S25 - Ep 8 - Slow Horses - Production Design

Designing for television isn’t just about building sets — it’s about knowing when to preserve them, when to break them, and how to let them evolve over time. On Slow Horses, that long view shapes every creative decision.

This week on Below the Line, Skid is joined by Production Designer Choi Ho Man, with Gianni Damaia returning as co-host, to talk about the fifth season of Slow Horses, the Apple TV+ espionage series starring Gary Oldman. Choi traces her journey on the show from supervising art director to production designer, and how designing across multiple seasons requires long-term thinking, flexibility, and restraint.

We take a deep dive into:

• How Slow Horses was designed as a rolling, multi-season project, shooting in pairs of seasons with overlapping crews and compressed turnaround times
• The evolution of Slough House itself, including how destruction at the end of Season Four informed the repaired, modernized, and slightly haunted version seen in Season Five
• Designing spaces that reflect character psychology, from Lamb’s office to Ho’s flat
• Building and rebuilding modular sets — lifts, car parks, corridors, offices — to stretch resources while preserving visual continuity
• Developing MI5 Headquarters (“The Park”) as a recurring environment, mapping unseen spaces to make the building feel architecturally complete
• Stitching together complex action sequences from multiple locations and stage builds, including chase scenes, stairwells, and exterior-to-interior transitions
• How practical construction, visual effects, and stunt coordination intersect on large-scale action sequences involving paint, height, and confined spaces
• Why face-to-face collaboration still matters, including sketches, models, and conversations that can’t be replaced by emails or message threads

Across five seasons, Slow Horses proves that production design isn’t just about creating spaces — it’s about letting those spaces absorb history, pressure, and consequence, until the environment itself becomes part of the story.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Slow Horses. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.