New York City-based choreographer Andrew Turtletaub received the call that his skills were needed at “Severrance” set. Immediately. A march band sequence for the Season 2 final is ongoing, led by Ty Brown, director of Brooklyn United Music and Arts program. Brown put together 50-plus musicians from the Tristate area and worked with them on the routine, but the scenes needed a choreographer to pull everything together for the cameras.
So Turtletub competed to set up, read the script – which the producers did not send to him because of Apple TV+ series Lumon’s secrets of secret – and knew exactly what the number required. “I read the two scenes, and I was” oh, clear, “said the choreographer, who mainly works on stage productions.” The script told me everything I needed to do and how I create it. “
The action comes about halfway into the section (which was directed by the Exec producer Ben Stiller) and is supposed to be a celebration of Adam Scott’s character, Mark S., who just completed the “Refining” data for a large project. But the abominable lumon industry does not throw tough office parties.
After Tramell Tillmans Mr. Milchick announces the company’s own “choreography and Merriment” department, in marches a band in a rigid formation, blasted “Kier Anthem”, an Ode to Lumon’s founder first in Season 1 (and written by Emmy winner Theodore Shapiro). They take over the room and shoot an increasingly stupid Mark S. and Helly R. (Britt Lower) to the center.
“It is (the band) that pops up and this massive force coming out of the corridors,” Turtletub said. “It was supposed to shock Mark and Helly and create this excitement and build and build and build. They were like:” What happens? Where did this march band even come? What room did they hide in? “
This part of the celebration ends with the band suddenly stopping and browsing their heads a series of white squares that, captured in an overhead shot, forms the message “100%” and a drawing by Mark S. “that was choreographed within an inch of its life, as there could be no gaps (between the musicians),” said Turtetetet. “We had to move one person at a time to fill the empty spaces. You see them in perfect rows, but (for this) they are really, really close to each other.” (The message and portrait were added to the white boxes via CGI.)
Mr Milchick then announces another Paean to the Lumon fixtures, “The Ballad of Ambrose and Gunnel” (which helped to earn Shapiro an outstanding nomination of the music composition for the section’s points). While the first issue evokes a military parade in its precision and formality, the second was designed to capture the cheering energy from HBCU march, including Sonic Boom of the South from Tillman’s own Alma Mater, Jackson State University.
Originally, he was reluctant to do another dance scene, worried that it would feel like a gimmick after his performance in season 1’s “Defiant jazz.” But he wasted it with Turtletub and agreed to try the steps. “We started playing. And then it met him that this is nothing similar to what happened during season 1,” the choreographer said. “He was going to the band and then back away. When he started doing it it was very small, and then he became more excited and more into it. My assistants and I just continued to say:” Bigger! Major! Major! “And then suddenly he did it, and I was like:” Never make it less again! “It was such a collaboration.”
Although the second number is as bizarre as a fever dream, the nearest Lumon employees may release. “The ballad is really meant to be: Now we will have fun,” Turtletub said. “Tramel takes off his jacket and he comes down with coming down. He dances in a whole circle around (Scott and lower). One is just pure joy. We make body rolls! Tramel dances in this very heavily choreographed circle so that the camera can weave through and get every shot. I am so blessed that legs have everything.”
This story first ran down to the Wire Drama issue of Thewrap’s Awards Magazine. Read more from the question here.
