Sherwin-Williams^® STIR^® Bob Shaw

Sherwin-Williams STIR magazine takes you behind the scenes with award-winning TV production designer Bob Shaw. Shaw is the designer behind hit shows and movies including HBO's Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos.

Video Transcription:

I'm one of the rare people who decided that I wanted to be a designer of scenery when I was about 16 years old.

The thing that's different with film design or television design is that it has less to do with what I'm interested in and it always has to do with the situation and the character.

In the case of Boardwalk Empire, it was difficult to research of the color because all of the documentation was in black and white.

And so I was looking at little bits and pieces of buildings that had remaining chunks of color on.

A little bit like archaeology.

And I sort of had to develop a palette for the whole boardwalk with so many buildings and so many people working on that.

I had to sort of develop a menu of colors so that when I was off somewhere else and they suddenly got to a wall that had never been discussed, they at least had a range of colors to work with.

Recently for the pilot Pan Am we made a decision to go with that kodachrome look.

A lot of very selective sort of pops of vivid blues and reds.

I don't have a favorite color.

In my world a different color range comes into play for every project.

So a color just in itself, not related to a room, not related to an object, doesn't mean as much to me.

It's the context of the color and the context always changes so the favorite color always changes.

I had the surgery last July and I hadn't done a lot of hospital sets.

I came to look at the nurse who was handing me a glass of water and said, “Who on earth picked this color?”

I guess sometimes I do look around and question color decisions.

I can't turn it off but that was the first thing I said.