Moment to Moment

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“Every time you turn around, there’s someone who graduated from Carnegie Mellon,” he says. The constant reminders are far from irritating to the former Alumni Merit Award winner. “I think one of the things I so appreciated about Carnegie Mellon is that it was a place where your time there is very intimate,” he recalls. “You really grow together in a way that I don’t know you can experience at a big university. I’ve seen this with other classes as well; they just clump together. And they clump through life together. Clump. Clump. Clump.” For Shaffner, a big part of that clumping has been with Stewart, who is his partner professionally and personally.

As The Big Bang Theory episode wraps and the studio closes down, Shaffner thinks about his journey: from the New York Shakespeare Festival in Manhattan in the summer of 1978 to the illusionist David Copperfield’s specials; from not only designing but also naming Star Search to the series Friends; from designing sets for Celine Dion and Willie Nelson to designing the American Music Awards; and, of course, from Shaffner/Stewart’s four Emmys, two Daytime Emmys, and one Art Directors Guild Award to being in charge of this year’s Emmy Awards, which recognize excellence in television programming.

His career path from New York to Hollywood overwhelms him at times. “Sometimes, I really can’t believe I’m the lucky person who gets to read the script before anybody else,” he says, while the bustle of the wrap-up takes place. So many people ask me, ‘So what do you DO exactly?’”

While he explains it’s hard to come up with a truly succinct answer, his essential job as production designer is to imagine what the show will look like, work in a collaborative process with the other people who also have ideas, and somehow take it through your brain and instruct a number of people how to make it all real. It’s that collaborative process that he credits for really inspiring him. “It’s wonderful to be able to have across-the-board interaction with all these people, everyone involved, who care so deeply that the project that we’re all working on is a success. I find that consistently amazing.”

It’s the best way, he adds, to create a moment.

Laurel Bosshart, a former newspaper reporter, is the assistant director of alumni communications. She is a regular contributor to this department.

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