“With our normal two-camera way of shooting, there was just no way we could get through this vast page count with so many incredibly important beats unless we did something extreme,” Mylod said. The extreme solution was to strategically place four cameras at various positions inside the church set so each would be out of the sight lines of the others. In this four-camera set-up, Mylod said, “One camera could be on whoever’s eulogizing, one camera could be on the siblings, one camera could be picking up reactions,” resulting in an incredibly realistic and lived-in feel of the entire event.
But there was a wrinkle that made that process even more interesting. Unlike most shows these days, “Succession” actually shoots on film, which means the cameras could only shoot for about 10 minutes at a time before needing to be reloaded. To help keep that flow going, Mylod and his camera operators staggered the start times for each camera, creating opportunities for one camera to quickly reload while the others were still filming. This was a technique the show had used earlier this season when multiple cameras were to film the spectacular 27-minute scene when the Roy children find out about their father’s death over the phone while they’re on the boat for Connor’s wedding.
Knowing the most emotionally gutting sections of that funeral scene were filmed multiple times in long continuous chunks makes me imagine what it must have been like for the actors sitting in that church to experience those blistering moments again and again. But the fact that the scene turned out as powerfully as it did speaks to the effectiveness of Mylod’s approach and the fact that these actors — from Kieran Culkin to Justin Kirk as Jeryd Mencken — were poised and ready that entire time to deliver anything from a well-written speech to a silent facial expression.
“Succession” comes to an end on May 28, 2023.
