How an Episode of Paradise Engages — Even When You Anticipate the Outcome

      Paradise, the tale of a small group of survivors residing in a utopian bunker, is filled with unexpected developments and turns. However, the seventh episode of the series, titled “The Day,” revisits familiar ground.

      As Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and billionaire Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) reminisce about the world’s end, viewers are already aware that a tsunami has devastated millions, and the survivors include Collins, Sinatra, Collins’ children, and, for a time, the pragmatic President Cal Bradford (James Marsden).

      Despite knowing the general outcome of “The Day,” it still stands out as one of the most gripping and emotional episodes in television history.

      Created by Dan Fogelman, Paradise recalls the event-driven broadcast shows from the 2000s like 24 and Lost—series that, while watchable on DVR, felt essential to experience in real time. Paradise skillfully blends the cliffhanger approach of peak broadcast television with the cinematic style of streaming hits, premiering on Hulu on January 26th and on ABC three days later.

      Brown and Fogelman previously collaborated on one of the most successful broadcast series of the last decade, NBC’s This Is Us. The directors of “The Day,” Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, are long-time partners who first worked with Fogelman on the 2011 hit Crazy, Stupid, Love, and have directed the pilot and several episodes of This Is Us. It is in this NBC show that they first collaborated with Yasu Tanida, the cinematographer for “The Day.”

      In anticipation of their work on Paradise Season 2, we spoke with Ficarra, Requa, and Tanida about how they were able to evoke so much drama in an episode where many facts are already established. They attribute a significant part of it to the way the episode was filmed.

      Paradise “The Day” co-director John Requa stated, “When we read the script, Paul Greengrass immediately came to mind. What if we made a Paul Greengrass-style movie in the White House at the end of the world?”

      They particularly referenced Greengrass’ United 93, a film where the audience knows the tragic conclusion: it portrays the passengers on the hijacked 9/11 flight fighting to thwart its targeted crash.

      While the directors and Tanida draw inspiration from Greengrass—utilizing extensive Steadicam work and capturing scenes in real time—their editing is less abrupt, and the camera movement is not as chaotic as seen in many of Greengrass' sequences.

      According to Ficarra, “The actors are truly the ones generating the tension. Their expressions tell everything.”

      Tanida enhanced the intimate atmosphere by opting for spherical lenses instead of the typical anamorphic ones used in Paradise, explaining, “Spherical feels a bit more personal, whereas anamorphic stretches the image and gives a more cinematic feel.”

      Despite Paradise's polished appearance, Ficarra noted that it is “not a big-budget show. It’s substantial for broadcast, but we likely have only a third of the budget for an Apple or HBO show per episode. Creating the entire world is a challenge.”

      Financial constraints are one reason the show adopts a storytelling approach similar to Steven Spielberg’s 2005 alien-invasion film War of the Worlds: “Everything is presented from the characters’ perspective. You’re always with them,” Ficarra said.

      “The news is conveyed through televisions or texts, as one would experience it. We don’t cut to a distant location showing large-scale shots.”

      “The Day” primarily unfolds in the White House, which Paradise recreated on Paramount’s historic, expansive Stage 32, previously used for iconic films like Chinatown and Citizen Kane.

      The episode made full use of the available stage space, filling it with hundreds of extras, and capturing lengthy scenes using multiple cameras to convey a sense of urgency and continuity. One continuous take spanned 10 minutes, accounting for nearly a sixth of the entire episode.

      Paradise “The Day” cinematographer Yasu Tanida remarked, “When you engage in such filming, you realize that it’s not just visually impressive; it also greatly benefits the actors.”

      Requa added, “The shooting style influences the performance. There's an energy for the actors knowing they’re shooting a lengthy scene where if they falter, it impacts all the extras and crew who have been involved. This creates significant tension, which enhances the performances.”

      The need to film extended scenes necessitated substantial rehearsal time with Tanida and camera operators John Joyce and Richard Coy Aune, along with boom operators, who all had to avoid being in the shots.

      “For this episode, the camera operators became part of the cast,” Requa explained, as their movements mirrored those of the actors.

      The duration of some scenes was mainly limited by the need