Latest news with #Severance
Gizmodo
6 hours ago
- Gizmodo
You Can Get Your Hands on a ‘Severance' Terminal…for Real This Time
Does your macrodata need refining, and your desktop just isn't cutting it? Are you finding it difficult to react to the emotions elicited by the seemingly random collection of numbers on your screen with a traditional mouse and keyboard? Well, you're in luck. After Apple pump-faked everyone with a mock-up of a Lumon Terminal as seen on the Apple TV+ show Severance, a company called Atomic Keyboard is finally making the terminal a reality—assuming it meets its Kickstarter goal. Atomic appears to be a startup that has entirely dedicated itself to making the tech from Severance real. Earlier this year, it announced plans in a blog post to make the keyboard from the Lumon terminals seen on the show a reality, promising a functional keyboard that would incorporate 'modern features for today's computing needs.' Now it appears it's trying to make good on that promise, launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money needed to manufacture the final product. The promised keyboard is called the 'MDR Dasher Keyboard' in reference to the 'macrodata refinement' that is done with the terminal in Severance and the real Data General Dasher system that clearly served as inspiration for the aesthetics of the show's machines. The keyboard will come in multiple configurations: There's the 'Innie' layout that takes its cues from the terminals on the Severed Floor that strips away the Escape, Control, and Option keys, the 'Outie' layout that looks like your standard keyboard, and the 'Dasher' layout that replicates the original Data General Dasher terminal's keyboard configuration. All of the available layouts come with a trackball built right into the board (on the right side only, it appears, so sorry about that, lefties). Per the company's website, the keyboard will connect via USB-C and will be compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. So just how much will it cost to fully commit to the bit and have a Severance authentic keyboard in your home and/or office? The early adopter price starts at $599, and the company plans to retail it at $899. The keyboard is a bit more than a quirky collectible, seeing as it actually functions as advertised. And macrodata refinement is certainly a niche field, so it makes sense that the equipment would be expensive. Still, that's a pretty steep price tag for a novelty keyboard. But hey, it's your money. When Apple put the Lumon Terminal Pro up on its Apple Store page, it never actually intended to sell it. Turns out that might have been a real missed opportunity if people are shelling out hundreds of bucks for just the keyboard. Though maybe we shouldn't allow ourselves to be pulled in by the allure of the retro-futurism of Lumon Industries. Seems just a few steps removed from building the Torment Nexus.
Tom's Guide
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
'Slow Horses' just got a worrying development — but I'm confident the spy thriller will survive
"Slow Horses" season 5 will officially mark the end of an era for the Apple TV Plus spy thriller. In an interview with Deadline, showrunner Will Smith revealed he's stepping down from the show at the end of season 5. Which, since that season has now entered the post-production phase of its life cycle, means his time with the show has come to an end. 'There were certainly some private tears,' the writer told Deadline. 'Series [season] 5, it doesn't end things by any means, but it concludes certain story arcs that started in season 1, so it felt like a good moment to hand over the show.' In retrospect, we already had some hints that this news was coming. When Apple announced "Slow Horses" season 6, the press release didn't mention Smith anywhere. But given that his comments at the time indicated plenty more of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb was to come, nobody batted an eye. But when Apple also left Smith's name out of the season 7 announcement, that caught some people's attention, myself included. Still, it was brushed aside as Smith simply stepping back on the writing of that season, rather than away from the show entirely. Still, it seems Smith has the right perspective on the situation. "I do want to emphasize, it's not in any way that I thought I'm now too good for 'Slow Horses,'" he stated. "It's much more that I want to keep being good enough for 'Slow Horses.' And I would never want it to be like, 'Oh, that one wasn't quite there.' It's just that risk of just pushing it too far. And I just felt, I just want to go when I know I'm still delivering my very, very best for all the people that work on the show.' Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Look, there's no beating around the bush: Smith was not Slough House material. He was at the top of his game, unlike the sometimes bumbling rejects or washed-up spies he wrote about. He even finally took home an Emmy last year for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Apple TV Plus is the home of original shows like "Severance," "Ted Lasso" and "Slow Horses." You also get original movies, with "F1: The Movie" coming later this year. Get your first week free! So losing him could not just be the end of an era for the show — it could mark the beginning of the show's decline. However, I'm hopeful for two reasons. First, with all due respect to Smith, "Slow Horses" is an adaptation, meaning that the source material that originally developed this world and these characters remains unchanged. This isn't like when Benioff and Weiss went off script in "Game of Thrones." Second, Smith has clearly been out of the lead role for a while now, but is only just revealing the news. That leads me to believe that he and the show's production team have a plan in place and people they trust to continue the work at the same caliber once Smith is gone. If it were any other show, I'd be gravely concerned. But "Slow Horses" is such a finely tuned machine — producing three seasons at any given time — that I'm going to trust they know what they are doing until I'm proven otherwise. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button. Malcolm has been with Tom's Guide since 2022, and has been covering the latest in streaming shows and movies since 2023. He's not one to shy away from a hot take, including that "John Wick" is one of the four greatest films ever made. Here's what he's been watching lately:
Montreal Gazette
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Brownstein: Ben Stiller asked Jessica Lee Gagné to return to Severance, and now she has two Emmy nominations
Movies And TV By Jessica Lee Gagné felt most fortunate to have landed the position of cinematographer on the first season of the American psycho-thriller Severance, which began streaming on Apple TV+ 3 1/2 years ago. But when asked by series director and executive producer Ben Stiller to return for Season 2, the Montrealer initially declined, surmising she was ready to move on. However, Stiller, with whom Gagné had worked as cinematographer on the award-winning 2018 crime-drama series Escape at Dannemora, persisted. He not only wanted Gagné to perform cinematographic duties on the second season, but also for her to make her directorial debut on one of the episodes. After considerable deliberation, Gagné relented on both fronts. In retrospect, she realized that may have been one of the wisest decisions of her career. Gagné has earned Emmy Award nominations for best cinematography in the first episode and for best direction in the seventh episode of Severance's second season. Season 2, which debuted in January, has netted a leading 27 Emmy nominations in the drama category. For those yet to twig to it, Severance is a compelling, frequently disturbing series — a frightening metaphor about work/life balance. It is set at a futuristic company whose employees have gone through 'severance' surgery, wherein they have no memory of their outside lives while at work and vice versa. And let's just say it's more dystopian than utopian. 'It's actually quite bright in the show's 'innie' world, but it's quite a dark subject matter,' says Gagné, 37, accurately describing the show from a cinematographic and thematic point of view in an interview at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The terms 'innie' and 'outie' — which heretofore had belly-button connotations for most — take on brand new meaning here. The episode — titled Chikhai Bardo — that Gagné directed in the second season has been hailed as 'a television masterpiece' by Esquire entertainment editor Brady Langmann. A surprisingly tender moment in the series, it is a flashback, focusing on the outside love affair of lead character Mark (Adam Scott), who had been told his wife perished in a car crash before he had severed but later learns something particularly sinister has actually transpired. So why the hesitation to return for Season 2? 'As a cinematographer, what I love is world-building, creating a new language,' Gagné explains. 'But since I hadn't read the Season 2 episodes prior, I didn't know there would be that much growth in the shows. So I felt it was time to do something different. 'Then they proposed I also direct. At first I said no, but then I read the Episode 7 synopsis and immediately connected with it. I felt I was the person supposed to tell this story. It's a story I felt a woman should tell.' Regardless, it's not the easiest move to go from cinematographer to director. 'I've been a cinematographer for 15 years, having worked alongside directors and helping find a language with them. For me, the language of Severance was already quite distinct and I felt I had it in the bag. So, it was easier coming in as a director. You don't know it's not going to work out until you do it.' Now she knows it did work out. And with word that Severance will return for a third season, rest assured Gagné will be back in a dual role once again. She concedes she's really caught the directing bug. And like several Québécois directing luminaries before her — including Denis Villeneuve and Jean-Marc Vallée — Gagné can well expect lucrative offers to helm TV and film projects to come from Hollywood. 'What I realize now is I had this unconscious desire to direct that I hadn't been listening to. It had been bubbling up within and I have to give it a shot now. With the nomination, it's such a push for me to believe in myself for once,' notes Gagné, who was born in Quebec City to a franco mother and an anglo father but moved to Montreal two decades back to pursue film studies. After graduating from Concordia's esteemed film production program, Gagné spent the following 15 years as a cinematographer, working on a wide range of projects, local and international. Among her nearly two dozen credits are Québécois film collaborations with her friend Chloé Robichaud on Sarah préfère la course and Pays and with Denis Côté on Boris sans Béatrice, plus with Canadian director Jamie Dagg on Sweet Virginia. In addition to Escape at Dannemora — 'the work I'm most proud of' — she did the cinematography for another critically acclaimed small-screen series, Mrs. America. 'I had been very involved in the Montreal production scene, and then at one point I headed off to France and India, where I did some work. Later I came back to do Sweet Virginia, and before it was even out, Ben (Stiller) saw it, because he was looking at it for casting reasons for Escape at Dannemora. He ended up (taken by) the cinematography and there was not much time, to be honest, before he was about to shoot. So he reached out to see if I'd be interested — after I had just moved to Paris. So we met and clicked automatically. And I moved back again. 'Ben took a big leap with me. I was from the dark world of filmmaking and he was definitely from a whole other world. But our different backgrounds have meshed together well.' But the question that begs to be asked: Has Gagné gone through the severance process herself, though more symbolically than surgically? Is she able to cut herself off from her outie world when working? 'One hundred per cent, after I became a director and found that innie part of myself, the part that was free, allowing me to believe in myself and not be affected by my outside reality. I still love my outie, but I'm choosing to be with my innie and listening to it. It's keeping me motivated right now.'
Belfast Telegraph
20 hours ago
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
The roaring 50s: Why a resilient mindset matters in midlife
Navigating career challenges and personal pressures becomes easier when you learn to reframe stress, embrace change and tell your story, writes Sarah Bird If you've ever felt you were a completely different person at work than you are at home, you might relate to Apple TV's Severance series. It's a dystopian thriller where employees undergo a brain-altering procedure to sever their work memories from their personal lives, resulting in some dramatic behaviours as the story unfolds (no spoilers here). It raises uncomfortable questions about who we are and how we cope with work-life balance. Severed employees only know what happens at work (the experiences of their 'innies') and although they chose to mask their 'true' natures and desires outside of work (their 'outies'), the powerful influence of an alternative life is so compelling that they begin to question their dual selves — and who is really gaining from their split personalities.
CTV News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Quebec Emmy-nominated cinematographer on how she created the ‘Severance' world
Quebecer Jessica Lee Gagné was nominated for two Emmy awards for her work on the hit TV show Severance. Jessica Lee Gagné put much of herself into her directorial debut in season two of the critically acclaimed television series Severance – even filming the episode in her own home. The cinematographer earned two of the show's 27 Emmy nominations – for outstanding directing and outstanding cinematography in a drama series – in June. Though Gagné submitted her work in the past, she was finally recognized for projects she felt especially passionate about. 'What I find really beautiful is that I gave myself a chance and there's something that came back from it,' she said. 'The fact that I followed my heart and did something that I really felt connected to means a lot more. It just makes me want to do it again!' Severance Dichan Lachman as Gemma Scout in Severance. (Courtesy Apple TV+) Severance follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his work at Lumon Industries, where employees have undergone a procedure that surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. Scout soon finds himself at the centre of an unravelling mystery, raising questions about 'work-life balance,' the true purpose of Lumon Industries and the human mind itself. Inside the 'innie world' Gagné's cinematography earned her nominations for the Canadian Screen Award in 2015 and the Filmfare Awards in 2018. She is the first woman to be nominated for both outstanding directing and outstanding cinematography for a television drama series. Severance received the most nominations of any show this year, almost double the 14 nominations it got for its first season in 2022. The show gained traction for its bizarre explorations of memory and the subconscious, highlighted especially through the show's unique visual language developed by Gagné. READ MORE: Jessica Lee Gagné is the Quebec visionary behind the hit series Severance Gagné, originally from Quebec City, has been praised by viewers and colleagues for her technical prowess and creativity behind the camera. She previously said she first hesitated to jump on a project filming primarily in an office, a classically bland and sterile space. Thanks to Gagné's use of sets, lighting and colour, the Lumon offices grew into a stunning and Kafkaesque world of its own, complete with a goat pasture and a 200-piece marching band. When the second season aired last winter, viewers were blown away by its opening sequence, where Scott runs through seemingly endless white hallways. Gagné told CTV News she submitted the 'Hello, Ms. Cobel' episode for Emmy consideration, which earned her the cinematography nomination, in part because of the work that went into designing the hallway sequence. 'It really showed off the iconic language of the show, and that's probably the thing I'm most proud of,' she said. To create the dizzying maze and iconic 'oner,' Gagné needed the support of an entire team. 'We had to go back to the drawing board a lot,' she said. 'With the cameras travelling down a four-foot-wide hallway, there's a limit to what you can do with the laws of physics.' Even after meetings to tackle each part of the shot's design – cameras, gripping, lighting and visual effects – bringing it to life was another challenge. It included robotic arms that can move quickly and sliding cameras. 'You can have a shot in your mind but then making it real is the next level,' she said. 'We love those kind of robotic-style movements in the innie world, it's something we implemented in season one where the camera has a non-human approach to it. So this leaned into that idea even more.' Directorial debut earns Emmy nomination Gagné had wanted to direct since her days in film school at Montreal's Concordia University, and said 'Chikhai Bardo,' the season's seventh episode, called to her. She felt it was important for Gemma Scout's story to be told from a woman's perspective. The episode explores Gemma (played by Dichen Lachman)'s relationship with her husband Mark before the two undergo the severance procedure and her captivity at Lumon. 'I have favourite shots. I do love the shot where she goes into the miscarriage. It's a hard shot, but I feel there's something really beautiful there,' said Gagné. The episode was a turning point in the series and tore open the until-then limited scope of the Severance world. To make the distinction clear, Gagné decided to shoot on film for the first time in the series to invoke nostalgia and cue the audience in on the fact that they are watching memories replayed. 'There's a lot of things that make it stand out as an episode,' said Gagné. 'We're finally going in depth about what happened in the past, so many people wanted to know what happened there … When we see film, we just have that visceral reaction of it being something from the past, so it made that seamless.' Severance Adam Scott and Dichen Lachman as Mark and Gemma Scout in Severance's 'Chikhai Bard.' (Courtesy Apple TV+) Blending work and life Gagné describes the Severance aesthetic as being hyperreal, using strong contrast and lighting to heighten the characters and setting. She points to movies like Klute and The Ipcress File as films that influenced the Lumon world through their use of wide angles, long walking shots, and strange frames. She is also heavily inspired by photography. The second season's eighth episode brought Gagné back to Canada when they filmed in Newfoundland, and she said she was happy to have the opportunity to work with long-time collaborators and her 'local family.' 'That was pretty magical, to be honest,' she said. Severance Severance's 'Sweet Vitriol' episode was shot in Newfoundland. (Courtesy: Apple TV+) She keeps a piece of Montreal with her while working, from problem-solving on set to the brutalist architecture featured in Lumon Industries. 'I love how we make movies here,' said Gagné. 'I do miss working here.' While working on Severance, she rented an old house near the New York Hudson Valley, where most of the show is shot, which was 'kind of falling apart,' but she loved it. She had no idea it would eventually become Mark and Gemma's house. While brainstorming with the production designer for Chikhai Bardo, she was picturing bookshelves and paint chipping off the walls, he stopped her mid-thought and said, 'you realize we're going to shoot in your house.' Despite the challenge of adapting her living space to a television set, she said it made the work possible to have such easy access while being busy with other aspects of the series. 'I just knew that house so well. I knew how the light moved within it, I knew where to be and when inside the house and I could think of shots at home … it was kind of a gift of it coming to me,' she said. Gagné said she considers herself lucky to have had access to many resources and a high-calibre team for her first time in the director's chair. 'I am really proud of it,' she said. And she plans on taking it up again, this time on a feature-length erotic thriller she's currently writing.
