---
title: How they filmed *that* stunning running sequence for the Severance season 2 premiere
description: Discover how the mesmerizing running sequence in Severance Season 2 was filmed, featuring advanced camera techniques and expert choreography for a seamless, high-octane opening.
---

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# [How they filmed *that* stunning running sequence for the Severance season 2 premiere](https://www.redsharknews.com/how-they-filmed-that-stunning-running-sequence-for-the-severance-season-2-premiere)

 Written by [Andy Stout](https://www.redsharknews.com/author/andy-stout) | Feb 1, 2025 7:03:42 AM

*Severance* is one of the best shows in the Apple TV catalogue, and the stunning two-minute opening sequence of Season 2 only confirmed its quality in front of and behind the camera.

So, how do you open Season 2 of one of the most acclaimed sci-fi series of recent years? Answer, you pull off something truly memorable, partly because Apple's going to give you the budget to do it.

The opening sequence of *Severance* Season 2 sees Adam Scott's character Mark S. racing through the oppressive corridors of Lumen Industries as the camera swoops and dives around him in one single continuous take. It's a bravura two minutes of action, though of course it's not the single take it looks like, rather a sequence of shorter shots filmed over months, cleverly choreographed, and seamlessly stitched together in post as Adam Scott and Ben Stiller explain in this Vanity Fair video.

 

Over at [Lensrentals](https://www.lensrentals.com), Zach Sutton dips into the [details of the dolly zoom](https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2025/01/how-severance-filmed-one-of-the-best-scenes-of-the-last-decade/) that it opens with. We've come a ways since Hitchcock made it famous in Vertigo in 1958.

"Shot on a [Sony Venice II](https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/sony-venice-2-8k-digital-motion-picture-camera) camera and the [19-90mm Panavision zoom](https://www.panavision.com/camera-and-optics/optics/product-detail/fzk-cabrio-zooms), this simple effect is a subtle way of showing the shift from one location (and one character) into another," he writes. "As Severance cinematographer Jessica Lee Gange explains, “What’s different from a lot of motion control stuff though is that it’s half operated by a human, half by this computer. So it works with a laser, and if you’re pushing the dolly forward, which is human-operated, it’s calculating a distance on the ground and mapping out the distance while compensating with the zoom”."

This scene is then followed with some quick pans around Mark S. achieved using a Bolt robotic arm from MRMC before moving into an extended chase sequence. 

"When filming this portion of the opening sequence, a [Sony FX3](https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/sony-fx3-body-only) was used on a handheld pogo stick gimbal, along with [Panavision H Series lenses](https://www.panavision.com/camera-and-optics/optics/product-detail/h-h-series). Opting for a pogo stick gimbal system instead of a handheld steady-cam system was because, as director Ben Stiller states, “a gimbal is too hard to run [with] this fast…it’s very cumbersome.”

And, if you haven't seen it, this is the sequence in full. Minor spoilers ahead...

 

## tl;dr

- The opening sequence of *Severance* Season 2 features Adam Scott's character, Mark S., racing through Lumen Industries in a stunning two-minute continuous take that showcases high-quality production techniques.
- The impressive visuals are achieved through a combination of human-operated and computer-assisted camera movements, including a dolly zoom effect shot on a Sony Venice II camera.
- Cinematographer Jessica Lee Gange explains the innovation behind the shooting technique, where the system calculates distances while the camera dolly is manually pushed.
- Director Ben Stiller opted for a handheld pogo stick gimbal for fast-paced shots, highlighting the challenges of using traditional gimbals in dynamic filming situations.

 

[View full post](https://www.redsharknews.com/how-they-filmed-that-stunning-running-sequence-for-the-severance-season-2-premiere)

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