THE STUDIO PRODUCTION
CAMEO ROLES The Studio combines its core cast of characters with real talent from both in front of and behind the camera
few people who showed up and didn’t really understand what we were doing because Seth and Evan were often too afraid to tell them ahead of time, as they didn’t want to scare them off. “Actors would show up and Seth and I would explain we were shooting this as a oner. It caught some people off guard, but they quickly caught up. I think that’s a testament to the whole core cast being able to lift up the guest stars, to really accommodate them and make them feel part of the scene.” TRIBUTE TO TINSELTOWN Every location throughout the show posed a unique challenge too. Rogen and Goldberg both wanted to shoot in the most incredible, iconic Hollywood locations possible. “A lot of those are up in the Hills, so even just getting to them with equipment trucks was often a huge issue,” adds Newport-Berra. “Matt’s house is a tiny, one-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills that we couldn’t even get our trucks up to. We were parking trucks
miles away, putting kit in a pickup truck, driving it up the hill and then scrunching ourselves into a tiny canyon I couldn’t put any lights in because there was literally no space out on the property. I was finding ways to hide lights in bushes or float a balloon light over the set. There was also nowhere for the crew to hide, so they were often tucked into closets.” The house used in the oner episode is a famous John Lautner house in Silver Lake. “There’s no real flat ground on the property, besides the little patio, so there’s nowhere to place lights, and we couldn’t put cranes in or anything. The entire house is glass walls and you can see out in any direction. We were constantly moving the crew around just to stay out of the shot. “Because of all the glass walls, I couldn’t use most of the normal tricks to make the time of day feel like dusk. We often rehearsed for eight hours, then had to wait for that two- or three-hour window at the end of the day to actually roll. That’s because of how we were
shooting the show; wanting the camera to see 360° all the time and being able to scan every inch of each location.” There were lots of technical elements to The Studio too, of which Newport-Berra is particularly proud. “What’s cool about shooting oners is that everyone has to be firing on all cylinders at all times,” he concludes. “You’ll find that, sometimes, an actor will save themselves for their close-up. They don’t want to burn their energy because they know the camera isn’t going to see them. It’s like being on a soccer field with the ball on the other side of the pitch. You’re not going to be sprinting towards the ball if it’s 100 feet away from you. “For this project, everyone had to be prepared to be on camera and everyone was working collaboratively all the time, so there was a collective energy, which made for something really special. The chemistry and energy on-set was electric, and when we pulled off each take it was the best feeling because everyone knows it and feels it.”
13
DEFINITIONMAGS
Powered by FlippingBook