Jessica Lee Gagne on why ‘any cinematographer would be afraid’ of ‘Severance’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Jessica Lee Gagné admits she had reservations about jumping on board as the cinematographer for “Severance” on AppleTV+. The psychological thriller is set within a limited office space for much of the series, which may feel constricting to some filmmakers. “I think any cinematographer would have been afraid of ‘Severance,'” she says. Ultimately, it was her working relationship with executive producer and director Ben Stiller that gave her the confidence to sign on. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
SEE our dozens of interviews with 2022 Emmy contenders
“You don’t really know where you are,” Gagné says about the setting of the “Severance.” “That was a conversation that happened early on. We don’t want to know what year it is. We know it’s the United States. We are anchoring it somewhere in this society, but it was never defined. It opened doors aesthetically. It didn’t need to be perfectly real. The cars in the parking lot make no sense. They’re not cars you would have in a parking lot in 2021. They’re cars you would have in a parking lot in 1980! The 1980s or 90s. Being in a non-real setting allowed us to make aesthetic decisions that would give it that weird eeriness.”
Some of the most recognizable shots for any viewer of the series are certainly within the maze of white hallways inside Lumon Industries. Gagné owes a lot of those moments to production designer Jeremy Hindle, who “did everything he could in the original designs to give us as much shoe-leather hallway as possible.” She further explains how the team was constantly challenging themselves on how they could make the space look different on any given day. “It’s not about how you have the set built, it’s about how you’re shooting it every time,” she explains. “Sometimes we wanted things to be confusing and sometimes we wanted things to be the same.”
SEE Adam Scott would finally land his first Emmy nomination with ‘Severance’
Employees on the severed floor of Lumon would exit the building through an elevator, at which point they would go from an “innie” to an “outie,” leaving their work persona behind and entering the real world. “The idea of what was happening came early on,” Gagné explains. “Changing the morphology of the face was something we were excited about from the beginning. At first I was like, we won’t increase or decrease the space above the person’s head so that all you’re focusing on is this person’s face changing. That really relates to the shooting styles merging. Because on the outside world we had a lot more longer lensing. We always knew we wanted wide, eerie close-up angles in the basement. That elevator moment is where those two worlds collide.”
“Severance” stars Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette. The plot follows Mark (Scott), an employee of Lumon Industries who agrees to a “severance” program in which his non-work memories are separated from his work memories. It is currently streaming on AppleTV+.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions