These big Silicon Valley companies that are popping up are projecting growth skyrocketing in a few years. So they need a space they can grow into. Not so much in New York. Super conservative, super small.

Producers are looking to me to concept full worlds for subjects to compete, play a game show in, win an award, blah blah blah.

I was a gay kid in high school in the late '90s, and I was in theater club. I was never a thespian. I was much more of a lighting guy or a backstage guy. Because I wanted to do something easy for the rest of my life, I thought, "Maybe I'll go and apply to colleges that specialize in theater set design. I'll do that. That's what I want to do". With theater, really, I'd be around the gays.

If you can give your walls history, it supports the action that's happening in front of them.

You take for granted the details that make something look real. It can still look fabulous, but if you add a light switch, a vent, or the notion of air conditioning, it can look real.

If the person or artist doesn't touch it, and if the camera stays relatively far away from it, it doesn't really have to be real.

Once we have a nice, conceptual sketch and rendering and design approved, then it's really about pinpointing what's functional and what's not, because functional equals expensive.