“Atlanta” director Hiro Murai’s Super Frog production company has inked a first-look deal with FX Productions. So, I don’t know. Hiro Murai is a Japanese-American filmmaker, Director and Visual artist based in Los Angeles. You don’t understand what I’m going through,” and he really lambasts them. It stuck with him and he’s like, “I’m not a fucking psycho.” He’s being asked to follow orders again, to kill Taylor. Hader spoke about working with director Hiro Murai (Atlanta) on the episode, the collaboration process with the show’s directors, and how they approached crafting the stash house sequence. This trailer features a spooky cover of Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me." It should feel as real and brutal and quiet as possible and Taylor and Barry should be like machines. The show is a terrifically exciting mix of dark comedy, rich characters, and a compelling narrative drive that rivals plot-driven serial dramas like Breaking Bad. That video just felt like an extreme version of that, where you’re playing with hundreds of human bodies and have more chips to play with. Director Liza Johnson. We really wanted to fold that into the story and have it feel like this sort of mythical place—[because] it really does feel that way. Instinct seems to play a major role. I think it creates a tone that feels like it can go in any direction. We’re kind of holding the cards close to our chest, so any moment can go extremely dramatic or extremely comedic. For those that don’t know, the first season of “Barry” featured acclaimed director (and one of the hottest filmmakers in Hollywood) Hiro Murai on 4 episodes, as well as series creators Bill Hader and Alec Berg getting their own respective directorial gigs. The first season of Barry spiraled to a place of such ... darkness nearly becomes more than the show is equipped to handle and there but for the genre-bending touch of directors Hiro Murai … We still wanted the show to feel like the show that you’ve watched in the first season, but the tone and palette has changed a little bit. Bill Hader’s performance in it was just so incredible. He has been involved in the directing of several music videos for prolific artists such as The Fray, Death Cab for Cutie, Childish Gambino, Earl Sweatshirt, Chet Faker, Flying Lotus, David Guetta, St. Vincent, The Shins among others. I think there’s elements of that in the final episode, but it was really important to us that it didn’t feel that way up top. Hiro Murai on the ‘Atlanta’ Finale and ‘This Is America’ Video. Working with Donald Glover prior to Atlanta—on memorable music videos for the actor’s alter ego, Childish Gambino—Murai found a methodology and a shared sensibility that would factor significantly into the FX series. That entire sequence leads directly into his mission with Taylor, which feels like maybe the first time he hasn’t carried out a job for Fuchs. Guest-star Lee Coc. We wanted to give them a scene where they’re talking about Macbeth and Barry starts kind of defending Macbeth, and the actors are putting this judgment on him that he had never considered before which is that he’s a psycho and he’s damned to Hell or whatever. Infusing Atlanta with dream logic, surreal imagery and an avant-garde, experimental spirit, Murai has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is possible in narrative television, going where few other directors would dare to tread. He’s pure id. I really like that scene. Luckily the eight-episode first season won’t be leaving things open-ended, as HBO recently picked the series up for a second season. But in general, I think we thrive in tonal ambiguity on this show, and stylistically, I try to support that as much as possible. [laughs] So, I just sort of nodded and rolled with it. One of the best shows currently airing on television is Barry, the new half-hour comedy series on HBO from creators Bill Hader and Alec Berg. “Station Eleven” is an original production for the HBO Max platform. Exclusive 'Are You Afraid of the Dark? You’re just these little wannabe actors.” It’s the first time he gets frustrated with them in a very real way. The Great Unappreciated 'Dare Me' Is Now on Netflix, 'Cobra Kai' Season 3: Ralph Macchio and William Zabka Explain How [SPOILER]'s Return Finally Happened, Why 'The Golden Child' Is One of the Strangest Movies Eddie Murphy Ever Made. If he had never taken that class, he would have killed Taylor. It’s the craziest script of the season, and it was exciting to us because it felt like its own thing. He was like, “Oh he should shout Leroy Jenkins,” and we all started laughing. Hiro Murai is just getting started. : Curse of the Shadows' Trailer Reveals Nickelodeon's New Midnight Society, Exclusive: Bill Hader Breaks Down ‘Barry’ Episode 5, HBO Renews 'Silicon Valley' and Bill Hader's 'Barry', More He’s really calm, he’s a great collaborator. BILL HADER: Oh he’s a genius. It’s just such a cool combination of comedy and real-life stakes.”, In conversation with Deadline, Murai discussed the prospect of making his entrée into the feature world. But I’d never shot any sort of action scene before. Adam Chitwood is the Managing Editor for Collider. The way we use music is always in the context of what’s happening inside the world. Watching this unfold, it’s no wonder Barry seeks a second profession in front of an audience. We were just trying to support that, the conceit of the season as a whole. Regularly in music videos, I’ll write the pitch and convince the artists that this is a good idea, and then I’m having to make concessions to meet in the middle. We have these things called tone meetings where you sit down with the director and the showrunners sit with the script and you go scene-by-scene and you talk about what the camera’s doing, what the wardrobe is, what the production design is doing, but you’re also talking about what the meaning of each scene is, the point of each scene, and if you’re setting up something that’s gonna come up in another episode, things that you wanna look for. There’s just a certain kind of intuitiveness and an ease that I’ve never really had with anyone else. I also love it when Cousineau says, “You know if you’re in war, that’s okay. Winkler’s son, Max, went to film school at USC with Hiro Murai, the celebrated director who has helmed several “Barry” episodes. Send us a tip using our annonymous form. He's been working for Collider for over a decade, and in addition to managing content also runs point on crafts interviews, awards coverage, and co-hosts The Collider Podcast with Matt Goldberg (which has been running since 2012). Guest-star Nicholas Sean Johnny. I think a lot of it is that the writers—especially Donald—are interested in the same thing. Murai directed the stash house raid episode of Barry Season 1, but I’m also really excited to see Hader and Berg back at the helm. But now he wants to stop. Barry A hit man from the Midwest moves to Los Angeles and gets caught up in the city's theatre arts scene. Communicator Sarah Goldberg. Barry lives modestly with two roommates despite having plenty of disposable income; the money he makes doesn’t provide him with any comfort or solace. I think most of visual storytelling is camera placement, and how to stage action around the camera. Director Minkie Spiro. Watch Barry Online Genres: ... Director Hiro Murai. It’s like he’s never considered this before. The constant on the show is the people making it. This type of work, as depicted in Barry, could never be described as “enjoyable.” Barry does it because he’s very good at it. All Rights reserved. So in that meeting it was like, ”No it should feel very quiet.” We talked about that scene where they walk in and the guys are just watching TV and they shoot them all, and the stuntmen when they get shot they don’t do the sort of stuntman dance where they act like they’re hurt and fall down. Barry just realized like, “Oh this community I have, if they really know me they’ll never accept me, ever.”. We’re now past the halfway point and as the plot is starting to heat up, and Hader was gracious enough to speak with me about these next few episodes. Related Story From the new Disney+ multiverses to individual stories of hope, scandal, and comedy, the Paste TV writers are excited about where 2021 seems to be taking us. “It’s a hard thing to pin down. It’s causal. What has your approach been in photographing the city, and what have you learned about this place over the last several years? When it came to [fruition], Bill [Hader] and Alec Berg told me that they gave me the two episodes that have the most action and visual stuff, which I guess they assumed I could do because I come from music videos. TV is in a weird place. I also like when he’s like, “I smoked that guy and I smoked that guy for ya.” He’s so excited. It’s been an interesting experiment, in terms of how to score a scene, but make it feel incidental. Super Frog, the production company founded by Hiro Murai and Nate Matteson, has signed first-look deal with FX Productions. He is known to be a close allies with Donald Glover and was … It definitely can be. 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One of the most disruptive directors working today, Atlanta helmer Hiro Murai has brought specificity of vision to the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning series, resulting in … This series is obviously set in the world of music. By Amy Wallac e. Photography by Erik Tanne r. November 30, 2018 ... Barry, told me he especially loved the … It has a really interesting, kind of chaotic feeling to it; you can kind of feel the tension between nature and the city. So, it was a really good way of learning how to shoot that stuff. Well, the scripts and the general direction of the show kind of pivoted. It’s hilarious, but at the end of each episode you’re dying to find out what happens next. HIRO MURAI: ALEC BERG / BILL HADER: Mar 31, 2019 Barry tries to convince Sally and the rest of the class to go ahead with a performance, despite the absence of teacher Gene; Noho Hank and Cristobal's new partnership faces growing pains; Fuches learns that replacement hit men don't come easy. Set within the context of Atlanta’s music scene, the series feels indebted, in some way, to the music video as a form, in all its open-ended visual potential. We’re always looking to blur the line between what’s just incidentally playing in the background and how that intentionally affects the scene that we’re watching. Yeah, I think so. It’s probably his calling. Because I think that episode again thrives on ambiguity, not knowing where the story is going. Because it stars Mackenzie Davis and Himesh Patel and is being directed by Hiro Murai, we think there’s a good chance that it could be gloriously cathartic. We went around and around and around on how to write it, because we just couldn’t figure out what Barry’s argument was. But the rest of it, we filled in as we were prepping. So we were just sort of reacting to that. Communicator Paula Newsome. It kind of goes back to the collaborative process I have with Donald, but I don’t think that video could have gotten done in time if I was working with anybody else. Even as we were shooting, we were moving things around to fit what we were going for. The star/co-showrunner talks about working with director Hiro Murai, how the class is changing Barry, and "Leroy Jenkins." And you want to have them say to you, “Oh I was thinking about doing this all in one shot,” or “I want to play this in closeup” or “I have this idea,” and you kind of get those out in that meeting. Let’s do something.”. HADER: Yeah, he thinks he’s in a video game (laughs). Outside of Atlanta, you’ve put in notable work this year on Barry. So you have Hiro Murai directing this episode, who’s done some incredible work on Atlanta. The joy is in trying to read into his face, trying to see if he’s just a strange man or if he has ulterior motives. Me and Hiro and Gavin our AD were kind of the only people laughing, and then everyone else was like, “I don’t get that, what is that?” So then everybody took out their phones and watched the video and it was like, “Ohhh okay, now I get it.”. Outside of Atlanta, Murai branched out this season to direct Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” music video—an internet sensation, registering 265 million views to date—and several episodes of HBO comedy Barry, where he tackled some of the series’ most visually remarkable sequences thus far. That was a hard scene to write. “Whether it’s a TV show or a music video, the seed of the idea is what’s driving my decisions, not the format or the outcome.”. And he doesn’t wanna do that anymore, and you’re seeing again how the class is affecting his life. One thing that’s interesting about the way we decided to work with music on the show is that it’s not a show that’s scored, ever. In the warehouse shootout nimbly captured by episode director Hiro Murai (for my money, the most exciting TV helmer currently working), Barry witnesses the … It felt like a real departure from the world of the show, and yet we could still play with the same themes and ideas from a different angle. He also discussed how the acting class is now starting to change Barry’s actions, and how the Macbeth scene leads directly into Barry’s decision not to kill Taylor by the end of the episode. So we discussed that in the meeting, and Hiro was the one that was like, “Well let’s get to the location and we can map out each stage of the shootout.” So Hiro, I remember from the first meeting with him I was like, “Oh wow he has such a handle on it and such a confidence, but he can also be so open to our ideas.” It never felt like someone was pushing against us. One of the first things I noticed about Atlanta—and this is something that Donald was really interested in, too—is that it’s a city that’s really built in the middle of nature. Hiro Murai: Emily Heller: April 29, 2018 () 0.560: Barry and Fuches survey a desert airstrip where the Bolivian drug lord Cristobal Sifuentes is set to land, and Fuches tells Barry he wants Taylor gone. Given the series’ title, it’s no surprise that Atlanta itself becomes a primary character for exploration. The aftermath of his first two kills finds him showered in praise and adoration. If it wasn’t for this class, he would be making decisions that didn’t endanger his life on a bunch of different levels (laughs). But if you shoot someone out of war you’re a psycho,” (laughs). Looking at Childish Gambino’s music video for “This Is America,” there’s similarly complex choreography at hand. Spoilers for Barry Season 2 Episode 2 follow below.. Barry Season 2 is wasting no time pulling the rug out from under the audience. Covering the hottest movie and TV topics that fans want. And in his mind he’s like plenty of people have killed. Hiro is just insanely collaborative, where we could talk to him about the stash house hit and say, “Okay we wrote it in a way that was pretty much like an action movie and we kind of went against our own edict.” You can’t help yourself, you’re writing a scene and you write it like an action movie and then we go, “What the fuck?” As we were in the tone meeting I went, “We just kind of went against what the edict of the show is, which is don’t glamorize the violence.” You have this scene where they take these guys out in the stash house and we wrote this kind of cool shootout. As a director, what is your approach to navigating scenes based in dream logic? It was a really fun, exploratory process and I learned a lot about how to stage and shoot these gunfight sequences. It has this sort of deadpan, neutral perspective that can swing in any direction. When you’re operating by the rules of dream logic—in a way that’s less tethered to plot—what is the approach? A lot of the decisions we were making were on the fly; we knew what we wanted the video to feel like, and Donald had specific things kind of written out. I try not to have too much of an objective view on it, just because I think it muddles the process. -'Station Eleven,' a postapocalyptic limited series based on Emily St. John Mandel's international bestseller, adapted by Patrick Somerville ('The Leftovers') and directed by Hiro Murai ('Barry'). So for season 2, it looks like Hader and Co. really upped their game. Even the fact that I worked in music videos for so long before I started doing narratives, I think you get a very good grasp on visual storytelling, and how to control tone, and how music and visuals work together. Barry (TV Series 2018– ) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. With Donald, I always feel like we’re facing in the same direction. Spoilers for Barry Episode 5, … Frequent Atlanta and Barry director Hiro Murai will be directing the series adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven for WarnerMedia's upcoming streaming service. In relation to Season 1 of Atlanta, what were you hoping to explore and achieve with the series’ second season? All the music you hear is diegetic; it’s either coming from a car radio, or from someone’s phone. Copyright © 2021 Penske Business Media, LLC. It’s a lot like looking into Teddy Perkins’ face: You don’t really understand what’s happening. So I just immediately was like, “Hey, I love what this is. 'Atlanta' Renewed For A Third Season By FX, For Murai, this is where the challenge lies. Of shift in genre—and even stylistically, kind of holding the cards to! 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