Tim Cook in the “Severance” elevator — image credit: Apple
“Severance” director Ben Stiller has shared a video of Apple CEO Tim Cook‘s new morning routine, as he goes from being an outie to an innie, in the now famous Lumon elevator.
“Severance” has played host to skits before, with Stephen Colbert including an extended sequence of him working at Lumon Industries. But for season 2 of the Apple TV+ hit, it was no longer enough to get a comedian in on the act, the show had to go right to the top.
As shown by the show’s director and executive producer Ben Stiller, Cook goes through the transition most of the drama’s characters do. He got in the elevator as his outie, his non-work self, and during the ride is changed to his innie, his working mind.
In truth, the move is an astonishingly complex piece of cinematography. While viewers are always aware of how the background of the elevator moving unnaturally, what’s happening is that a zoom lens is being extended.
It’s similar to the shot made famous in “Jaws” where the camera focuses in on Roy Scheider’s character while the background seems to rush away from him. With “Severance,” the move is more subtle, though.
Rather than an overt zoom, the elevator shots in the show begin at quite an extreme zoom. Then there is a subtle extension of the zoom and it means we see only a small difference in characters’ faces.
The rest of the move is sold by the actors themselves, who portray someone switching between these modes. Tim Cook is actually remarkably good at this, to the extent that you can see his personality changing in front of you.
It just isn’t going to change all that much. While Cook has recently begun to open up more about his life, he’s always the unalterably perfect spokesperson for Apple.
The video is less than 90 seconds long but you know it took hours to film. Plus it appears to be on the “Severance” sets, so Cook will have had to fly to New York to shoot it.
There’s no clue as to when the video was filmed but whenever it was, it was at least a day out of the busy CEO’s schedule. Maybe as he stood there, imagining life as an outie, he remembered his saying in 2021 that he’d probably be leaving Apple in the next ten years.
If Ben Stiller ever lets him leave without severance pay.
