
Murderbot with Production Designer Sue Chan
From Cinemapodgrapher by Lucas Tomoana SOC, Hannah Ariotti & Josh Calder
November 11, 2025 · 59 min · Episode 148
About this episode
Hannah Ariotti interviews production designer Sue Chan about her work on Murderbot and her approach to world-building.
This week on Cinemapodgrapher, one of our new hosts, Hannah, sits down with acclaimed production designer Sue Chan, whose work spans Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Where the Crawdads Sing, Colossal, and now the highly anticipated series Murderbot. Together they explore Sue's approach to world-building, the design of the AI-driven character at the heart of Murderbot, and how her background in architecture, theatre and art direction shaped her storytelling eye. Sue opens up about balancing practical and visual effects, creating entire alien languages, and grounding futuristic sci-fi worlds in human emotion and design history. A thoughtful, inspiring conversation about collaboration, imagination and the craft of building worlds we can believe in. This podcast is proudly brought to you by our technology partners Sony Produced by Deb Van Dieren Hosted and edited by Hannah Ariotti
People in this episode
Host: Hannah Ariotti
Guest: Sue Chan
Topics covered
- production design
- world-building
- sci-fi
- collaboration
- storytelling
Keywords
- Murderbot
- Sue Chan
- production design
- world-building
- sci-fi
- Shang-Chi
- collaboration
Sponsors
Sony
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Murderbot, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Where the Crawdads Sing, Colossal
More episodes of Cinemapodgrapher
- Mortal Kombat 2 with Cinematographer Stephen Windon ACS ASC · May 31, 2026 · 1h 4m
- One Battle After Another with Key Grip Tana Dubbe · May 10, 2026 · 38 min
- The Pitt with Cinematographer Johanna Coehlo · March 13, 2026 · 59 min
- The Chair Company with Cinematographer Ashley Connor · March 1, 2026 · 37 min
- One Battle After Another with Cinematographer Michael Bauman · February 18, 2026 · 1h 24m
- Frankenstein with Production Designer Tamara Deverell · February 1, 2026 · 52 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Cinemapodgrapher podcast page.