Production: Severance
Posted on May 13, 2025 by Admin
We hear from Severance DOP Jessica Lee Gagné on forming the hit show’s unique, surveillance-style perspective and making her directorial debut
Words Katie Kasperson | Images Apple TV+
Severance isn’t your typical office drama. Bringing new meaning to work-life balance, the series follows a group of Lumon macrodata refinement (MDR) employees who have undergone the controversial severance procedure, which creates two versions of consciousness. One is professional (‘innie’) and the other personal (‘outie’). These are completely distinct for severed employees, introducing both logistical and ethical dilemmas for the characters to navigate and for viewers to chew on.
Shot by Jessica Lee Gagné, Severance builds a world – two, actually – uniquely its own. The office environment of Lumon is cold and sterile, cut off from society. The technology is dated, the walls are bright white, there’s glaring overhead lighting. Everything is carefully company-approved. Outside, though, “we definitely have a more old-school, seventies style,” describes Gagné. The cars are vintage, the characters use phone booths and all live in Kier, PE, named for Lumon’s founder Kier Eagan.
In both worlds, the elusive Lumon (we don’t quite know what they do) calls the shots. “There was this idea of surveillance and paranoia everywhere in the visuals,” Gagné explains. “They’re based in this idea of being watched. The surveillance of the MDR world is closer and wider. It has the feeling of a security camera, whereas in the outside world we did a lot more long lensing, seeing things from really far away,” she continues, having used the Sony VENICE 2 and Panavision C Series glass to go long and wide. In both cases, ‘there’s this looming presence, and that evokes a strange feeling’.
Stranger danger
Season 2 picks up with its protagonists’ innies discovering who their outies really are. It’s a big moment, especially for Mark S (Adam Scott), who realises that his outie’s wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) – who supposedly died two years prior – is not only alive, but works at Lumon under the name Ms Casey. What’s potentially even more disturbing: his innie didn’t recognise her.
After dropping this bomb in the Season 1 finale, it takes Severance seven episodes to show us anything substantial about Mark and Gemma’s background. Gagné ultimately directed this episode, titled Chikhai Bardo, which treated the audience to 50 minutes of well-earned backstory about the couple.
“I saw the synopsis, and to me it was obvious that it was the one I was meant to do,” Gagné begins. “I felt a calling to it. I was afraid of doing the whole director thing, but for some reason with this one, I felt like I could do it.”
While she initially wanted to hire a cinematographer, she ended up being director and DOP for the bulk of the episode. It’s one of the series’ most visually ambitious and affecting segments, as we watch Gemma and Mark struggle to have children combined with Gemma on Lumon’s testing floor crying out for her husband.
“To me, it was super important that a woman do this episode,” adds Gagné, in order to bring a sense of authenticity to Gemma’s perspective, especially as she’s dealing with the heartbreak of a miscarriage. “The most important part of episode 7 was getting people to feel for her as a human,” she continues, and for people to believe in her and Mark’s love story. “That’s what makes episode 10 so bittersweet,” Gagné explains. “It’s not going to be a happy ending.”
While Gagné shot most of Chikhai Bardo, she did have some help from an additional cinematographer, Max Goldman, for the flashback sequences shot on film. “That was too much – working on film while also having to pay attention to lighting changes and fluctuations. I just wanted to be with the actors at that moment,” Gagné admits. “Goldman was amazing. He had to deal with me transitioning away from being a cinematographer, which was challenging. He was always reminding me that this was my thing, and it was okay when I wanted something.”
Corporate chaos
While Severance is at times intense and emotionally devastating, it has its silly moments too – with jabs at the often-patronising nature of corporate culture. From throwing waffle parties and going on company retreats to bringing in a full-blown marching band, Lumon loves a healthy dose of wholesome fun. For the sequences involving music (as in Defiant Jazz and Cold Harbor), Gagné had the help of lighting console programmer Kevin Casaletta, who ensured the lighting cues matched the camera movements and cast choreography. “It took months to create these lighting effects,” she stresses. “It was really tricky.”
Although these effects were largely captured in camera, some scenes required enhancements in post. For instance, Season 2 opens with Mark sprinting through the hallways of the severed floor, the camera twisting and turning on a remote head while a jazz beat plays in the background. This sequence was partially filmed in front of a screen, with Scott running on a treadmill. Similarly, the crew frequently removed walls and ceilings to get a wider angle or bird’s-eye view, as they were shooting the severed floor on set builds.
When they weren’t on-set, they were out on location – from Fogo Island in Newfoundland (Salt’s Neck) to upstate New York (Woe’s Hollow) to northern New Jersey (external shots of the Lumon building). To maintain that oppressive coldness and austerity, the VFX team added snow in post, making the cast and crew’s lives a bit easier. They also kept to a cooler palette, using primary colours – but mainly greens and blues – in the overall production design and the grade.
Gagné views the ‘restricted’ palette as reflecting Mark’s emotional ‘restraint’ and aloofness. “He’s not seeing everything; not opening up his heart,” she says. In Chikhai Bardo, she introduces reds – representing passion – which becomes even more symbolic in the Season 2 finale.
Hidden in plain sight
What started as a shot in the dark has grown into a streaming sensation. Severance has amassed not only a large following but also one that’s curious, engaged and always searching for clues. “That’s what fuels a lot of the crew,” Gagné reveals. “We get excited about it. We talk about Easter eggs all the time.” She adds that the art department is especially hard-working. “All the props are so amazing I almost feel bad if I don’t show them. Sometimes I’m just creating shots to make sure they’re included.”
Serving as DOP on Seasons 1 and 2, Gagné has been defining the Severance look from the very beginning. “It’s the kind of project where you get to show your chops and try things out. That’s such a beautiful luxury in TV,” she admits, “and it really shines when you see it.”
Severance is streaming on Apple TV+
This story appears in the April 2025 issue of Definition
