From the Beatles to Carlos, The Serpant exec producer shares aesthetic inspirations behind Netflix, BBC crime series

“Although we were telling a true crime story, I never felt like it had to be in a sort of documentary style,” executive producer Tom Shankland says about The Serpent, which derives much of its appeal from its sexy, decadent 1970s vibe. “Although we were telling a true crime story, I never felt like it had to be in a sort of documentary style,” said executive producer Tom Shankland, who also directed the first four episodes. “With him, it’s never just a script, it’s never just the acting — it’s always about the strange effect of the editing, the interesting shot choices that he makes,” Shankland said. “I always loved the low-key, authentic ’70s design of Carlos,” he said, adding that he wanted the series to have a similar visual precision: “It had to feel grounded at the level of what a space looked like, what an apartment looked like, what a street looked like — and Carlos is beautifully designed from that point of view.” To Shankland’s delight, the Carlos production designer, François-Renaud Labarthe, joined the Serpent team. “Her small-town dreams of Parisian sophistication made me think of ’70s Bardot — there’s a great picture of her in a peacock chair, very ‘Emmanuelle,’ but she looks really strong, like she’s a queen.” For the many scenes of Marie-Andrée looking alluringly cryptic while smoking, Shankland recalled a Bernardo Bertolucci movie released in 1970 but set in the 1930s and early ’40s: “I often went to Dominique Sanda in ‘The Conformist,’” Shankland said, “those shots where she comes to the door and looks so cool with a cigarette.” ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by the Beatles Shankland explained that a montage juxtaposing the killers revelling in their bad deeds and Knippenberg trying to convince the police to investigate, in the fourth episode, was shot and edited to work with ‘Jump Into the Fire’ by Harry Nilsson.