Sequence shot The Haunting of Hill House S1E6 (2018)
Title: The Haunting of Hill House - Season 1, Episode 6: "Two Storms"
Year : 2018
Director/Showrunner: Mike Flanagan
Country: United States (Netflix)
Director of Photography: Michael Fimognari
Production Designer: Patricio M. Farrell (15,000 square foot set on a studio soundstage in Atlanta)
Editor: Mike Flanagan (the edit took "10 seconds")
Episode length: 53 minutes 38 seconds
Filmed duration in continuous takes: ~51 minutes
Number of plans: 5
Shot 1: 14 min 19 sec (funeral home)
Plan 2: 7 min 25 sec
Plan 3: 17 min 19 sec (funeral home - the most emotionally difficult)
Shot 4: 6 min 13 sec (Hill House - the most technically difficult)
Plan 5: 5 min 31 sec
Distribution: 3 shots in the funeral home, 2 in Hill House
Preparation: 3.5 to 4 weeks of rehearsals dedicated to this episode alone
Rehearsals (understudies) begin: March 6, 2018
Actors arrive: March 26, 2018
Filming began on April 6, 2018
Method: TRUE continuous shots, no digital stitching (only the broken windows in shot 4 are digital)
Special device: homemade elevator built into the ceiling to lower the cameraman down a floor; 50-foot technocrane; removable walls
Primary sources: Mike Flanagan (Twitter thread of 27 tweets, November 4, 2018); Michael Fimognari (Deadline, 2019; Collider, 2019); Den of Geek - making-of analysis (2020); SlashFilm - full transcript of the Flanagan thread (2018); Collider - full breakdown (2018); Daily Dot - analysis (2018)
A funeral home. Outside, a storm. The five Crain children, now adults, reunite for their sister Nell's funeral. They haven't seen each other in years. They hate each other, blame each other for everything, and avoid each other. The camera hovers among them, from Steven to Shirley, from Shirley to Theo, from Theo to Luke, from Luke to their father, Hugh. It circles the room, frames them in medium shots, moves closer when the tension rises, pulls back when words hurt. And it doesn't cut. For fourteen minutes, the camera circles this funeral home like a ghost that is exactly what it is. Then something impossible happens: the camera pivots 360 degrees around Hugh (Timothy Hutton), and when it returns to him, the children are small. The adults are gone. You are in the same room, but twenty years earlier. The storm that raged outside is now raging around Hill House. And the camera still hasn't cut.
Why this scene is iconic
Flanagan pitched this episode to Netflix at the very first meeting: "An episode that would feel like a single shot." Netflix said yes. Then Flanagan discovered what "yes" meant: a month of rehearsals, hundreds of lighting cues, sets built with removable walls, a homemade elevator lowered from the ceiling, and a wagon drive chain that was about to break.
What makes this episode unique in the entire blog collection isn't its length—51 minutes of continuous shots is unprecedented, but Victoria (2015) is 138 minutes long. It's not the technique either; the shots are true continuous takes, not montages, but Creed (2015) does that too. It's the narrative function. The continuous shot doesn't serve immersion in the action (Children of Men), nor physical exhaustion (Atomic Blonde), nor virtuosity (Kingsman). It serves time. The long takes of "Two Storms" reproduce the mechanics of traumatic memory: past and present coexist in the same space, without cuts, without transitions; the camera rotates on its axis, and the children have become adults, the adults have become children again. The continuous shot is the only tool that can show this without cheating: time passing without anyone cutting.
Henry Thomas summed it up: "It's somewhere between a play, a series, and a film." That's exactly it, and that's exactly how it felt when you watched it.
How they filmed it
The sets for the funeral home and Hill House were built on two adjacent soundstages in Atlanta specifically for this episode. The Hill House mansion was 15,000 square feet and could accommodate a 50-foot technocrane. The walls were removable; the team knew from the design stage which walls would need to be removed to allow the camera to pass through. The funeral home and the house were connected by a corridor: Hugh could literally walk from one set to the other, from the present to the past.
The first step: Flanagan shot the entire episode with stunt doubles, filmed on a DSLR. The doubles played each role, knew their characters, and were skilled at blocking. This DSLR version was shown to the actors on their arrival day, March 26. Flanagan: "We sat them down and showed them the entire episode, shot on a DSLR, with the doubles." Then came three weeks of rehearsals with the cast. On one set, the actors rehearsed the scenes, while on another set, the technicians fine-tuned the camera and lighting.
The past/present transition in shot 1, the 360° around Hugh, was achieved in the most hands-on way possible: while the camera circled Hutton, the adult actors sprinted out of the frame and the children sprinted to take their places. The adults returned to their positions a few seconds later when the camera returned to their side. No CGI. No hidden cuts. Just actors running.
Shot 3, 17 minutes and 19 seconds in the funeral home, was the most emotionally draining. It's the shot where the Crain family implodes: secrets spill out, recriminations fly, and Theo trips drunk on a couch and crashes to the floor. Kate Siegel, the actress (and Flanagan's wife), had learned the day before that she was pregnant with their second child. Flanagan: "It made me really nervous every time I saw her fall. It added a special layer of stress to the stress of the episode."
And then there was the dolly. The funeral home carpet was destroying the dolly's wheels on every take. After the lunch break on shot 3, the grips warned Flanagan: the drive chain was damaged and about to break. There might be one more take. There was no replacement dolly. Flanagan didn't say anything to the actors: "I didn't want it to go to their heads." He came back from lunch and said, "I have a good feeling about this one." They got the take. The crew brought out the dolly, turned the wheel, and the chain snapped. 17 minutes 19 seconds, achieved on the last physically possible take.
Shot 4 in Hill House was the most technically complex: Olivia (Carla Gugino) had to "teleport" from room to room, using photo doubles for some scenes and secret passages built into the walls for others. A makeshift elevator descended from the ceiling to transport the camera operator from one floor to another. The windows shattering in the storm are the only digital element in the entire episode.
The final cut? Flanagan: "The production was a nightmare and almost killed us all. But it was the easiest edit of my life. It took 10 seconds."
What to observe when reviewing it
The 360° children/adults (~shot 1, ~10th minute): The camera circles Hugh. When it returns, the children are there and the adults have disappeared. Look for the exact moment of the switch: the adult actors sprint out of frame as the camera pans to the other side, and the children run to take their place. No CGI. Real legs.
Theo's fall (~shot 3, ~middle) Theo, drunk, tries to lie down on a sofa and collapses to the floor. Kate Siegel had learned the day before that she was pregnant. Flanagan watched her fall, trying not to panic.
The dolly (shot 3, throughout) You won't see it, but the dolly holding the camera is dying. Its transmission chain is about to break. The crew only has one take left. The actors don't know this. The take is good. The chain breaks on the next take. This is the shot you're watching.
Did you know that?
Fimognari cited Children of Men as a direct influence: "The incredible long takes in Children of Men, I admired and loved them for a long time. You always want to be part of something rewarding." But where Cuarón uses the long take for immersion in chaos, Flanagan uses it for immersion in grief. "Two Storms" is not an action-packed long take. It's a family long take, a family tearing itself apart in a funeral home while a storm rages, and the camera refusing to leave them, just as the ghost of their dead sister refuses to leave them.
This is the first series episode in this collection, and the only one-shot episode in the collection that serves family drama rather than action, horror, or contemplation. Flanagan has proven something no one had attempted: 51 minutes of continuous shots in a television episode, without stunts, without shootouts, without chases, just people talking to each other in a funeral home. And it's unbearable.
Sources
Mike Flanagan - Twitter thread of 27 tweets (November 4, 2018, transcribed by SlashFilm, Collider, Birth.Movies.Death, Daily Dot)
Michael Fimognari - Deadline, "'The Haunting Of Hill House' DP Talks Tracking Shots Of Two Storms" (June 2019)
Michael Fimognari - Collider, "Haunting of Hill House Cinematographer on How They Made Episode 6" (June 2019)
Den of Geek - "The Haunting of Hill House: How the Extraordinary Episode 6 Was Made" (February 2020)
SlashFilm - "How The Haunting of Hill House Pulled Off That Long Take Episode" (November 2018)
Collider - "The Haunting of Hill House: Mike Flanagan Breaks Down Episode 6" (November 2018)
Daily Dot - "Haunting of Hill House Director Explains That Incredible Single-Shot Episode" (November 2018)
Birth.Movies.Death – "How The Haunting of Hill House Pulled Off That Insane Single-Take Shot" (November 2018)
Netflix – BTS featurette “Two Storms” (October 2018)
Read also
Mr. Robot (2017) https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/mr-robot - Previous entry in the collection: a year earlier, another series already used the continuous shot to trap the viewer in the action rather than in mourning
Victoria (2015) https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/victoria - already cited in the body, but worth exploring for the most extreme duration comparison in the entire collection
Real vs. Fake Long Takes - The Guide https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/vrais-vs-faux-plans-sequences-guide-complet - How actors sprinting off-screen replace an adult family with children, without any digital trickery
