Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House was a breakthrough horror series for many reasons, but one episode in particular blew audiences away.
The Haunting of Hill House is a reimagining of the classic horror novel by Shirley Jackson. The Netflix series follows the Crain family as we see both their life in Hill House and their lives after escaping Hill House. Family drama underscoring a truly terrifying series made the show a hit with audiences, but one episode in particular, episode 6, really had audiences talking.
Episode 6, titled “Two Storms,” is made to look like it is one, continuous shot. So even though the events of the episode take place decades apart and in two very different locations, cinematographer Michael Fimognari explains in a video from Insider just how they made this awesome episode.
Go behind the scenes of Netflix horror series #HauntingOfHillHouse to see how they made the terrifying single-shot episode pic.twitter.com/NIYEy7G64P
— INSIDER (@thisisinsider) February 2, 2019
While the episode is made to look like it’s a long, continuous shot, in actuality they used 5 continuous shots to create “Two Storms.” 5 shots is still an incredibly small amount of shots, especially when working with so many different actors–including several children. To make it even more challenging, if anyone made a mistake while filming, the entire cast and crew would have to go back to the very beginning of the shot and start over completely.
The video reveals that the Hill House team not only built their soundstage with this episode in mind, but they took a month to rehearse every detail of this episode to make sure spacing, lighting, blocking, and every other detail of the episode. It was a huge undertaking, to be sure, but anyone who has seen the episode can attest to the fact that it’s a pretty awesome achievement in filmmaking. The results aren’t just terrifying, but they’re visually captivating, too.
You can see the filmmaking magic for yourself. The Haunting of Hill House is streaming on Netflix.
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