How the 'Silo' DP Used Classic Sci-Fi to Inspire Its Look

Getting the opportunity to work on season two of Silo was a dream come true for me because many of the show’s references were deeply rooted in cinematography lore, such as Blade Runner, Children of Men, Dune, and Arrival. I had the chance to explore the dark, subterranean, eerie world of the new Silo 17, where Juliette arrives in episode one. This setting needed to feel familiar but different—almost devoid of power, overgrown by plants and vines, and simultaneously cavernous, lifeless, and terrifying! The art department led by Production Designer Nicole Northridge showed me references from Chornobyl years after the nuclear disaster, with the town devoid of human life but overgrown by nature, and I knew we had captured the right look.

Episode one takes us on a journey of discovery as Juliette descends through the Silo, searching for signs of life. When she spots a faint glow from the IT level below, she makes her way to a crumbling section of the concrete rotunda. In an attempt to gain entry, we had to show her swinging on an improvised rope and ultimately falling and dropping into darkness.

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To capture this sequence, I worked closely with my team—specifically A-cam operator Joe Russell, and Key Grip Matt Budd, to build and test various rigs, and had best results with a cradle built from metal scaffolding, which allowed us to mimic the swing of the arc of the rope. With a camera mounted on a remote head, we were able to film Rebecca (Juliette) rocking back and forth from the front and behind her to get all the angles. When the rope snapped, we cut to her stunt double jumping and attempting to grab onto the concrete rebar. Meanwhile, the main camera was on a technocrane with a mimic head to give the feeling of a handheld, a technique I used a lot on Silo.

We used three cameras positioned as close as possible to the action, keeping the experience visceral and spontaneous as she falls. As she holds on for dear life, the camera cuts back to Rebecca, and we face her as she struggles to get a grip, and then she falls back out of the shot. As the camera races forward and tilts—looking down, we find her again falling into darkness. This sequence was tricky; it required coordination to make it feel like one continuous, breathtaking shot. We wanted the audience to ask themselves if this was the end for Juliette.

Working closely with the VFX supervisor Daniel Rauchwerger, I figured if we started the camera move on our main Silo set, with the blue screen in the background and below, with Rebecca genuinely losing her grip and falling back (onto crash mats a few meters below her on the studio floor), there would be a point we would lose her from the shot for a split second.

Baz Irvine on 'Silo'via AppleTV+

So,we built the last section of broken concrete as a small separate set as high as possible in the studio, then replicated the move from the actual set, as if we were pushing in on Juliette and then quickly tilting down to see her falling. This meant if we got the timings right, the stunt double could match the body position, and we could get the fall away from the camera as if it was one move. It took a few goes, and VFX (brilliantly) had to do a Juliette face replacement on our double, but it worked brilliantly. It is just a small, seamless blending of two shots without the need for motion control. At this point, it looks like game over for our heroine, but...

In a low wide shot using our main unit camera package of an Arri LF mini, paired with a Movietech 18mm lens, we see Juliette flailing and dropping towards the camera, with the vastness of this dark, eerie, Silo stretching out behind her in the distance —and then suddenly—SPLASH. She hits the water. We've just learned that Silo 17 is flooded. We figured if the water were completely clear - like a Cenote in Yucatan - and undisturbed, then optically, we wouldn’t feel we were looking through water.

Only as she hits the water’s surface is that illusion shattered. We put the camera at the bottom of the famous underwater tank at Pinewood Studios, and our stunt double dropped from a cable above, matching the falling movements from the Silo set, and as we only needed the last few feet of the drop, it worked beautifully with the overhead shot previously discussed.

I feel like we really got the element of surprise—a few seconds of action distilled into a sequence of quick shots. In reality, we did a week of camera testing at Pinewood to explore the lighting and execution of this scene working with Mark Silk - our underwater DOP. Some ideas worked, some didn’t, but storyboarding the ideas and testing the concepts always bring the best results. It’s a learning curve for everyone involved.