere. Even after 30 years on, you still see where the wall used to be. You still have these empty lots in the center of the city where sometimes…

19:54Jawad MirYeah

19:54Knut Loewe... Th… th… th… they don't even know who owns this place right now. The traces have been, erased. So

20:04Jawad MirYeah

20:04Knut Loewe... Yeah, it, I kept... When I moved to Berlin 20 years ago, I said it's, it's difficult to be in Berlin and be ignorant because the, yeah, the traces of history are so obvious that you just see them everywhere.

20:22Jawad MirYeah. And one thing, you mentioned about being cheap. I… one of the things I loved about obviously Berlin aside from history is, like, everything is very affordable. And I remember I would walk to... Couple of times I discovered this place. I don't know the streets, but I just... If I was at Alexanderplatz station, I would know exactly where to walk. There was this pla… there was this place where there's a lot of Middle Easterns were living, like Syrians and stuff, and there was a shawarma place that I went to. I forget what it was called. And basically you would get, like, this gigantic plate for, like, 4. I mean, it was just insane, you know?

21:01Knut LoeweYeah.

21:01Jawad MirAnd it's, it's great, but it's great. Anyways, moving to, moving to your work, how did you land to work on, Griselda? Like, what was the chain reaction that started all this?

21:17Knut LoeweOkay. So, the line producer, Philip Barnett, who I had worked with before on another big Am… American show, asked me if I was available. And I said, "Yeah, it looks like it. So what is it about?" And then he was telling me that he was working, on Griselda, and that there will be a Colombian, director, and a lot of these people are the people who put Narcos together. And…

21:52Knut Loewe... If I could imagine to be working with these people. And then, I said, "Yeah, of course. I mean, send me something." So he gave me, a storyline of what this was about, and the script of the first episode. And I understand, I do… I don't know if that, it never came up, but he, the director, Andy, Andre, Andres Baiz, he was al… always willing to be working with a foreigner because he was a foreigner himself. So he's, he's not born and grown up in Hollywood, so he also made the request that he would want to work with a Spanish native speaker. So, Alex was our DOP, and he's from Cuba. He grew up in Miami. So they spoke Spanish together, which made their life very easy.

22:55Knut LoeweI don't speak Spanish. It's not one of my…

22:57Jawad MirRight

22:58Knut Loewe... Languages, but doesn't matter. So, I was actually, in the middle of prepping something else and, when Philip Barnett called me up, and, then they scheduled the meeting, which was what we are doing right now, a Zoom meeting. And that was in the middle of the night because of the, of the time change, was, like, 3:00 in the morning, and I was on my way to Stuttgart to visit my mom, who lived in an old age home at the time. So I checked in a hotel, and on the train on my way to Stuttgart, I put together first ideas how I want this thing to look like. And I Googled just Miami, and I Googled the 1970s, and there were so many things that I thought, "Oh, yeah, this is so obvious."

23:58Knut LoeweAnd let's say, for instance, I said that in another interview before, the use of pink is almost synonymous for Miami, and especially if you talk period Miami, everything is pink. And in the assassination of Gianni Versace, even, the police station was entirely painted in pink. And I thought that's interesting, but in a way that put me off. And, I thought In terms of world building, we have to find a way that looks interesting, that feels like Miami, but isn't Miami. Because everything that is obviously Miami, I thought, well, how do you make a distinction between the other shows, or the other stories that take place in Miami? So I put together things, based on old photographs, the 1970s color photograph.

25:00Knut LoeweIf you look at them nowadays, they're a little bit faded. I looked at, Polaroids. They have a nice atmosphere, nice character. And I put together a, let's call it a collage, like a look book. And before I got on the Zoom with Andy Bites, I sent him the look book. And now that was very funny. 3:00 at night, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Stuttgart, and he looks at this and said, "Oh, yeah, that looks all very nice. Why did you do this? What made you pick these examples?" And I said, "Well, if I'm totally honest, if I were the director, this is the kind of thing I would want the designer to produce…"

25:55Jawad MirSure

25:56Knut Loewe... Or to submit or to, create." And he just laughed. And I said, "Yeah, you know, it's not just about designing something, it's a lot of empathy. If I read a scene, it's what do I think that specific scene needs in order to, like, convey the right kind of character or atmosphere to the audience?" So when I start designing something, I put myself in the position of the director and camera more than in the position of a designer. It's like if I had to put like four actors in that scene, for four actors, I want a space that is big enough. I want more than one door to access this space. I would like to have at least one floor to ceiling window where I can work with various, lights and then, and because light creates atmosphere.

27:02Knut LoeweSo…

27:02Jawad MirSure

27:02Knut Loewe... What do I allow the set to, what kind of atmosphere can be created in this and this set? And then I had rooms in there that were double height, high ceilings, about 10, 15-foot ceilings, because I thought that feels a little bit outrageous. And the entire Griselda story is outrageous. I mean, this woman with the success that she had, may be negative or positive, but that she set foot in the men's world and that she became so, like, insanely rich by dealing with drugs. Apparently, she was the first billionaire drug dealer. Until…

27:46Jawad MirYeah

27:46Knut Loewe... Until she was around, there were no billionaire drug dealers. There were small drug dealers, but none of them became a billionaire, not even Pablo Escobar, apparently. So, that said, we were on the Zoom for an hour and a half, and we chatted. And I guess from what I have learned from other Zooms, in the US, this is also referred to as a chemistry call. So you speak about sailing and boats and real estate, and then how did you redecorate your living room after you moved house, blah. A lot of things that have nothing to do with the project. And it's like, do we speak the same language? Do we get on with each other?

28:34Jawad MirRight. Right. Of course.

28:35Knut LoeweAnd, a couple of days passed, and then eventually I got a call from Philip Barnett, and then I said, "Well, how did it go?" And they interviewed two or three other designers. And then, apparently Andy had said I was the only one who submitted a, an idea, a concept, how he would tackle that challenge. And this is why he wanted to work with me. So I don't know who the other people were, but eventually, I started working from Berlin, and I started a little bit of stuff to Andy, we were sending emails back and forth. And then I jumped on the plane and I went over, and then we started the challenge. So

29:30Jawad MirNice

29:30Knut Loewe... Yeah. At…

29:32Jawad MirHow…

29:32Knut Loewe... That point we didn't even have all the six scripts.

29:35Jawad MirYeah.

29:36Knut LoeweIt was like three scripts, and the other three scripts were still in the making. And then we went… we shot more or less episodic. We started with the early sequences and we actually finished with, episode six. So that wasn't always possible, but generally speaking it was episodic, which was possible because Andy was the only director. Andy was the only director, and he did all six episodes. And…

30:12Jawad MirRight

30:12Knut Loewe... To me he was like a showrunner because all the artistic and aesthetic decisions I did with Eric, with Andy. I was going to say even Eric Newman, the executive producer, he pretty much let us free and do what we thought was best for the show.

30:37Jawad MirNice. You know, one of the things, obviously it's a collaborative effort, right? Like everything in the filmmaking…

30:45Knut LoeweOh, yeah. Absolutely

30:45Jawad Mir... Right? And but as a production designer, when you're on the set, you know, you're, you're working with a director, you're trying to bring his vision to life. You're working with the markers and the space and the environments. But to me, one of the most important things is working with the DP because obviously you are, you know, you have all this stuff that you have kind of come up, you know, created this world, and the lighting makes a huge difference in how that world is transformed onto the screen.

31:17Knut LoeweYeah.

31:17Jawad MirAnd how... Do you remember a story or any kind of interaction? I'm sure you had tons and tons where you guys kind of went back and forth, "We should do this," or, "We should lit up the nightclub this way to make it more, the elements pop out more." Any story that you remember?

31:34Knut LoeweOh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, Armando Salas was on board right from the beginning and, we did... So the exterior locations are, on location in Los Angeles and…

31:51Jawad MirRight

31:51Knut Loewe... A lot of the interiors were recreated on stage. So we had to split locations. The exterior looks like this, the interior looks like this. And the first, conversation was about how do we tie this together? How do we make it look that this is the same location? Because…

32:12Jawad MirSure

32:12Knut Loewe... The interiors were a lot bigger than the original interior would have been. We blew up everything. So and, we'll stop there. Then the other thing is that we went on extensive location recce together, and, especially for, the director, the DOP, and myself, that was like a brainstorming tour. So we had various locations, and I always try to tie the locations together. So if we wanted to look for a nightclub, we were looking at like three nightclubs, one after another. Then we needed a house of, in the, in the Caribbean for the Ochoa. So we were trying to look at three or four examples what that house could be on the same trip. So then we would, we would start early in the morning, then we would go for lunch, and over lunch we would discuss whether that one was better than this one because of this and this reason. So that we would actually make all these decisions together.

33:16Knut LoeweAnd what I often brought along were mood boards and say, "Look, this is what the interior needs to feel like," or, "This is what the exterior needs to feel like." And there were a couple of moods that we all liked very much. This mood is easier to apply on this location and not so easy on that location. Well, then let's go for this one.

33:41Jawad MirRight.

33:42Knut LoeweSo we knew where we wanted to shoot what and where to accommodate which scene. Then of course we started to think about the light. So Armando had started to do some research on vintage photographs and how he wanted to grade the thing, what kind of color, atmosphere, and texture he wanted. Also, we… he had ideas about the grain. So it looks, we wanted to create a look that it would look like as it was shot on film, but obviously we shot digital. And, then the next thing is we got together with the set decorator, Tim Leonard, where we spoke extensively about practicals because this is the thing. When you, when you work with digital camera, you don't need so much light anymore as you did in film times because…

34:44Jawad MirSure

34:44Knut Loewe... You get away with murder. So you have a couple of candles and a couple of practicals in the corner, and the camera can almost pick it up. So, the practicals were particularly important. It's like how much, li… how many light sources are we actually going to see in front of the camera in the frame? And then we made a general, decision for these different worlds. So we had the Colombian world, and we had Griselda's world in Miami. But then we also had the world of the police and the investigators in Miami. So we decided at one point that Griselda's world would be very warm with a lot of, gold and browns and dark reds. And in comparison, the world of the, police and the investigators should be rather cold.

35:46Knut LoeweSo we worked with fluorescent lights that were recessed in the ceiling. And then there were so many practicals around. And the locations that we picked for the police station had really large windows that we then frosted. And then, the, we had a lot of traditional film lighting with big units outside the location. And then we were cracking jokes when we were starting to put everything together. The light is like, "Jesus is coming." So there was this very bright but also cold light that was coming in from outside to make the police station and the legal team, we have courtrooms and something, have them, have a different character, have a different feel to it. So yes, I mean, the... And then there was another thing that was super nice is that Armando actually graded stills from rushes, and he shared them with me so I could share them with the art directors and with set dec and other people on my crew and say, "Look, this is the character that we are after."

37:05Knut LoeweAnd the more we had shot, the more we went in, into following, a path. Like, how do we create this look? So not all of this is shot in the, in the same time. And then if you have seen three episodes, you will recognize that in episode, four, five, six, we then go into the middle of the '80s where colors are changing, materials…

37:35Jawad MirSure

37:35Knut Loewe... Are changing, textures and surfaces are changing, and altogether everything becomes a little bit more colorful. Whereas in the, first three episodes, everything is like muted colors. We were not using primary colors. But, in episode four, five, and six, we are going more and more into primary colors, even as far as neon colors, which were particularly fashionable in the mid…'80s. Horrid colors, but so typical for the time. So we used them, but we didn't use them at all in the early episodes where we are still in the six, '70s.

38:21Jawad MirWow. That's incredible. And w… is this a series something like you've... Have you ever done anything like this before in terms of sh… the time period and the grandness of that, in…

38:32Knut LoeweYeah. I mean, well, the grandness is... What do you mean by grandness? Is that, like, the overall budget per episode?

38:43Jawad MirNo. No. No, I was talking more about, like, shifting between time periods, the grandness. Like, just the…

38:48Knut LoeweOh. No, I've done that, yeah, I have done that be… before. And you see this in my CV, that the majority of the shows that I designed are period shows. And the piece I was doing in Brussels that I mentioned, that was set in 1989. And then I, the, Laconia, the BBC piece was set in the 1940s. And the majority…

39:19Jawad MirOkay

39:19Knut Loewe... Takes place on an ocean liner that was built in the 1920s. So I had one layer that was 1920s, but then the story took place 20 years after the ship was built.

39:31Jawad MirSure.

39:31Knut LoeweSo these are two layers. And then I did this, episode, two seasons for German television. It's called Tanna. And that starts in the n… 1939, just before the wake of…

39:52Jawad MirWow

39:52Knut Loewe... World War II. But then it goes to, all the way up to the end of the 1950.

39:59Jawad MirSure.

39:59Knut LoeweSo we have before the war, in the war, after the war. That's just wunder. So, yeah.

40:06Jawad MirThat's amazing.

40:07Knut LoeweYeah.

40:08Jawad MirThat's amazing. What's, what, do you recall, any particular challenge, a story that took place on the set that you had to sort of overcome on Griselda?

40:20Knut LoeweWell, there was one major challenge for the entire production team, but especially…

40:27Jawad MirOkay

40:27Knut Loewe... For me as a designer. The, as you know, the, or as we all know, the story takes place in Miami. But, for various reasons, at one point we decided or production decided that we were going to shoot everything in Los Angeles. So how do you do Los, how do you turn Los Angeles in, into Miami? So that was my major challenge.

40:55Knut LoeweAnd I didn't grow up in the United States, so I had to get into the feeling of what did the United States feel like in the 1970s. Of course, at the time, Licorice Pizza was out, and I have seen a lot of movies because we saw a lot of American movies when I grew up in Europe. And of course we had The Brady Bunch and stuff like that. But, you know, so I was trying to create the difference. What is the difference between Miami and Los Angeles? And one difference of course, is that Miami has these inner coastal waterways and the…

41:39Jawad MirYeah

41:39Knut Loewe... There's water and islands and ships and yachts and boats everywhere. And the other thing is that Florida is so green, and the, and the humidity allows all these palm trees to go… grow like crazy. And, right from the beginning, I sat down with the supervising art director and, said, "We need to spend a lot of money on greenery here because we need to bring in the extra greenery from Florida that isn't in Southern California." It wasn't so much a challenge, but it was something that…

42:16Jawad MirSure

42:16Knut Loewe... Needed to be looked after, and that was a key element into making, Southern California look like Miami. And in retrospect, when I see the finished show, we could probably have done twice as much of greenery and still not even come close to what Florida looks like. So I mean, there are limits for everything, but we did…

42:45Jawad MirYeah

42:45Knut Loewe... Bring in hundreds of palm trees and hundreds of banana leaves and hundreds of birds of paradise And then, and, interiors and exteriors. So if there wasn't enough space for putting in, like, big potted plants, I had the scenic painters paint banana leaf wallpaper and put it up. So this is... If you look at the sets, you see a lot of floral wallpapers with palm leaves and banana leaves.

43:18Jawad MirYeah. No, that's, that's, that's so true. It's, it's, it's, it's something that's... Un… I'm just kinda going through something that I wanted to talk to you about. I'm also, you know, what you…

43:28Knut LoeweOh, what I quickly want to mention in that respect…

43:31Jawad MirPlease

43:32Knut Loewe... Is that I am a foreigner, and to me, elements in the United States, in American culture stand out that are not standing out for you because for you, they are just normal. And you know them so well that you would, might not, pay too much attention to it. But for me, as somebody who did not grow up in the United States, things are special that you don't regard as anything special. So this is also something that helped me to create a show that has a little bit of its own look and doesn't look so much like…

44:12Jawad MirYeah

44:13Knut Loewe... Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm voting for various awards, and then I get all these shows sent. And I was particularly interested in The Offer, which was beautiful, that took place around that time. Then I looked at the Gaslight movie with Julia Roberts, which was also, like, late '70s. The Mitchell thing, how their house was decorated. And, what I realized is that there are certain ways of putting things together that are typical American. So in America, you put a double bed in the bedroom in front of the window. Would never, ever do that in Europe. You don't put bed heads in front of windows. That feels so weird. So we never have beds in front of windows, but that's just my European point of view because I just don't like it. And things like that. So

45:12Jawad MirYeah.

45:12Knut LoeweAnd since Andy didn't grow up in the United States either, in that respect we were a good team. And I said, "Andy, I want you to listen this because..." And he said, "Yeah, go ahead." So we worked a lot with vintage photographs from all around the world, and then, yeah.

45:37Jawad MirThat's great. I'm actually from, not from United States. I'm in Canada. But

45:42Knut LoeweAh

45:42Jawad Mir... But Canada and US are quite similar in a lot of ways in terms of architect.

45:47Knut LoeweYeah, but

45:47Jawad MirJust like, just like Europe is

45:49Knut Loewe... Very different in a lot of ways, too.

45:51Jawad MirYeah.

45:53Knut LoeweYeah

45:53Jawad Mir... You know, just to kinda wrap…

45:54Knut LoeweWhere in Canada are you?

45:55Jawad MirIn Toronto.

45:56Knut LoeweAh, okay.

45:58Jawad MirYeah. Just to, wrap things up, now that you have worked on this series, you know, on Netflix and kind of like, you know, you've been doing stuff a lot in Europe, do you see yourself doing more stuff here? Or do you still enjoy the luxury of being where you are and working on the projects that you work on?

46:22Knut LoeweThis is, like, unpredictable. Who can answer, who can answer this?

46:31Jawad MirWell, what is your wish?

46:32Knut LoeweBut that, I'm, I'm going to be in Los Angeles then, next month, and I'm going to meet with the agency. And there's a short list of projects that are coming my way.

46:44Jawad MirGreat.

46:44Knut LoeweAnd some of them are in the US, and some of them are US productions, but they are going to be shot internationally. So, I mean, I'm very open for, what the story is. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm also looking a little bit at, on the budget side. So there was…

47:08Jawad MirOf course, you have to.

47:09Knut LoeweYeah, there was one project that the story sounded quite interesting. And I think they wanted to do it in Greece or Morocco or somewhere in the, around the Mediterranean, but their overall budget was like $10 million. And I said, "Well, how much can I do with $10 million?" And that wasn't the art department budget. That was the overall…

47:31Jawad MirYeah

47:32Knut Loewe... Budget for everything. So and I've, I've done quite a few shows with that kind of budget, and what it ends up with is that the art department gets something like 500,000 for everything, including cars and boats and greenery and epic and construction. And then look, I just did a show where I were able to create a lot. So I would now, the next show I would like to do is, again, a show where I can really be creative and work from the world-building side of things. But if you do an overall feature for $10 million, there's no world building.

48:14Jawad MirYeah. I mean…

48:15Knut LoeweYou don't…

48:15Jawad Mir... There's so much, so much…

48:16Knut Loewe... You get it done or not.

48:18Jawad MirYeah. So much ends up being in the, in the traveling, number one, like, you know, when you have an entire team traveling or even if you're hiring local crew members still, there's, you know, $10 million flies like this for something like a…

48:31Knut LoeweWell, on a $10 million movie shot in Morocco or Greece, you would have head of departments going out there, and everybody else would have to be local.

48:41Jawad MirYeah.

48:41Knut LoeweI mean, that's for sure. You don't bring an art director from the United States to work in Greece on a low-budget movie.

48:50Jawad MirYeah.

48:50Knut LoeweThat's not possible.

48:52Jawad MirNo, not at all. Th… this, thank you so much. This has been great. I truly enjoyed talking to you, listening to your story, and, you know, you were very detailed, and which is something I enjoy because I'm always learning myself, and the audience is listening. So thank you so much.

49:08Knut LoeweThank you so much…

49:09Jawad MirThank you so much for your time

49:10Knut Loewe... For having me, and take care. It's beautiful.

49:13Jawad MirYou too.

49:14Knut LoeweBye.

49:14Jawad MirFor sure. Have... Bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.