The best compliment you can pay the world of Task is that it doesn’t look designed at all, and that was the whole point.
Production designer Keith P. Cunningham built the HBO drama’s Delaware County around a single guiding idea: it should never feel intentionally styled, writes Amber Dowling for MovieMaker.
The Brad Ingelsby series follows Tom Brandis, a priest-turned-FBI agent played by Mark Ruffalo, as he tracks a string of robberies led by garbage collector Robbie Prendergrast, played by Tom Pelphrey.
The crime story drives the plot, but the show is anchored in its sense of place.
That place is built from unpretentious neighborhoods, older homes, inherited furniture, and rooms that feel shaped by generations instead of staged for television.
Cunningham wanted spaces that felt “a little stuck in time.” Not period pieces, but rooms that carried the texture of the real neighborhoods his team found while scouting more than 100 locations.
“We were just absorbing the environments and people. The smells, and the food, and obviously the accents and all that stuff,” Cunningham said. “We ended up cherrypicking some of our favorite things that speak to the scripts.”
Though they serve as the backdrop for scenes, the homes themselves also do the subtle work of revealing character.
Robbie’s space is active and chaotic, full of open drawers and clutter that match his restless physical energy. Meanwhile, Tom’s muted gray world is controlled and buttoned up, a reflection of his restraint and his grief.
For Cunningham, the magic was collaboration. Every department worked inside shared guidelines while leaving room for natural, instinctive choices, all of it pulling toward something that felt authentically Delco.
The full MovieMaker piece breaks down exactly how Cunningham turned 100-plus Delco locations into a world that feels lived-in, inherited, and unmistakably real.
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