a purgatory-like office<\/a>. Because of this, the design of the office itself was extremely important. It needed to feel like a place outside of time and space. \u201cYou have to make sure that the inside and outside world are [different] enough that you\u2019re immersed in the world, so you feel like you\u2019re severed when you\u2019re down there with them,\u201d explains Hindle.<\/p>\nThe starting point was offices from the 1960s. \u201cThey\u2019re working in this office environment, and they\u2019re brought in to just be these pro-workers, and they\u2019re birthed into the place,\u201d Hindle says. \u201cIt should be like what offices used to be like. Beautiful desks, beautiful structures, beautiful lights. Just about work. On the desk there\u2019s one pen, a rolodex, a phone. It felt like it had to be that same tone \u2014 but way more playful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/source><\/picture>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
At first glance, the offices in Severance<\/em> look fairly normal. They\u2019re brightly lit with clean white walls and carpeted green floors. But in the macrodata refinement wing \u2014 where much of the show takes place \u2014 things are a little off. Despite having a huge room, the four workers are crammed together via a cluster of desks in the middle of the space. From there, things get even stranger. The hallways, designed with the intention of making people lost, twist and turn in confusing ways, and there are rooms filled with 3D printers and baby goats.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a spaceship, but it is<\/em> a spaceship.\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nThe breakroom, despite its name, is a bleak, dark place where employees are punished for breaking the rules. In order to access it, they\u2019re forced down a long, narrow, and dimly lit hallway that\u2019s barely wide enough for a single person. \u201cThe space is what makes people feel uncomfortable when they watch it,\u201d says Hindle. \u201cIn [macrodata refinement] the ceiling is so low, so even though the room is a football field, it\u2019s claustrophobic in a strange way.\u201d (According to Hindle, series creator Dan Erickson once drew him a map of the labyrinth basement, which he describes as a \u201cmaze.\u201d)<\/p>\n
The next step was perfecting the smaller details because the underground office is meant to be its own little world. \u201cIt\u2019s not a spaceship, but it is<\/em> a spaceship,\u201d Hindle says, citing the original Alien<\/em> as a big source of inspiration. That meant that everything in it, from the desks with their adjustable dividers and the snacks in the vending machine to the finger traps given out as bonuses had to be created in-house. Hindle estimates that the production team designed around 100 different products to be used in the office, all meant to evoke the Lumon aesthetic.<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/source><\/picture>\n
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<\/p>\n Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Which takes us back to the computers. Those Lumon rigs, which employees use to find \u201cscary\u201d numbers in a Minesweeper<\/em>-like program, look like they were hacked together from several other machines. \u201cThe trackball just cracked me up,\u201d Hindle says. \u201cWe kept thinking, \u2018If you\u2019re experimenting with these people, what would you put in front of them?\u2019\u201d Not only were they designed to look out of time, but also to give the cast of office drones \u2014 which includes the likes of Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, and a very charming John Turturro \u2014 something to play around with while acting. \u201cImagine how fun it would be to sit at this thing, as opposed to if I put a laptop in front of them,\u201d Hindle says. \u201cIt\u2019s like a child\u2019s device.\u201d<\/p>\nHindle says that the computers are functional and that the actors are really messing with numbers on screen during the show. The machines also went through multiple revisions before production began to get the size just right (among other things), so that they were large enough to be a focal point but small enough to not obscure the actors or interfere with their eyelines. As Hindle notes, \u201cThey\u2019re in this room for three hours in the first season. It had to be pretty special and pretty fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you combine all of these elements \u2014 the retrofuturistic computers, the labyrinth layout, the \u201860s decor, the claustrophobic hallways \u2014 and add in voyeuristic cinematography that\u2019s often reminiscent of security camera footage, you end up with a show that\u2019s both instantly familiar and uncomfortably strange. In these offices, even a dance party takes on a tinge of horror, which, given one of Hindle\u2019s main inspirations, shouldn\u2019t be too surprising.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really was my Twin Peaks<\/em>,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe similarity is that they have a tone to the writing, the art direction, the design, the cinematography. It is its own world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/23013413\/severance-apple-tv-plus-production-design-computers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: In the vast underground office of Lumon, the megacorporation at the heart of Apple TV Plus\u2019 thriller Severance, the computers are downright bizarre. At first they look a bit like an old Mac, but the closer you look, the more strange they become. The CRT display is somehow a touchscreen. The beautiful blue keyboard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple","category-technology","tag-apple"],"yoast_head":"\n
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