Production design of "After the Hunt" by Stefano Baisi, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Stefano Baisi. In this interview, he talks about transitioning from interior design to designing film productions, what art is, building the worlds that support the story, and his thoughts on generative AI. Between all these and more, Stefano dives deep into his work on the just-released “After the Hunt”.

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

Stefano: I graduated in architecture years ago and I started working in the interior design field here in Milano. Over the years I experienced different styles of projects, including working on fashion shows as a PA early on. After a while doing residential and retail projects, I met Luca Guadagnino. A friend of mine – a photographer and architect that used to study and work with me – met Luca on a photography assignment by a magazine. That was at the same time when Luca had his first commission as an architect and as an interior designer. They started designing a villa together on Lake Como, and after a while, they needed help. That’s how I met Luca back in 2017.

It started from that one project of a director that decided to do a design project, and grew over the next five years into a full interior design studio. During that time, I think I expressed my attitude in designing, and in 2022 Luca asked me to design “Queer”.

Kirill: How was your transition from the world of interior design into doing production design for film?

Stefano: When you design for the movie, you must be coherent to the movie and adhere to the story – instead of designing something because it’s beautiful. The environment is an extension of the characters. That’s how I approach it.

Design illustration for “After the Hunt” by Stefano Baisi, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: How do you see the role of a production designer? What do you think is not well understood about it by the outside world?

Stefano: From my own perspective, I can see the work of other people and understand the depth of the work that exists behind the production. For production design specifically, I would say that people don’t understand how much work goes into it, and how little time we have to do it.

We started prepping “After the Hunt” in May 2024, and the movie wrapped in mid-August of that year. That’s not a lot of time. When you design a space like Frederik and Alma’s apartment, the audience might not see the level of detail and thinking that went into every choice – from the colors on the walls to every single piece of art and every book on the shelves. There are thousands of books in Frederik’s study, and choosing each one gave his character more depth. You can’t always see how deep it goes, because most of the time it’s in the background, and maybe blurry and out of focus. There’s a lot of research and work behind a production like this one.

Design illustration for “After the Hunt” by Stefano Baisi, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: Do you think there’s such a thing as objectively good and objectively bad art, or is it all subjective?

Stefano: It’s subjective. Maybe there is bad art, but it’s more subjective than objective. Everyone has something to say about it.

Kirill: Maybe it takes a few generations or centuries until we, collectively, start considering the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Monet or Rodin as almost universally great art.

Stefano: Of course, I think that good art will last, and bad art will not last. And it applies to the movies. There are movies that are forever, and there are movies that are only for a couple hours on the flight.

Kirill: Do you feel anybody can be an artist, or does it require something that you’re born with, some sort of an innate talent?

Stefano: That’s difficult to answer. Every one of us has different skills and a different way of being. Some of us are more sensitive, and some are able to convey their sensitivity to something that is more elevated, sometimes unconsciously. We are all different, and perhaps there are people who are able to transform their sensitivity into something that could be called art.

Design illustration for “After the Hunt” by Stefano Baisi, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: Getting to “After the Hunt”, what speaks to you in that story?

Stefano: I like the way every character looks for power. I like the way in which Luca and the writer Nora Garrett stage this story to highlight the duplicity of the characters. There is a public persona and there is another part of them that is hidden. There are a lot of lies and you can understand better the way in which the people and humanity used to live.

Kirill: The movie is set in the United States, but it wasn’t shot in the United States. Was it clear to you from the beginning that you would need to recreate Yale outside of where it is?

Stefano: Luca texted me and asked me if I like the East Coast. I was convinced that we were going to shoot everything on location, but after a while I understood that we were not doing that. There are many layers of reasons why we shot in London instead of shooting in Connecticut. One of them is that Yale would have never given us the opportunity to shoot in real locations. Luca is a precise director, and he loves to be precise in what he does. And the other reason might be economic.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: What discussions did you have about defining the visual language of the movie, and more specifically its color palette?

Stefano: It was a conversation between Luca, Malik Hassan Sayeed the director of photography, and I. They spoke a lot about a period and the specific references. The primary visuals references were from the world of Ingmar Bergman, and the work of Gordon Willis on “The Godfather”. That’s where the color palette comes from. There are specific choices, for example, in the Frederik and Alma’s apartment and the way that they want to be recognized by other people. For them, it’s stage, and they play the role that they represent in the society.

Kirill: Was there any color you wanted to stay away from?

Stefano: Usually, I don’t add those limits. I don’t add those kinds of limits usually. Sometimes the first AD [assistant director] might ask if I want to avoid strong colors like red, blue or white for cars. When Luca and I pick colors, we try to be coherent with what we are building. If I have options for cars, I’m going to choose one that is right for that set.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: Was the apartment a single build or is it multiple pieces stitched together in camera?

Stefano: It’s a single build.

Kirill: How much time did it take you to build it from beginning to end?

Stefano: I would say eight weeks.

Kirill: How did you approach designing a space that reflects these two characters, and also the history of what might be a couple of previous generations that lived there?

Stefano: We started with Luca, Nora, and Ben Panzeca the head of research. They went deep into the careers of Frederik and Alma. He’s a psychoanalyst, and she’s a professor of philosophy. We tried to be accurate in understanding who they are, in mapping out the path of their lives.

The apartment becomes an additional character in the story, creating three layers of history. We started from Frederik’s grandparents, thinking that maybe they escaped from Europe when the Nazi regime was on the rise. Maybe Frederik’s grandfather was an architect, and they brought to the United States the experience of Wiener Werkstätte and Bauhaus. That’s our first layer, together with pieces of art from that period. We have paintings by Albers and Hammershøi.

The second layer is Frederik’s parents from the Kennedy era, inspired by the style of Lee Radziwill, with William Morris florals and fabrics. And then Frederik and Alma together bring in the last layer. We thought that they would travel the world together, be it Haiti or North Africa, and they would bring back pieces of art from different places. And as things get older, they replace them, be it re-upholstering furniture, or new curtains, or new furniture.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: You have all this research and thinking, and then it takes two months or so to fully build that apartment. How does it feel to walk into that set when it’s all finished.

Stefano: Happy. Happy and proud. We had a great art department, with a talented art director, assistant art director, graphic designers, and set decorator Lee Sandales who won the Academy award last year for “Wicked”. The level of craftsmanship in England is very good. I was lucky to work with everybody on this movie.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: How did you go about recreating the campus spaces?

Stefano: Some of those spaces were built from scratch in Shepperton Studios, and others were shot on location in Cambridge. Alma’s classroom and the hallways around it, her office, dean’s office and other offices were locations in Cambridge. Battell Chapel was also a location that we adapted.

When we were on location, we tried to hide the decoration. That’s the main difference between Yale and Cambridge. Both of them are built in the neo-Gothic style, but I felt that Cambridge was more decorated. We also added to those locations – adding a wall with the blackboard for the classroom, and big chandeliers for Battle Chapel.

The rest was built in the backlot of Shepperton – like the Beinecke library, and the SOM masterpiece. We built a portion of the plaza in front of it, and a corner of the actual building. We built a portion of the main quad, recreating the walled path, the tree trunks, the metal fence, and a part of the street.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: How did you approach Alma’s apartment where she goes to work on her book?

Stefano: It’s a working space, a functional space, and a mental space. It’s a blank canvas where she goes to work, to write, to think, and to be herself. It does not mean that she’s not sophisticated in the private, but she goes there to be free from society.

Kirill: What was the most challenging set for you on this production?

Stefano: The apartment was the biggest challenge of the movie. One of our primary concepts for our design was to be precise and accurate. Every finishing, every element, every material has been recreated to be as precise as possible. I focus a lot on patina in my work. It changes everything.

Kirill: How does it feel to see these sets come to life on the screen?

Stefano: I feel privileged to be in a place that I dreamt of when I was young. I dreamt to be in those spaces that I watched in the movies, and now I’m building those spaces.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: Do you want people to watch this movie on the biggest screen possible? Do you want them to go to the movie theater?

Stefano: I hope to. I try to go as often as I can to the movie theater, because it’s a completely different way to watch a movie. You are not with your phone in the hand, you are not distracted by everything, and you can really appreciate the work behind the piece of art you’re watching.

Kirill: You mentioned that you finished working on this movie last August, and only now it’s being released to the general public. What do you remember from it now that more than a year has passed?

Stefano: These days I’m reviewing a lot of images of its sets. That’s where I am right now. I’m in those sets [laughs]. I love to be on set when it’s shooting. When the job permits me to be on set, I’m there. I feel responsible for the sets, and I want to be there when the real thing is happening.

Kirill: You’ve done two movies, and the third one will be out soon. Do you get to enjoy the movie when you see the final cut in the movie theater? Do you get to enjoy the movie as a viewer, or do you find yourself looking at the parts that you worked on?

Stefano: I watched “After the Hunt” at least six times. Luca shared with me the first cut, and then the second cut, and so on. And then I watched it in Venice when it premiered there at the film festival in August this year. When I watched it for the first time, I tried to enjoy it as a regular viewer, instead of focusing on my part of the job. And then the other times I probably focused more on my work.

Production still on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: What are your thoughts today on generative AI? Do you see it as a tool? Do you see it as a threat? Do you see it as something else, maybe?

Stefano: Nowadays I’m trying to see it as a tool, and I want to see it as a tool.

AI could speed up the process, but sometimes it’s better that the process is slow. I’m not against the improvement of technology, but I’m against bringing about the end of people thinking, designing, and creating.

Production designer Stefano Baisi, director Luca Guadagnino, screenwriter Nora Garrett, cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed and lead actor Michael Stuhlbarg at the Los Angeles screening of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

Kirill: The last two questions are about your favorite things. When you were working on this movie in England, what was your favorite local dish to eat?

Stefano: Fish and chips, for sure [laughs]. I loved it.

Kirill: And what are your favorite movies, maybe from when you were growing up, or from when you are watching them today?

Stefano: I do have a few that, in one way or another, have marked a turning point in my life and shaped how I see the world:

• Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock
• Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola
• Back to the Future – Robert Zemeckis (I truly love all of Zemeckis’ work)
• Chinatown – Roman Polanski
• Goodfellas – Martin Scorsese
• Carrie – Brian De Palma
• Fargo – Joel & Ethan Coen
• Blue Velvet – David Lynch
• Brazil – Terry Gilliam
• Children of Men – Alfonso Cuarón

Stefano Baisi on the sets of “After the Hunt”, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.

And here I want to thank Stefano Baisi for taking the time to talk with me about the art and craft of production design. I also want to thank Kara Kitchell and Lana Lay for making this interview happen. “After the Hunt” is out on theaters now. 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.