They didn’t make it easy on themselves. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg told cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra that they wanted long, unbroken takes using a single lens; they asked production designer Julie Berghoff to design them a movie studio, and when she said, “Past, present or future?” they replied, “All of the above.” It led to an atmosphere where every episode and every scene began with the same question: “How the hell are we going to pull this off?”
“Yeah,” Newport-Berra said. “But that’s kinda what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
EXTERIOR, STUDIO
The series filmed on the Warner Bros. lot, which won out over Paramount and Universal because of its nostalgic feeling. But for the Continental Studios headquarters, Berghoff designed a building that would look as if it came from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mayan Revival period. “A movie studio founded in the ’20s that in the present day only makes movies and doesn’t have streaming is antiquated,” she said. “We wanted something that felt a little crumbling, but it had strong bones. It felt rooted, you know?”
The interiors took up a two-story, 8,000-square-foot set on Stage 23 at WB, while the exterior was a photo backdrop erected in front of the Warners TV building. “Julie was very quick to include me in discussions about ways to remove walls and move through windows and between floors,” Newport-Berra added. “We made sure to get enough headroom and wide enough doors so that cranes could get through.”
INTERIOR, STUDIO
Inside, Berghoff worked with set decorator Claire Kaufman to come up with a mixture of old and new. “Using the 18-inch textile block, like Frank Lloyd Wright, we created really graphic walls and spaces for the furniture, and we only used natural materials,” Berghoff said. “All the furniture and built-ins are mid-century. But then we wanted to integrate old and new, and Apple computers fit perfectly into our space because they’re designed with the similar philosophy of clean, simple lines.”
EXTERIOR, PATTY LEIGH’S HOUSE
For the houses of studio executives – or recently ousted studio executives, like Catherine O’Hara’s Patty Leigh, based on former Sony chief Amy Pascal – Berghoff knew she had to be impressive. “We were looking for special, unique houses,” she said. “Amy Pascal was known for being architecturally influenced, with beautiful homes. A lot of executives do. They’re gonna live in the most interesting houses in Los Angeles. All those mid-century architects bought the best property when Los Angeles was being developed and built houses on top of the hill, like Catherine O’ Hara’s house, which has almost a 360-degree view of Los Angeles. It’s spectacular. We went big.”
EXTERIOR, MATT REMICK’S CAR
Episode 2 is designed to look as if it’s shot entirely in one take, though in fact it was four different shots filmed over four days and then stitched together. The first of those shots started in the car driven by studio chief Matt Remick (Rogen) as he drives to a hilltop location.
“We would use electromagnets on the car,” Newport-Berra said. “So there’s basically these magnet mounts that when turned on are creating a magnet force that keeps the camera on the car. So while we’re driving, it’s latched on that way. Once the car stops, as the operator goes to grab the camera, there’s a grip right next to him who unhooks a safety chain and flips a switch. That switch turns off the magnet, and all of a sudden the camera is free from the car and we can pick it up and keep going with it.”
EXTERIOR, HOLLYWOOD HILLS LOCATION
The rest of Episode 2 takes place in and around another of Berghoff’s spectacular hilltop homes with floor-to-ceiling windows. “With the location we chose, we made it about as hard on ourselves as we possibly could,” Newport-Berra said. “It’s an architectural masterpiece, but quite small. And the property is on a ridge that slopes down on either side, so there was no flat space outside the house and nowhere to put cranes for lighting. We really were at the whim of the weather and the sun. It boiled down to getting a couple of hours of shooting time over the course of a few days.”
INTERIOR, BEVERLY HILTON
For an episode set at the Golden Globes, the schedule didn’t work for them to piggyback on the real Globes. “We had four days of prep and then 12 hours to dress the Hilton,” Berghoff said. “Usually they spend weeks prepping that show.” She designed a modular set that could be set up quickly once they gained access to the hotel ballroom. For Newport-Berra, the scale made things difficult. “There were so many background actors,” he said. “We had hundreds of people in the background, but everyone who showed up very quickly understood what we were doing and fell in line.”
INTERIOR, LAS VEGAS
The last two episodes were set in Las Vegas for the CinemaCon industry conference, with the finale involving the Continental team doing a chaotic presentation in a huge hall. “At the very end, we do a long handheld shot that transfers to a drone, and then the drone moves around the entire space and lands back on the stage,” Newport-Berra said. “Shooting with a drone inside is crazy enough, but doing it from a handheld shot into a drone and then back into a handheld was quite challenging.”
A version of this story first appeared in the Comedy Issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
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