www.indiewire.com: Production design is always an exercise in worldbuilding. Everything we see on screen was put there by the art team for a very specific reason to tell us something. Colors, textures, shapes, styles; grounded or heightened realism. They’re all an invisible (or not-so-invisible) part of visual storytelling. But rarely is that exercise as much about hidden cameras as it is for “Company Retreat,” the second season of “Jury Duty.”
2 comments:
I am hoping to watch this show soon! Watching the first season of Jury Duty was so fun, and the general premise for the show feels really ingenuitive. I love the idea of these prank shows, but often they teeter on harming the contestants and their well being. The way that Jury Duty goes about this feels very considerate to the person that they are playing the prank on. It exists in this very low-stakes environment without things like money or livelihood on the line, so it is more about the relationships that this person is making with the people around them who are actually actors. Looking at the set design for this show, it feels very high stakes. With a lot of reality shows, you can usually see the cameras as security cameras in the background, but it is ok because the contestants know they are on a show. In this case, the hidden cameras have to withstand the scrutiny of a person literally living in the building and needing to not know they are there.
I can’t tell for sure, but it seems like the camera team for this show was actually able to keep the cameras hidden from the subject for an entire season of filming, unless I am missing the point of the series. If so, that is a very impressive feat. The world around is filled with solid objects and regular patterns that are not easy to hide a camera crew in. It takes a lot of clever thinking to figure out where those cameras could go.
I would also be interested in how much pressure was on the camera crew and the entire to keep this secret. If I understand the way that this was filmed properly, if the subject found a single camera and asked what was up the entire season of television would be ruined. That seems like an incredible amount of pressure to work under, and frankly not very wise given the financial consequences of losing an entire season of content.
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