Atlanta Season 3

Production Design

Atlanta Season 3

Directed by Hiro Murai, Ibra Ake and Donald Glover.

Production Design by Jonathan Paul Green

Starring Donald Glover, Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield and Zazie Beetz

Jonathan Paul Green was Production Designer on Season 3 of Atlanta, taking the established world of the acclaimed FX series into a very different European setting.

I worked closely with director Hiro Murai and creator Donald Glover to find a way of retaining the distinctive visual language and house style already established in Atlanta, while allowing the characters to inhabit a series of very different European environments. There was also a rather lovely connection to my previous work: before I joined the production, Donald had asked Phoebe Waller-Bridge if she would recommend me, having worked with me on Fleabag.

One of my main considerations was how to make the move to Europe feel like a natural extension of Atlanta rather than a different show. Each location needed to feel authentic to its city and country, but the series still had to feel unmistakably like Atlanta.

That became particularly interesting when dealing with some of the extraordinary environments and ideas within the scripts. Among the challenges were creating a Nando’s restaurant inside a billionaire’s mansion; designing and building a mechanical deathbed that kills Tupac; and creating a decoy house that leads directly into the billionaire’s mansion, complete with an ancient tree that Paper Boi proceeds to cut down with a chainsaw.

These were wonderfully surreal briefs, but the key was always to treat them with complete conviction. However strange the idea, the environment itself had to feel believable. That balance between reality and absurdity is such an important part of Atlanta, and became central to my approach to the production design.

Rather than imposing a single visual treatment across Europe, I wanted the design to embrace the individual character of each location while finding architecture, details and textures that belonged within that slightly heightened world. The contrast between the familiarity of the characters and the unfamiliarity of their surroundings became an important part of the design.

Working across multiple European locations brought a constant change of architecture, culture and visual references, with each episode presenting its own challenges. Sets, locations and dressing had to establish these new worlds quickly while maintaining a visual thread across the season.

For me, the challenge of Season 3 was finding that balance: allowing the production design to unmistakably belong to Europe, while ensuring that the world surrounding the cast still unmistakably belonged to Atlanta.

A dream job, that was shot in London, Paris and Amsterdam.

Explore more of Jonathan Paul Green's work as a UK Production Designer across film, HETV and television.

“Sinterklaas Is Coming To Town”

Episode 2

Testing the Tupac death bed construction

Amsterdam prison cell production design and set build

View of the Amsterdam apartment for Tupac in Sinterklaas

“The Old Man & The Tree”

Episode 3

The Old Man & The Tree was a great episode to design and one of those Atlanta scripts where, from the first read, it was clear that the production design would play an important part in making the story work.

The script required a seemingly ordinary London house to act as a decoy, leading unexpectedly into an enormous billionaire’s mansion. The challenge was finding two very different properties that could somehow be made to feel as though they were physically connected.

In the end, we found the perfect decoy house and an even more extraordinary mansion — the only problem being that they were around 30 miles apart. To create the transition, I designed and built a section of the decoy house within the mansion itself, carefully matching the architecture, finishes and details of the original location. This became our visual link between the two properties, allowing the characters to appear to move seamlessly from one building into the other.

The mansion brought another wonderfully Atlanta challenge. Within the house we created a private Nando’s restaurant, overlooking the grounds where the script required Paper Boi to take a chainsaw to an enormous ancient tree.

Obviously, cutting down a real thousand-year-old tree wasn’t an option, so we designed and constructed our own. The large-scale artificial tree incorporated real timber elements within the fibreglass construction at the points where the chainsaw would make contact. It needed to look completely convincing alongside the mature landscape of the mansion while also being engineered to perform safely and practically for the sequence.

It was a perfect example of the strange logic of Atlanta: an ordinary house that secretly leads into a billionaire’s mansion, a private Nando’s built inside it, and an ancient tree constructed specifically so Paper Boi could attack it with a chainsaw. However surreal the idea, our job was to make every element feel entirely believable.

Lots of fun, lots of chicken, and a superb team effort.

Nandos for Old Man & The Tree episode of Atlanta

Creating the tree for Old Man & The Tree episode of Atlanta

“Cancer Attack”

Episode 5

Cancer Attack was shot predominantly in London, although the episode itself is set around a music venue in Budapest. After an extensive location search, we couldn’t find an existing venue that had the character, scale and slightly unusual atmosphere we wanted, so I decided to create the venue ourselves.

We took over part of Alexandra Palace and I designed a substantial set build within the existing building. Rather than trying to disguise the location completely, I used sections of the original walls and architecture as inspiration for the design, extending that visual language into the constructed elements so that old and new became part of the same environment.

The build went well beyond the performance space itself. We created the Green Room, corridors and Folk’s office, allowing the characters to move through a convincing network of backstage spaces and giving the venue a sense of scale beyond what was immediately seen on camera.

The aim was to create somewhere that felt as though it had evolved over many years — a slightly worn, characterful European music venue rather than a newly constructed set. Using the fabric of Alexandra Palace as the starting point gave us the texture and history we needed, while building the rest allowed us complete control over the geography, camera access and storytelling requirements of the episode.

It was a good example of the approach we took throughout Season 3: using what Europe and London could give us, then designing and building whatever was needed to transform it into the particular, slightly heightened world of Atlanta.

Production Design & set build for Cancer Attack

Building a set on location at Alexandra Palace

Folks Office set build for Cancer Attack

The Green Room in Cancer Attack set build

“Tarrare”

Episode 10

Tarrare was shot entirely on location in Paris in May 2021, at a time when COVID restrictions and lockdowns made filming in the city particularly challenging. Access to locations, movement around Paris and the practicalities of preparing and dressing spaces all had to be approached within constantly changing restrictions, while still creating the distinctive and increasingly surreal world required by the episode.

One of the pleasures of the design was taking recognisable elements of Paris and placing them in unexpected contexts. For one sequence, we built a convincing Paris Métro entrance within a high-rise residential estate, creating the illusion that the characters could disappear underground from a location where no station actually existed.

Van’s apartment was another important environment, giving us an opportunity to develop the increasingly strange world she inhabits as the episode progresses. As with much of Season 3, the design needed to remain grounded enough to feel real while allowing the story to move effortlessly into something much more heightened and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most unusual challenge was the extraordinary dinner sequence, for which we had to create the edible “hands” served to the guests. It was exactly the kind of Atlanta design problem I loved — something completely surreal that nevertheless had to be presented with absolute conviction within the world of the episode.

Despite the considerable logistical challenges of shooting in Paris during that period, Tarrare became one of my favourite episodes of the season. Masterfully directed by Donald Glover, it encapsulated much of what made designing Atlanta so enjoyable: real locations, unexpected transformations and extraordinary ideas treated as though they were entirely normal.