Earlier this morning, SXSW hosted a panel featuring renowned actor and well-known creative Ben Stiller who chose to do most of his work behind the camera as the Director and Executive Producer of Apple TV’s most successful show, Severance. Stiller was joined by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, and together the pair discussed everything from Severance’s cult-like following to the innovative feats of marketing and intrigue that drew audiences in.
A Clip From The Next Episode
As a big fan of the show, I was familiar with the rather tight-lipped conversation that followed Severance. The cheeky smiles as interviewers begged for more information, the miniscule lore droppings we received, never on accident and always with vast purpose. So color me wildly surprised when not even five minutes into the panel Stiller turned to the audience and announced, “We’re gonna show a clip from next week’s episode.” A whole clip? From the show that always keeps everything under wraps? I was excited.
Now, while we weren’t allowed to film anything, I can offer a brief description. The scene in question consisted of a stressed Milchick trying to answer Helly R’s main concern: Where is Mark S? The scene culminates in a slick one-liner from Helly that elicited middle-school like Ooos and Ahhs from the crowd. This short, maybe a minute-long clip also confirmed the one thing fans had been hoping for–we’re returning to Lumon. Though in true Severance style, Stiller offered no explanation or elaboration on the clip audiences saw.
The Art of Easter Eggs
As the conversation continued, Cue asked Stiller how these easter eggs, ones that sometimes come full-circle a whole season later, are even possible, “We have an amazing group of people that are working on the show. Starting with Dan Erickson, who created the show. You know our writing team, that’s evolved over the last few years, are just incredibly attentive to those details.” Long before Severance ever came into fruition, Stiller had been inspired by another brilliant creator, “I mean I remember listening to Vince Gilligan talking about working on Breaking Bad. Saying that there was never any crumb that they didn’t use, somehow that was established in storytelling.”
Though Stiller is proud of what the team has been able to achieve, he stressed that their work is not anywhere close to finished, “It’s an imperfect process–and I would be lying if I said we had it all figured out internally. We know where we’re going with the show, but I think the creative process of the show is very important to pick on what’s resonating and sort of build off of that.”
Let’s Talk About THAT Episode of Severance
As they continued speaking, the conversation shifted into one of the more recent releases–Episode 7. A true fan favorite and the Directorial Debut for longtime Cinematographer for the series Jessica Lee Gagné, “What we wanted to have there was the depth of this relationship with Gemma, that was very important to the whole overall story…While there’s lots of details and little easter eggs and things like that in there, but really it’s the emotional core that I feel people always come back to.” Stiller explained, something Gagné absolutely nailed in the episode.
Another Clip?
Somewhere between the chatter about Burt and Irving, and the discussions of Apple’s ever-developing tech Cue looked at Stiller and paused, “I want to see another clip.” He had barely finished the sentiment when the crowd erupted in excitement.
“This is again another out-of-context clip from next week’s episode,” Stiller stated, introducing the scene. This time we saw Mark, outie or innie or integrated, it wasn’t certain. What was, was an increasingly annoyed Milchick on the phone with Mark, asking him why he was skipping yet another day of work. The short conversation seems to be weighted as Mark says something I’m not quite sure he was supposed to. And then, as quickly as it began, the clip was over. This one I think will hold a bit more significance, but only the full episode will prove that.
What Keeps Apple TV+ Golden
In the six years since its launch, Apple TV+ has been heralded for the quality of its television series. Gone are the days of trillions of bland shows, all filled with nonsensical plotlines and time-wasting finales. With shows like Severance and Shrinking, AppleTV+ has carved out a path all on its own. I’ll admit, even as someone who barely watches Apple’s shows, I can’t deny their presence. When someone tells you an Apple TV show is good, it’s not just good, it’s great. Amazing even. Filled with enough substance to chew on. When asked why that is, what sort of model Apple TV+ has, Cue had this to say, “In order to innovate, you can’t be the same as everything else. And so, one of the things that we try to do is think sort of around the corner and take chances…What I’ve found is if you put a lot of focus in doing a few things and doing them really really well, you can succeed. And so that’s why we don’t make a lot of products and make a lot of TV shows…When we think about our shows and when we think about our products, we’re not designing them for a small subset of people. We design them for everyone, and we realize we may not get everyone to watch or everyone to use our products, but we think of them in that way.”
Innovation In Marketing
“How do you market a show?” Cue asked the audience, “Obviously, you put trailers up on television or whatever–it just felt like this show really deserved something different.”
For many New Yorkers, Tuesday, January 14th started the same as any other day. People packing into subways, sending their children off to school, and for some lucky patrons, walking through Grand Central Station. Only January 14th wasn’t just any other day. Because on this day, Apple and the Severance team decided to throw a pop-up art installation featuring the Lumon office set and some surprise guests. Stiller explained how the entire thing came to be, “The original was pitched to us as ‘hey, maybe we’ll have some cosplay actors dressed as the team. Maybe we might get someone to come down to visit from the cast’, but then Adam Scott said, ‘Wait a minute, we have to go in there. We have to do this.’ And I think that willingness to get the whole cast in there that made it something very different and very special.”
Per Stiller’s insistence, the art installation had to be going on for at least three hours. It was unannounced, in the middle of the day, the box was unveiled and soon after the main cast, Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, and John Turturro, were stuffed inside at their Lumon desks, pretending to work. Though Scott later confirmed almost all the computers broke within the first hour, the audience was none the wiser, and the art installation became a massive hit. In general, Apple TV has had a tough time expanding their audience beyond film aficionados, and it seemed as if this was the breaking point. TikTok after TikTok was created about the installation, it started to trend on social media, and just like that, Severance was back. As Cue said, “Boy did it work.”
