Lumon is Listening: animator Michael Granberry breaks down THAT scene in Severance

In the second series of Severance, a particular scene jumped out to us. Back from their coup, the Macrodata refinement team are herded into a room for HR to show them a video, a stop motion film featuring Mark, Helly, and gang as puppets. Lumon is Listening quickly became a fan-favourite scene, an enthralling, wildly satisfying and unexpected creative choice, the irreverence and oddity of which faithfully served the show. 

While the video in the series is mysteriously made by Lumon, we – in the real world – know the exuberant talent behind Lumon is Listening: Portland-based stop motion director and animator Michael Granberry. “The process began with a long conversation between myself and director Ben Stiller,” Michael says, who turned out to be a “true fan” of stop motion. “He was a genuine dream to work with. He encouraged me to pitch as many ideas as I wanted, and much of what was pitched wound up in the final piece. His collaborative approach really empowered everyone to speak up for what they believed was the best way to get where we were going.”

Lumon is Listening, along with Michael’s own eccentric and intricate practice, is ultimately referential and celebratory of the stop motion craft, considering its legacy whilst integrating itself into the contemporary animation landscape. As such, when developing a film like Lumon is Listening, the process began with cultivating classic stop motion references, the likes of Jules Rankin and Arthur Bass Jr., which allowed Michael to showcase how they could authentically integrate historical styles and in-camera effects across the film. “At the same time, we had several meetings where we worked with the storyboard artists to incorporate the ideas we were coming up with,” Michael recalls, resulting in an animatic that would guide the animation team. “The script was already locked, so it was all about creating fun visuals to accompany the narration.”

An example of how Michael and the Severance creative team transformed a cinematic reference into a key, profoundly contemporary moment is Irving’s fiery anger scene, the movement of which directly drew from the 1974 stop motion animated film The Year Without A Santa Claus. “Ben shared that he and his family watch the film every Christmas,” Michael recalls, “and it was immediately clear how deeply attuned he was to the texture and details of that film,” a quality that afforded Michael the creative reign to be as meticulous and playful as necessary. “We pulled ideas for practical animated water effects for the ‘bobbing for pineapples’ scene from a Rankin/Bass adaptation of The Little Mermaid,” Michael says, using blue gels and plastic to create the water with pre-cut holes made for the puppets to poke their heads through. “Other Rankin/Bass classics that were big influences for us were The Little Drummer Boy,” he says, “which used forced perspective shots to create the illusion of distance by using puppets of different sizes.” This technique was utilised in the shots within Lumon’s corridors to highlight the vast architectural scale of the building – from the inside, that is. The building exterior, however, was entirely a different matter.

Happy, chatty and voiced by Keanu Reeves, the Lumon Building character plays a primary narrative role across the film, which became a practical problem for Michael to solve. “The Lumon Building was a huge question mark for all of us: how was it going to talk?” he asks, “would it have some kind of moving jaw, like a muppet?” Following many discussions, Michael opted for magnetic facial features, allowing the building to be as expressive as possible. “We made the surface of the Lumon Building metal so we could create a variety of different expressions and moods,” Michael explains, a feat achieved simply by switching and sliding pieces around, “it gave us a surprising amount of expressivity for a character that was basically a metal box.”

As is now abundantly evident, both the production and the inspiration behind Lumon is Listening is notably old-school – akin to the show’s own midcentury, retro aesthetic influence – something which was purposeful from the project’s get-go. “The goal from the beginning was to do the entire production as authentically as possible,” using in-camera techniques, styles and movements that were commonplace in the 60s and 70s. “What I didn’t anticipate was that our amazing VFX artists would see the wires and immediately think they were supposed to be erased,” Michael says, surprised to see the first shot back from VFX with all the wires and rigs removed. “I had to call and say ‘put ‘em back!’” he adds. “Afterwards, I was careful to include a note about what we wanted to keep and what to remove.”

In keeping with the retro quality of the production, aesthetically and practically, Michael recalls the theory behind the puppet’s dirty fingers, which are seen getting dirtier as the film goes on. “Ben mentioned how the puppets in the classic Rankin/Bass films often had dirty fingers,” he explains, “which was caused by the animators of the time working quickly and not always cleaning the puppets between shots,” accumulating more and more grime the more they were animated. “Ben asked if we could add this detail, which I love,” Michael tenderly notes, “because it’s a shout-out to those incredible animators of yesteryear whose hard work inspired so many young people to pursue animation,” he ends, “myself included.”