There are many reasons streaming shows are having so much success. But not enough of the attention is being paid to the artists behind the camera.

I got a chance to speak with production designer Catherine Smith, a seven-time Emmy nominee for True Blood, Shark and Transparent, about the difference between cable and network TV, working with Jill Soloway, and of course, trail mix.

Is there a difference working on a streaming show from any other show?

No. It’s very much run like a regular cable show. The difference is between cable and network. That’s where you really see differences.

Like what?

On a network TV show, you start in the summer and at some point in September, the first thing you worked on is aired. Then progressively through the season, the shows you’re working on have a shorter and shorter span before they’re finally aired. On a cable show, you do every single episode before the first one airs. So things can change in between. Schedule-wise, Transparent is a half-hour show. All of my experience before had been in one-hour television. So this schedule is like every five days there’s an episode. That’s kind of hard and crazy.

What are the unique challenges of a show like Transparent?

On streaming, we’re doing a half-hour solid of producible television. If it’s on television, there are always commercial breaks that cut into your total picture. On shows like this, you have as many locations and sets as you would on a one-hour show. The real difficulty is getting that across a five-day process. Lots of times, the scripts are all there at the beginning, so if you prep enough for everything at once, then by the time you get to the actual shooting, it’s not as difficult.

Plus, they tend to do this thing called block shooting, where they’ll shoot everything at one location for let’s say three episodes to get it all. Network shows never want to do that, I don’t know why.

It sounds way more efficient.

Yeah. You end up being a little more efficient with just about everything.

I’ve heard wonderful things across the board about working with Jill Soloway. What’s it like? Did you know her beforehand?

I knew her indirectly because I worked on [HBO’s] Six Feet Under and then I worked on [HBO’s]True Blood with the production designer Suzuki [Ingerslev]. When Jill got this job, Suzuki couldn’t do it, so she recommended me to Jill. That’s really when I first met her. She’s just amazing. She is as amazing as she seems. Every episode she’ll come in and talk about the themes of the show and we have this moment where she gets up and talks about how everybody should consider this an art form. We’re all artists here, we’re all collaborators. It sounds a little bit goofy, but it’s amazing, the feeling you get when you walk on to that set. Everybody is really excited to do it. There’s no fear of somebody coming in and saying that you’re going too fast, you’re going too slow. It’s all run by her, and it’s just a very safe place to work, and a very creative place to work. She gives you total creative control, just like Amazon.

I take it working with Amazon is a dream too.

Amazon’s great. We started at the very beginning of Amazon. We were one of the first shows and I don’t think they really understood how the business worked. They were very laissez faire. They still are with these shows and it works.

For me, as designers, that’s the greatest thing about cable television. The people in it, they’re artists, and they’re left alone. If it fails, it fails. If it succeeds, it succeeds like nothing else on TV, because they had full autonomy.

What are you most proud of in season 2?

I like to think of Transparent as a bunch of different features that we’re doing. The first one was the wedding and in that, there’s this one shot that’s really fun. It’s a shot through the windows of these hotel rooms, of four different characters. It was done on stage, and they just pan by at regular speed through all these windows and in each room something different is happening. It’s really amazing to watch.

The other thing is she had this whole flashback sequence to Germany in the 1930s. We had to turn this location in LA into Germany and that was really amazing and really fun.

If you were going to make a trail mix, what would the perfect ingredients be?

I hate natural foods. So I’m going to put in just crap.

Just M&M’s.

I don’t even like chocolate, but I love like Tapatio Doritos. And I love skittles. Have you ever seen that thing in Mexico City [Dorilocos], where it’s like Doritos and skittles and gummi bears and hot sauce. It’s an insane mix of stuff.

And that’s what you want.

I’ve always wanted to try it. And there’s maple syrup. It’s just grotesque.

It sounds very American.

Yeah, right? It’s all these American products too, but they sell it a lot.

Sounds like the perfect pairing to Transparent. At this point, I shouldn’t have to sell you on the Golden Globe-winning Transparent, with two seasons now streaming on Amazon Prime.

[Both images comes courtesy of Amazon. The cube image is via Wet Paint; the body image is via Slate]

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