On the sets of "The Penguin". Courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Kalina Ivanov. In this interview, she talks about what production design is, our need to tell stories, the meteoric rise of episodic productions over the last decade,? how she sees generative AI, and what keeps her going. Between all these and more, Kalina dives deep into her work on “The Penguin”.

This interview is the first part of a special initiative – a collaboration with the Production Designers Collective that Kalina founded about 10 years ago together with Inbal Weinberg. This collective brings together over 1,500 members from all around the world, sharing ideas, experiences and advice across the industry. We talk about how it came to be, its goals, and the upcoming second International Production Design Week scheduled in mid-October this year.

Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.

Kalina: I am originally from Bulgaria. I came to the United States when I was 18, and I wanted to study theater design. I studied and practiced to become a theater designer, and I couldn’t find a job in theater in America. It was completely different than in Europe, and it was a quick switch to storyboarding movies for me. Once I was in, I was hooked.

Kirill: Looking back at the time when you started in early ’90s, what would you say are the biggest changes for you in this field since then?

Kalina: It’s clearing moving more and more towards special and visual effects, and now we have AI is coming for us. We all have to be prepared for it. That’s coming, and I find it challenging, but also great. And at the same time, I’m hoping that young filmmakers will find their way to tell a good story with this new format. I keep up with new technologies, like drawing on computers, but I still draw a lot of it by hand.

Kirill: Do you feel that it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical tool or a digital tool, and that the art is more important than the tools?

Kalina: Absolutely. Every production designer brings a unique point of view. No two people are the same, even identical twins. There were two production designers who were identical twin brothers – Richard and Paul Sylbert, and they were not the same [laughs]. We bring a unique point of view to the field, and no technology can take that away from us.

Sketch of the Red Light District for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Can anybody be an artist? Can art be taught?

Kalina: It depends on what kind of artist you want to be. I don’t consider myself a phenomenal artist in terms of drawing, but people find my sketches evocative. I look at them as working drawings. I don’t look at them as a piece of art at all. It all depends on your point of view. An artist has the sensibility, and that can be expressed in many different ways.

Kirill: How would you define what production design is? What kind of an art form is it?

Kalina: It’s about creating the environment. Every project is different. Every journey in every project is different. For me it starts with a script. As long as I can get under the skin of the character, as long as I can become that character, I’m good. If I can’t become that character, there’s trouble brewing on the horizon [laughs]. My process is quite intuitive. I read the script carefully, I think about the characters, and then I draw. Then, through these drawings, the atmosphere starts showing in.

Render of the Red Light District for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Sounds like you are in the camp of a picture is worth a thousand words.

Kalina: Absolutely. I’m not eloquent, so I prefer the drawings to talk.

Kirill: What is the biggest misconception that people have around what production designer is or what do they do?

Kalina: Most people consider us set decorators. They don’t see production design for what it is, especially in contemporary movies. Sometimes I also feel that the cinematographer gets credited with production design, believe it or not. All sorts of people get credited, but production design is a unique art. It requires the mental capability of thinking of all the colors, and all the textures, and all the shapes and forms that come in into the world.

Sketch of the Blackgate Eye Prison for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Getting to Production Designers Collective, how it came around to be and what is it?

Kalina: It was me and Inbal sitting down in a coffee shop, and discovering that we had the same idea, but with different titles. I wanted a society, she wanted a collective, and we ended up with collective. We started with 50 of our friends, and slowly growing the organization over 10 years to have over 1,500 members. There was a tremendous amount of vacuum out there, and nobody thought about connecting production designers all over the world. The international aspect of our organization is vital.

Our newsletter is widely read, and over this decade the advances in technology made it easier for our organization to exist in this digital world. A big focus of our work has been on transforming the collective into organizing gatherings and the International Production Design Week. Our first gathering of 250 designers was in Spetses Greece in 2024, and it was a monumental task for two people to put together.

Kirill: What are the primary goals of the Production Design Week?

Kalina: The main goal is connecting people from all over the world and exchanging ideas freely. We want ideas to flow without any boundaries. We want to find out how similar the processes are, even though technology is different in different countries, and also how unique they are to each person. It’s been an extremely rewarding journey in that way.

Sketch of the exterior of Iceberg Lounger for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: In this context, is there such a thing as universal art, or do we have cultural differences that make it a little bit difficult to make a story that resonates around the world?

Kalina: I think we all are becoming borderless. A story in Russia nowadays today is equally as valid a story in America. Take Japanese films as an example. I love Japanese films, including the animated ones. They are made in Japan, but they’re also wildly influenced by French art. You can look at all the influences, but what matters in the end is the story. The story is the heart of everything, and stories are universal.

Kirill: Do you feel that we are hard wired to need stories, to tell them and to listen to them?

Kalina: Absolutely. As production designers, every day we tell stories through color and architecture. And other people tell the stories differently, but the goal is still the same – tell that story in the most unique way you can.

Render of the Falcone Masoleum for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Going back to this initiative of sharing ideas and spreading awareness, do you want to have it reach beyond the field of production design? Do you want to have people inside and outside of the industry to be more aware of this specific craft?

Kalina: Yes. One part of our goal is to educate everybody about production design. It doesn’t matter if you work in the film industry. You can be absolutely a person who simply loves film. We’re here to educate you about production design and what it means. It’s a misunderstood art.

It used to be more respected at some point. It feels that it’s starting to lose its core on one hand, but on the other hand, bigger movies get bigger budgets for design. When you look at small stories, production design sometimes gets lost, but the amount of work of the production designer in a small movie is the same as in the big movie.

Kirill: It feels like over the last 10-12 years the rest of the big streaming networks took the midsize budget feature films and “turned” them into episodic shows. You have the big movie blockbusters, and a lot of indies. But then, something like “The Penguin” that might have been a mid-budget feature a decade ago is now an episodic show on HBO.

Kalina: I wouldn’t say that the midsize feature is disappearing, but it’s certainly shrinking. I’m constantly traveling between film and television. I’ve been in the television world for two years, and now I’m back to doing a midsize budget feature with Brad Pitt’s company that can afford to be in that space. How many people are able to afford that? I don’t know.

You can get a hundred million for an action movie, and you’ll fulfill the needs of the market, but you won’t win any awards. And you can make a movie like “Anora” for $6M and win the Oscar. In a strange way, what we are seeing is the smaller budget movies that have a bigger impact.

On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: How do you feel about this explosion streaming episodic productions?

Kalina: It’s a natural state that everything is changing all the time.

If we talk about “The Penguin”, it’s a big budget that takes over from the movie, setting it specifically in New York. Doing it in the episodic format allows you to develop the characters. If we make the movie called “The Penguin”, it wouldn’t be the same. His story would be maybe one quarter of the story that we were able to tell. You’d need four movies to fulfill that. Television allows you to give a complex portrait of the character. That’s why people are loving the show. It’s also probably the first time that we so realistically portrayed Gotham, and people are really taken with it.

Kirill: Now that we’re officially talking about “The Penguin”, how did you get to it? Did you chase it, or did it happen to fall into your lap, so to speak?

Kalina: I did not even think about it. It was a call from a producer that I worked with. I did “Lovecraft Country”, a beautiful and imaginative show for HBO, and later I got a call from its line producer about “The Penguin”. I made a look book, I interviewed, and I got the job. Lauren LeFranc the showrunner wanted it to be realistic, and I was quite intrigued by that aspect of it.

On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Did you know that you would be doing all the episodes, and that you would have different cinematographers on it?

Kalina: I did know that. I knew that I would do all eight episodes, but I didn’t have all eight scripts straight away. We started with two scripts, and then Lauren was asked two more to get the show greenlit. Then in number five she brought the trolley depot, and that surprised everyone [laughs] inducing the producers who had to find a million and a half for that set.

Kirill: How much time did you have on pre-production and production itself?

Kalina: It was an unusual because the strike happened in the middle of it, exactly at episode 5. I had a lot of time in prep, from August 2022 til January 2023. Then we started shooting, the strike came, and we finished in February 2024.

Kirill: Was it impacted by the lingering effects of Covid restrictions?

Kalina: Yes, but it wasn’t as extreme anymore. It was more normal than when it started in 2020.

On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: You had some big sets on this show.

Kalina: The interior of the Falcone mansion was a big set, and it took a lot of time. The trolley depot is a 4,500 square feet set. We had so many sets on the show. Sometimes I would design it as a set thinking that I would build it, and then they would tell me that we’d be going on location. And then ironically, I would transform the location into the set that I had in mind [laughs]. They all ended up looking like what I wanted it to look like.

Kirill: Was there enough time and enough money, or are you always running short on both?

Kalina: You always wish you had more money, but the producers had to do what they had to do.

The set of the Falcone House of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Is the Falcone house a single set, or multiple places stitched together in camera?

Kalina: It’s one single set. Then we had the practical location for the exterior, where we had some individual rooms that we wove into the narrative – a corridor, the basement, the greenhouse. Those were shot in such a way that they’re all mimicked the built set.

Kirill: I loved when Sofia talks about the interior design of the Falcone house and asks “You afraid of color or something?” What was the idea behind the interior styling of it?

Kalina: I had created all this backstory of the characters. I didn’t share it with anybody, but I had it all mapped out. So the great grandfather started bootlegging in the ’20s and the ’30s, then the grandfather came, and then we meet Carmine. By the time we meet him, he’s almost a legitimate person. He’s wearing bespoke suits. Look at John Turturro in “The Batman” and how well dressed he was.

I went with the idea that he took upon himself to find a mansion of the great Gatsby era – the ’20s and the ’30s Italian style villa – to bring stuff from Italy, and to make it all Italian. That’s why I had all these Renaissance and pre-Renaissance frescoes in there, and Simone Martini’s “Duke of Padua” famous painting behind Carmine Falcone. The most wonderful thing about it is that the set was a two story set. That gave it the scope that you needed to have, and I got to do the biggest fireplace that you can possibly have in a house like that [laughs].

The solarium came from the actual location, and it was exciting. I changed the textures and everything, but the general shape of it was quite evocative.

The final still of the Falcone House of “The Penguin” with the painting behind the characters, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Was the crypt a set?

Kalina: The crypt was the basement of a real church. Some of it was in VFX, but you won’t know that.

Kirill: The story is about the Penguin’s insecurities and ambitions, failures and successes. How do you approach designing an apartment for a man like that?

Kalina: He’s a conundrum. He has a lot of anger in him. Most of the time, he seems to be OK with everybody and everything and where his place is, but he’s not OK. He desperately wants to be on the top.

He likes to be like Carmine. He likes to think of himself as Carmine Falcone, but not quite. That was the whole idea for his apartment. Here you are on the third floor of the diamond district – not on the top, and you’ve taken over an abandoned jewelry repair shop. I gave it all this backstory, including an ad for the jewelry shop that used to be there.

The set of the Penguin’s Apartment of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

You set your bedroom in the safe room of the jewelry shop. It has all the drawers and the compartments. It’s shiny and it’s right to him, but it’s not Carmine. Carmine has an excellent taste. Carmine probably went to Harvard [laughs]. He’s a very well-educated gangster, but the Penguin isn’t. The Penguin likes shine. That’s what I went for there.

Kirill: What about the Arkham state hospital? Was it a location or did you build the set for it?

Kalina: It was both. We recreated a part of the movie meeting room set, and the cafeteria was in another church basement location. We added two walls, one for the security area, and one for the cafeteria area to tie it into Arkham. I didn’t want it to feel a different space.

On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: What went into thinking how the underground trolley facility is “supposed” to look like?

Kalina: I did two different concepts. One was a working class space, and the other was a working class cathedral, and Lauren chose the cathedral. She loved those vaulted ceilings.

This was an easy set. By that time I knew who the character was and what he would like. I had in mind this very specific location where we put the set to marry it to the lobby and extended the set. By marrying it to that lobby, we got to bring in some of the details that the lobby had, and it worked out perfectly. The combination between the set, the lobby and the tunnels were important. The trolley cars were important, and we built all of those cars. The last trolley car in New York was in 1959, and those don’t exist anymore. So we got to recreate a lot of that.

On the sets of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: And then you have the Monroe club set in two different time periods separated by what looks like about 30 or so years. Was it the same set?

Kalina: It’s the same set, and we were given one day to change it. We started with the old time when it was new and pristine, and then destroy some of it to get to the present time. We did the changeover on a Sunday, something like six hours. There was a lot of prep and rehearsals involved beforehand. It was marvelous. I had this idea of the chandelier because I wanted a giant gesture there. It came up very well.

The backstory is that this jazz club is there since the ’30s. I brought in columns, and I covered the stage with a curtain. The space had murals of Bosch, and I ran the blue drape in from of them because it didn’t match what we needed. We changed the shape of the stage, and a lot of other things. When it was all done, it really looked like my original sketch from when I thought I would build it as a set.

Sketch of the Monroe’s Jazz Club in 1988 for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Sketch of the Monroe’s Jazz Club in 2022 for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: How do you approach deciding what gets built physically, and what gets extended with VFX?

Kalina: It’s up to the budget. Every VFX supervisor that’s worth their money will tell you that you need to build to 15 to 20 feet around the actors, depending on how big the scene is. You build it for real, and extend from there. I do all my concept work, and I give the concepts to the VFX for what it should look like at the end.

I did the concept sketch for the “La Couronne” hotel for the end scene of the last episode, and I convince Lauren to use that name. It’s important to the story. It’s the crown. It’s on the verge of Crown Point. Let’s make it the hotel to be the crown.

Kirill: It’s a beautiful shot, and it’s a poignant one. He’s reached the peak, and yet he is a world away from where he wants to be.

Kalina: Exactly. There is a great amount of sadness in the last scene. You feel what an empty man this guy is. He goes with a prostitute who’s pretending to be his mother. There is no relationship between his mother and him left. I wanted for that moment to have all these pissed off women looking down on him. That’s where you have the furies looking at him angry.

This location was basically a white box, but it had the windows we needed. I took it over and I completely transformed it. If you look at that location, it doesn’t look anything like what we ended up with.

Sketch of the cityscape with the La Couronne hotel for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: In this gritty story, was there any color that you wanted to stay away from?

Kalina: Lauren told us that we should be careful about purple, because it’s Penguin’s color, so we stayed away from it most of the time. In general, I used jewel tones for the show. Those tones work well with dark stories.

Kirill: After all these productions, is it still sad or difficult to walk away from all these magnificent sets, to know that they are going to be torn down?

Kalina: When I was younger, I cried the first time when I saw the scenery being thrown in a dumpster. Now I just walk away and it’s onto the next one.

Kirill: You mentioned the rise of AI earlier. Do you see it as an existential threat, or as another tool that will be used by artists to bring these stories to life?

Kalina: I really see it as a tool. I find that it can be very helpful in the brainstorming period. I don’t think we’re going to end up with ChatGPT stories [laughs].

Render of the mushroom growing tent for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: If you had a time machine and you could travel back to when you were starting out to give an advice to your younger self, what would you say you thought was important, but it turned out to be not as important?

Kalina: Back then I thought it was very important to be an artist. But that is not so much so in production design. What is important is to get along with people, and to get along with the producers, and to work cohesively as a team. The environment is always different on every movie, and you have to find your way to fit in that environment.

I would say your artistry is going to be always there. Work on your people skills. That is my advice. Don’t worry about the art. The art is there. You are the artist, but how you get along with people – that will make or break that movie.

Final still of the mushroom growing tent for “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

Kirill: Which movies would you consider to be the golden standard of your craft?

Kalina: I will take Bertolucci’s “The Conformist”, and then Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” and the first two “Godfather” movies. Dean Tavoularis is my favorite production designer, I worship that man. Those movies are remarkable.

Kirill: What keeps you going in this field?

Kalina: It’s the hunger for learning new things. I always want to be surprised, and I have been fortunate to do wildly different projects. If you look at my resume, you won’t see the same kind of movie or the same kind of project done. I’m very fortunate that way, and that’s what keeps me going.

The set of the Penguin’s Apartment of “The Penguin”, courtesy of Kalina Ivanov.

And here I’d like to thank Kalina Ivanov for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Javier Irazuzta for making this interview happen. “The Penguin” is streaming on HBO Max. To stay up-to-date on the latest news from the International Production Design Week, click here. Finally, if you want to know more about how films and TV shows are made, click here?for additional in-depth interviews in this series.