The Emotionally Gripping 'Boat' Scene From 'Succession' Was Shot As A Single 27-Minute Take

Since its premiere in 2018, Succession has been centred around the premise of a single event that would alter the power dynamic within the Roy family.?

In the third episode of the show's final season, that event finally occurred: Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) passed away.?Succession fans are still reeling in the shock of Logan Roy's death.?

The founder and owner of Waystar Royco died on his private jet while his children were preparing for Connor's ( Alan Ruck) wedding and were nowhere near him.?

The episode was one of the most emotional in the series, as the Roy siblings must confront the reality that their emotionally distant father is no longer with them.

During a recent behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Succession," actor Kieran Culkin and executive producer/director Mark Mylod discussed how they filmed "Connor's Wedding," the pivotal third episode of season 4 that revolves around the Roy family's response to the sudden passing of Logan (Brian Cox).?

Macall B. Polay/HBO

Mylod revealed that the scene in which the Roy children receive a phone call from Tom was captured in a single, uninterrupted take that lasted an astonishing 27 minutes.

"In planning the shots, it felt to me like the camera had to be almost sadistically voyeuristic," Mylod said.?

He added, "It had to stay really close without the kind of taking its eye off them because every time we cut away from the siblings, it seemed to let them off the hook. So we worked on this idea of how could we keep the action as fluid as possible so that it’s unflinching."

Culkin noted it "felt like the most exciting episode we’d shot because it moves in real-time."

As per Culkin's account, the boat scenes in the episode were filmed for five to six days.?

However, the part featuring the phone conversation between Tom and the Roy children, where they inform Shiv and Connor, was recorded as a single, continuous take that stretched to almost 30 minutes.

Macall B. Polay/HBO

"As it turns out, it’s like a 27-minute long scene," Culkin said.?

"It was us doing like a one-act play on a boat in several rooms with background actors, with lighting everywhere, with three cameras, and it was unlike anything I’d ever done before, and it was extremely exciting."

The crew's shooting time was restricted to 10-minute intervals due to the use of film for filming the show, which necessitated the physical reloading of cameras with new rolls of film.

"So the camera operators worked on this idea of basically hiding rolls of film around the set and hiding a third camera body during super fast reloads so that one camera would always be running so they wouldn’t have to reload at the same time," Mylod explained.

According to Mylod, the long sequence takes they filmed were frequently incorporated into the final episode.

"I think a massive percentage of that ended up being in the final cut."

You can watch the full behind-the-scenes video here:?

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