This interview with “The Bear” cinematographer Andrew Wehde first appeared in the Below-The-Line issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
One of the many aspects for which FX’s “The Bear” debuted in June was its sweaty, tension-filled sense of time and place. The location is a trendy River North-area beef sandwich shop in Chicago, where professionally trained chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) takes over managerial duties of the establishment as he deals with the death of his sibling. But it was in the penultimate episode of Season 1, “Review”, where the show inserted the audience into the kitchen machine in an unbroken real-time shot, which nearly trimmed the episode’s 21-minute running time. 18 min captured.
Cinematographer Andrew Wehde said, “The series was written as eight independent episodes and I really don’t know what shocked Chris (Storer, showrunner) to reconsider Episode 7.” as comedy specials for Jerrod Carmichael, Chris Rock and Ramy Youssef. “But there was a moment when we were filming Episode 2 or 3 when he started asking me, ‘Is it possible? How long can this go on? How many cuts?'”
The answer to the last question would be: zero. The sequence begins shortly after the episode’s short-film-like opening credits. It’s an edit-scarce sprint from the time Carmi shows up at the restaurant, where the still-green, unprepared staff must contend with a new ordering system that includes “78 slices of chocolate cake, 49 french fries, 54 chickens, 38” spit tickets total. Salad and 255 Beef Sandwiches in 8 Minutes! Lots of tension and colorful profanity (one of the show’s specialties), an employee lashing out and even an unlucky SOB getting stabbed in the arse.
Wehde said, “A typical TV show takes five to seven days to shoot an episode, so you get all this time in between and the ability to redo.” , They planned three days of rehearsals with the actors going over the dialogue and events of the scene, while Wehde and his crew blocked out areas and followed them with iPhones to prepare for the close kitchen environment.
While advancements in genre are to be expected as television becomes more cinematic, this bold leap was almost unprecedented. (For context, the famous single-take scene in the first season of HBO’s “True Detective” is only six minutes long, only a third of that series’ feat.) “(The actor) is probably doing the longest take of his professional career.” careers and being ‘on’ in front of a camera whether they looked or not because these cameras were 360,” Wehde said. “I mean, even (Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning film) “Birdman” openly admits that it was designed to be cut (at its longest). We never designed it to bite and there isn’t one.
The scene was new territory for everyone involved, Wehde said. He added, “I’ve always told directors to let a scene go on as long as possible.” “It’s a really powerful tool when done correctly. And we have such an amazing, talented group of actors. At the end of freshening up, they couldn’t wait to get started. Never seen such intensity.”
Read more from below-the-line issue Here,
