As indieview wrote about earlier this weekEvery scene in Co -creators and co -directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg ‘s “The studio“Is an uninterrupted entry. The only cutting takes place in the transition between scenes.
But section 2, called “The Oner,” takes this performance to a completely different level: The whole episode is a shot that captures the stressful environment in a movie herd trying to shoot its own complicated permanent And fight against the ticking clock for a sunset.
When Rogen and Goldberg were on an upcoming episode of filmmaker Toolkit PodcastThey explained the idea behind how they shot the series descended from their first view of section 2.
“Very early, I remember it was discussed as,” this will be the best section, “said Rogen.” We were like, (the use of Oneer) will actually capture the panic and mania, the compressed nature of the timelines and stories, which many of the sections have. I remember one of the early conversations that, “Fuck, why don’t we do this for all sections?”
But while the other nine sections of ”The studio“Embraced this Oneer strategy in each scene, the entire second section is an elaborate choreographed 25-minute, real-time scene captured (in what seems to be) a single shot. Forward, Rogen, Goldberg and the Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra series, IndieWire takes the scenes on how they pull it.
The place and sunset
The episode was handled on John Lautner-designed house, named “The Silver Top”, located in Silver Lake overlooking the reservoir.
“The most difficult part with that section is that it is set at Magic Hour and that the house is all glass,” Rogen said. “And when we first got there – we didn’t really have access to the house before (Goldberg interrupted they visited the place for three hours a week before the shot). And we chose a place that was extremely beautiful and very inspiring and very Los Angeles, but also not favorable for filmmaking. “
Newport-Berra said that one of the keys to the “studio” was the filming’s careful consideration of atmospheric places that also stood for the unique way that the series was handled. But he also admitted that they had all fallen in love with the Lautner house that they had become short -term given the section’s unique requirements.
“It’s an incredible house and I was so excited to shoot it, but the other I got there, I realized that we had completely written into a corner,” Newport-Berra said. “Because the house is all glass walls, it is impossible to cheat the time of the day. And there are no flat spots on the property. It is on top of a hill that ends down, it is literally on a ridge, the eastern side ends, the west side ends. Think that was what made it perfect for us is that it forced us to really be creative and come with fun.”
Some seams are required
The I-real-time episode is supposed to take place over half an hour, but Rogen and Goldberg really wanted the sun to have completely down, the fictional shooting day had ended without success (they did not get its Oneer, thanks to Rogen’s uncertain, bungling character), and the humiliated studio manager drives home in the dark. Therefore, the 90-plus minute period to go from Magic Hour to early evening darkness would need to be compressed to 25 minutes, and oner cheated.
The lighting and accelerated sunset was just part of the many logistics that required seams, or mixed different images for worm cuts. There were too many moving pieces, and with four days to practice and shoot at the site, some of the actors were only available for two days. Rogen and Goldberg were also adamant that the studio manager was driving to and from the set was not forged. This caused the 25 -minute scenes, from beginning to end, a virtual impossibility. They would be lucky to get through the stage once in the magic hour shooting window.
“We didn’t run the whole scene,” Newport-Berra said. “First of all, it starts and ends in a car. We would not do it every time. Just the restoration of that car takes 20 minutes. Having to drive it through the hills there, and only that recovery alone was a nightmare.”
How it was split into shots
So the first bit of the puzzle became where To sew and how to divide 40-page scripts into separate images.
“In our heads we were as if we had four days to shoot the section,” Ok, all things on Video Village are in the kitchen, maybe we can shoot it at any time, and then it is the parts that have to be shot at Magic Hour, “said Rogen.” But we realized very quickly that it would add too many seams and too many mixtures.
Rogen explained that in order to limit the seams and maintain ethos in the original concept, the “studio” team significantly simplified. They took 40-page scripts and split it during four shooting days.
“We broke it up in four 10-sided pieces and we would repeat each piece from 10:00 to 17:00 and then shoot from 5 to 6:30,” Rogen said. “And it was really like the section where we struggled with the sun – it’s actually the sun and all the pictures.”
One day, due to an equipment error, they did not complete their ten pages and had to shoot two 10-page pieces the next day. And over the last ten pages, Newport-drilling the dark image would be cheating the sun set and early in the evening.
Repetition and blockage
This meant that they had four 90-minute shoots, or a total of six hours to film the entire episode. This meant that at 5 pm every day, the actor and the crew were a well-oiled machine, after practicing and fine-tuning today’s 10 pages during the procedure seven hours. “In advance, we knew exactly where everything happened for the whole section,” Newport-Berra said.
Section 2 came late in production, and this had not necessarily been the established workflow until this point. For most scenes, Rogen, Goldberg and Newport-Berra had developed a repetition system with actors to find out the blockage, then coordinate the blockage with the camera and adjust, problem solving and fine tuning when they went, often shoot 15-20 of each stage.
“The scenes that are just a lot of people talking in a room, the ones we would really train with the actors because they were difficult for us to introduce blocks on them,” Rogen said. “(But for things like ‘The Oner’) we blocked every bit of it. The whole episode we just told everyone exactly where we would stand.”
Camera movement and car shoots
How Newport-Berra and Team moved Arri Alex in section 2 was remarkably similar to the rest of the series. Camera operator Mark Goellnicht would rely on the fact that mostly is handheld to capture the characters’ frenetic experience, even with the elaborate and accurate choreography of “The Oner.” And B-Cam operator Jesse Cain would use Ronin, a Gimbal stabilizer, if needed.
“We always started handheld and then if there was part of the shot that felt too challenging or too unstable to make handheld, we would then turn to ronin and use a crane,” Newport-Berra said.
Ronin also became a problem solver with the car shoots. With the help of a variety of magnetic brackets, ronin could easily and safely be transferred from the tap on and outside the car in the middle of the shot.
“We were at Ronin at the beginning and end of the episode. It usually ended up being the safest way to rig the camera to the car, while the actors could free up because Seth was really dead on all the actors who made their own driving,” Newport-Berra said. “We did not want to use process trailers or traits just because they are slow and awkward and often do not look so good. We often could not get the operators to ride on the car just for safety, so Ronin was a good tool to get it on and off (the car).”
A Sarah Polley Joint
The lighting in the “studio” is simple, elegant and naturalistic. False Sarah Polley Film that was shot in section 2 was the opposite.
“I think we always wanted to do things in the movies within a movie that we would not do in the show. So we shot with anamorphic lenses and widescreen. That was just the Language for (the Movie within the show and we did). Never Really Do In The Show. And Then I Would, I Went a Little bit More Hammy with the Lighting, and Light Things I Never Normally Would, Like Daytime Scenes, “Said Newport-Berra. “I tried to try to be maximalist with the movie in a movie, so you really knew the filmmaker’s hand, because I think it’s comedy of it. The movie is pretty ridiculous and melodramatic. You watch it a couple of times, and you’re like,” wait, Sarah would probably never make that movie, “and I think it is also comedy for people.”
“Studio” is now flowing on Apple TV+. To make sure you don’t miss Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s upcoming episode of Filmmaker Tolkkit, make sure you subscribe to the podcast of AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
