SEG Light Box and Fabric Graphics for Severance Apple TV Set Design

Set designs for Severance, a new Apple TV workplace thriller where employees memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives, use SEG light boxes to create eerie illuminated spaces.

Eye on the Ball Productions Inc partnered with 40 VISUALS for a variety of custom SEG Light Boxes and Fabric Graphic Prints to use in their set design for scenes filmed at York Studios in New York. SEG, short for Silicone Edge Graphics, are dye sublimation fabric prints finished with a rubber like gasket that fits into an aluminum frame channel that can be backlit or non-lit.

In this scene shown in the trailer an employees of Lumon Industries, enters a room filled with 60 wall mounted 24″w x 13.5″h flickering LED light boxes. Each SEG tension fabric graphic is a close up print of a persons smile. This is as much as we know about how the following SEG light boxes and fabric prints produced for the show are being used on set.

Do SEG Light Boxes and Fabric Graphics Look Good on Film?

The answer is yes, SEG light boxes look great on film and don’t show any light flicker at standard film rates. The flickering on and off of individual light boxes in the scene shown in the Severance trailer is intentional. The soft woven fabric texture of SEG graphics are also ideal on screen as they absorb instead of reflecting studio lights.

To get the lighting brightness and temperature right for the show esthetics we prototyped of several frame styles and lighting options. 4100K, 6000K Perimeter Lighting, and Dimmable Front Firing Mesh lighting options were tested.

Full size 108″w x 108″h Single Sided, Wall Mounted, 4.75″ deep SEG Light box were assembled on set to house lighting options. This also allowed the crew to test mounting the light box extrusion to other set elements.

We also tested a 108″w x 108″h 1.28″ deep Retrofit SEG Frame, Single Sided, Pre-drilled for cavity mounting that offered more options for displaying.

The winning framing system combination for this project ended up being the 4.75″ deep extrusion with 4100K perimeter lighting. How they would be mounted and displayed required some custom engineering.

Custom Set Designs Require Custom Engineered SEG Light Boxes

Normally SEG graphics are used as set backdrops, but as we soon found out this is no ordinary show. The production design crew need cubes made out of SEG light Boxes that could spin. Cubes that could open and close with doors, on sliding tracks all covered in SEG fabric were also needed.

SEG extrusions were the perfect solution as they are so versatile in their construction options. Our engineering team used miters, corner connectors, and daisy chained electrical to fabricate the cube and sliding door light boxes needed.

SEG Print Color Density, Accuracy and Neutrality a Must for Filming

Dense, accurate SEG fabric print color is a must for any project, but especially for film sets or backdrops. Graphics need bold color that shows up consistently on screen from print to print and scene to scene. All prints for the Severance project were black and white, so neutrality is also important. If the black and white prints had a color bias that would have shifted the overall tone of the scene. The black areas had to be rich dense black to avoid looking washed out, or having light leaks or pinholes coming through when backlit.

SEG is the Answer to Quick Production Timelines

Project talks for the Severance TV show set began in March of 2021. The project options were quoted and prototypes were sent in April. The project was finalized and engineering drawings were signed off on in May.

All 77 light boxes were produced and 116 different fabric prints were shipped and on set by the end of May. Total timeline from ideation to completion was 3 months, production time including shipping was 3 weeks.

The Severance series premier is Feb. 18th on Apple TV. The combination of SEG light boxes and fabric graphics can be seen in the Severance trailer, and the results in this small snippet are impressive. We are excited to see where the additional items produced appear in the show, as well as how they play out in this mysterious story.