‘Shōgun’ production designer Helen Jarvis: ‘I was tackling a new culture of which I had no experience’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Helen Jarvis understood that she had her work cut out for her after signing on in early 2021 to serve as the production on the new 10-part FX adaptation of the epic 1975 James Clavell novel “Shōgun.” For one, we were still in the throes of COVID lockdown, and things were really shut down in Japan – eliminating access to the country in which the series is based, albeit set more than 400 years ago. Jarvis had also never read the book. “I avoided it in 1975 because it was far too thick and I would probably never get through it,” she maintains. “Also, I’d not worked on a series before with several different directors, so that was a very interesting proposal. And I’d never been to Japan.” The British-born Jarvis still hasn’t been, as “Shogun” shot in British Columbia, on Vancouver Island and the suburbs of Vancouver. “Plus, I had gotten used to, at that point, working with a crew of people that you’d Zoom with twice a day. It would have been nice to have had a bit more sort of round-the-table dynamic.”

We spoke with Jarvis as part of our “Meet the Experts” TV Production Designers Panel. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Somehow, despite the obstacles that also included “tackling a new culture of which I had no experience,” Jarvis persevered and triumphed with a sumptuous, richly-designed production. But initially, Jarvis says, “there wasn’t a single piece of crown molding or dado trim, nothing that you could ever recognize. There was this sort of fresh slate feel to the show. The story is so good. Once you start the research and the principles of the architecture, it is very engaging.” She also loved working in Vancouver, transforming two exterior backlots and a pair of soundstages to build the “Shōgun” world.

“You come to appreciate the beauty of nature, because so many of your interiors are reliant on having beautiful exteriors,” she stresses. “All of the sets have to open onto gardens, onto vistas. So that was all very pleasing. Even though we were 50 percent or more in the studio, there was just a lovely sort of open-air feel to everything – which I think comes across when we embrace the rain in Vancouver. There’s a lot of moist, atmospheric vistas, which I think really, really augment what we did. We saw all the seasons (during filming) and there’s a certain kind of cool, blue-gray moisture to a lot of the exterior scenes that helped support the story, I felt.”

Many of the sets that Jarvis and her team designed were kilometers apart, including a fishing village, a harbor, royal palaces and samurai houses, all being worked on simultaneously. Fortunately, she was accustomed to keeping numerous balls in the air simultaneously from her years as a supervising art director. “Very early on, I was mapping out what a certain set would look like eight episodes from now, just because I think I’ve developed kind of an antenna for developing and keeping all of these plates spinning in the air at once,” Jarvis believes. It also helped that she had a close working relationship with the “Shōgun” costume designer Carlos Rosario. “Not having worked with him before, I thought, ‘Well, OK, I should develop some themes here, we need to get together and get the colors right.’ And that process was really simple. As soon as we kind of meshed what I was doing with what he was doing, it just seemed to flow together nice, and we were mutually supportive.”

In fact, Jarvis humbly takes a back to her costumer in terms of how the look of the series was impacted. “I do think, and I still really believe, that a good portion of what (the audience is) looking at is the gorgeous costumes with a bit of background,” she says. “And I felt I had to keep things fairly neutral in order for the costumes and the beautiful fabrics to really sing.”

All installments of “Shōgun” from FX are available to stream over Hulu.