James Pearse Connelly: Production Designer - Designing the Shows the World Can’t Stop Watching

In this episode of Fish’s Call Sheet, Michael sits down with Production Designer, Creative Executive, and Studio Connelly founder James Pearse Connelly for a vibrant, revealing, and highly visual conversation about how television’s most memorable worlds are built. James  is an Emmy-recognized world-builder for some of television’s biggest stages, competitions, specials, and live events. He has helped shape the look and feel of some of the most recognizable shows and events in entertainment. His work includes projects such as Wheel of Fortune, The Voice, The Masked Singer, The Kelly Clarkson Show, Top Chef, RuPaul’s Drag Race Finale, The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady, The Roast of Kevin Hart and many more.  Together, Michael and James take the audience inside the creative process of turning an empty space into a world the audience instantly understands. They discuss design as storytelling, the pressure of creating for beloved formats, the collaboration required across departments, and the challenge of building spaces that must work for performers, cameras, crews, audiences, and brands all at once. James shares stories from designing major cultural moments, including the new era of Wheel of Fortune, where he balanced nostalgia, fan expectations, and the future of one of television’s most iconic game shows.  He also opens up about the scale and speed of designing for live spectacle, including the Tom Brady Roast, which required arena-sized comedy, live broadcast precision, and a massive design turnaround. His designs are not just for sets, they include real word homes and the painstaking details required for the renovation of the iconic Goonies house in Oregon. This conversation highlights James’s work both on and off camera, his creative leadership, his award-recognized career, and the imagination it takes to design environments audiences feel before they ever think to notice them. Insightful, energetic, and full of practical creative wisdom, this episode is for anyone who loves television, design, production, live events, competition shows, or the invisible architecture behind unforgettable entertainment. Links for James Pearse Connelly: Website - https://studioconnelly.com/ Socials - @JPConnelly IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1766326/ Television Academy - https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/james-pearse-connelly You can find and follow us across social media @FishsCallSheet We are building an interactive SubStack. You can watch episodes on YouTube @FishsCallSheet Thank you for supporting our show