Some of the unsung heroes of Apple TV+’s hit series Severance — casting director Rachel Tenner, production designer Jeremy Hindle and composer Theodore Shapiro — dug into the behind-the-scenes work that goes into building out the world of Lumon Industries during a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Television.
Telling the story of a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives, these creatives drew inspiration from some interesting places, including John Deere’s 1950s office buildings.
“A tractor company has the most typical office, probably in America,” Hindle said during the conversation, explaining there’d been little guidance in the script as far as what the office should look like. Since the show was only budgeted for one location in the first season, Hindle says he knew it needed to be “interesting.”
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Such was the case with casting, as well, where Tenner tried to zero in on actors who could bring depth and intrigue to their characters and “who can handle the humor and the drama.”
“It was really important, because there are so many layers of what they have to do,” Tenner said.
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For his part, Shapiro says at times it felt like “90% of my waking hours, we were just constantly on Zooms together, talking about how we were going to do this.”
“Ben [Stiller] and I … had been playing around with very different types of sound palettes, but there was this one sort of thematic idea that I thought that Ben was really responding to,” he said. “He has really good instincts, so we always follow Ben’s ideas … we just ran with the sound that is piano and strings at its core, but with a lot of electronic and other modern materials.”
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All episodes of Severance are currently streaming on Apple TV+. The series has already been renewed for a third season.
Check back Monday for the panel video.
The post ‘Severance’ Creative Team On Building The World Of Lumon Industries: “There Are So Many Layers” – Contenders TV appeared first on Deadline.
