HowThe Bearcaptured 18 frantic minutes at The Beef in one take.
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Without a cold open,the seventh episodeofThe Bears first seasonfeels different.
Its a portrait of Chicago that is the calm before the storm unleashed in Review.
Arguments, bruised egos, an accidental stabbing, and two walkouts ensue.
It would maybe just feel good to stab him.
It is so fast, says series creator, co-showrunner, and episode director Christopher Storer.
What if, Calo wondered, Sydney fought back?
How do you move forward with white men in this day and age?
(Thats a common nightmare sound for chefs and cooks, White says.
Matty was saying the sound was in his dreams while we were shooting the show.)
This rapidly escalating tension and frenzied pace inspired Storer to present the episode in a visually sustained way.
The challenge lay in making the sequence appear effortless.
We didnt want to take attention away from what was going on in the show, Storer says.
There was no backup.
Now they had to get their cinematographer on board.
The moment you stop worrying about making moves perfect, thats where the aesthetics started matching, Wehde says.
But is it the most intense and immersive?
Wehdes of course enthusiasm for the oner kicked the process into high gear.
(We just wanted to be with our main people, Calo explains.)
Joanna and Chris were rewriting until we shot it, really, White remembers.
We were trying to horseshoe the beats, says Wehde, who was filming the path on his iPhone.
It was 100 percent, 360 degrees, the whole set is used.
It was a sizable physical ask for Malouf, but one Storer was confident he could pull off.
Chris trusts Gary more than he probably trusts anyone at this point, Wehde says.
Hes just like, Great job, Gary!
This was very high risk.
There was no backup.
It was either going to work or collapse on itself, says Storer.
There was no middle ground.
I wish we couldve shot the whole show like that.
Wehde, Storer, and Calo took their places near a bank of monitors.
Each transition needed to reflect a characters movement onscreen.
That was the principal motive to ensure the 20 minutes felt like a handful of cuts, Wehde says.
It was literally, like, cheering.
The group ran through six takes, with two of them cut short for technical issues.
(Everyones a little wrong, everyones a little right, Storer says of the sparring characters.)
White, meanwhile, had a specific arc in mind for Carmy.
There was a lot of time I put into deciding,Had Carmy read the review on the way?
He had gotten a text or something about it, White says.
I wanted Carmy to start almost from a place of shame, that hes been one-upped.
In talking about Review, the episodes creators use adjectives like gnarly and rad and proud.
If White had his way, theyd do it all again next season.
It felt like theater.
For an actor, thats all you really want to do: Stay in something the whole time.
Sometimes its hard to stay in the story because theres a lot of moving parts, White says.
When you get to shoot something like episode seven, it feels like acting in its purest form.
I told Chris I wish we could have shot the whole show like that.
