Production design is always an exercise in worldbuilding. Everything we see on screen was put there by the art team for a very specific reason to tell us something.\u00a0 Colors, textures, shapes, styles; grounded or heightened realism. They\u2019re all an invisible (or not-so-invisible) part of visual storytelling. But rarely is that exercise as much about hidden cameras as it is for \u201cCompany Retreat<\/a>,\u201d the second season of \u201cJury Duty<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The hybrid series drops a real person into a scripted scenario \u2014 in this case, real temp Anthony Norman into the cringe and the chaos of a fictional hot sauce company\u2019s annual retreat. To sell the curated reality to both Anthony and the audience, production designer Joe Warson had to design spaces with many fake walls. \u201cMy primary job is trying to lay out the land for all the cameras,\u201d Warson told IndieWire.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And there are a lot of cameras: 48 in Season 2, up from the 29 that covered \u201cJury Duty<\/a>.\u201d But the scale of the production design challenge was in building spaces that would appear seamless but allow the crew to always track Norman and adjust the frame in order to spotlight the show\u2019s unknowing hero \u2014\u00a0over almost 300,000 square feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest lift was taking away rooms to put in a lot of false walls and using the same trim. We used the same doors that [Oak Canyon] had. There were all these mirrors with these frames that are kind of weird, wooden ones. So we bought those exact same ones, put up a mirror, put up a false wall. You\u2019re littering the space with sameness, so no one ever really keys in on it, like, \u2018Why is that one mirror right there?\u2019\u201d Warson said. \u201cEverything runs like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Warson had to do a lot of early scouting to not only equip the existing retreat space with camera options but to build the communal architecture needed for group scenes. \u201cThe yurt was a huge endeavor. It was just a couple of posts in the ground [when we got there]. I didn\u2019t think we were going to be staying there. It\u2019s going to be cold. It\u2019s outside. But sure enough, they used it,\u201d Warson said. \u201cThat was a really difficult hide job because there\u2019s no place to land a false wall. So there\u2019s like a planked-like display, an Oak Canyon Ranch logo that\u2019s kind of dimensional that we built. There\u2019s black-tinted glass behind it, and they would shoot between the slats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Shooting between and among things was the order of the day on \u201cCompany Retreat,\u201d and Warson credits DP Chris Darnell and his camera team with embracing a look that gets the job done, however it needs to be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c[They] didn\u2019t need to have an 18-by-24 window for every pan and tilt. If you have a DP and a director who will embrace a \u2018If you give me this, I can work with this,\u2019 you\u2019re going to have a lot more luck in terms of hiding stuff. We had these maintenance carts that were totally ramshackle brown carts for golf carts, and the camera guys would park it where they needed to, open up some doors we made, and shoot from inside. There\u2019s black-tinted glass with some shells to busy it up. And the camera assistant would literally sweep and rake to make it look like they were doing something,\u201d Warson said. \u201cThat\u2019s how much care was going on to try to not get made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a lot of care that had to happen on a very quick turnaround, too. \u201c[Executive producer Nicholas Hatton] was like, \u2018Joe, do you think you could turn this around in a couple weeks?\u2019 We thought so, but we are always diving into these things headfirst. Was I confident about it? Absolutely not. There\u2019s fear. But some of that fear you embrace, and that\u2019s what drives you. We are actually going to do this<\/em>. And we are going to dress this whole dad-gum place out with hides, too!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Vince](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/P105525B.jpg?w=300&h=168&crop=1\")
<\/div>\n![\"Doug](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jury_Duty_Company_Retreat_S1_FG_107_00330708_Still369_3000.jpg?w=650\")