Have you seen Severance? Chances are good that you have; the TV series has become wildly popular in its second season, to the point where the fandom’s dedication is difficult to distinguish from the in-universe cult of [Kier]. Part of the show’s appeal comes from its overall aesthetic, which is captured in this description of the building of one of the show’s props.
A detailed recap of the show is impossible, but for the uninitiated, a mega-corporation called Lumon has developed a chip that certain workers have implanted in their brains to sever their personalities and memories into work and non-work halves. The working “Innies” have no memory of what their “Outies” do when they aren’t at work, which sounds a lot better than it actually ends up being. It’s as weird as it sounds, and then some.
The prop featured here is the “WoeMeter” from episode seven of season two, used to quantify the amount of woe in a severed worker — told you it was weird. The prop was built by design house [make3] on a short timeline and after seeing only some sketches and rough renders from the production designers, and had to echo the not-quite-midcentury modern look of the whole series. The builders took inspiration from, among other things, a classic Nagra tape recorder, going so far as to harvest its knobs and switches to use in the build. The controls are all functional and laid out in a sensible way, allowing the actors to use the device in a convincing way. For visual feedback, the prop has two servo-operated meters and a string of seven-segment LED displays, all controlled by an ESP-32 mounted to a custom PCB. Adding the Lumon logo to the silkscreen was a nice touch.
The prop maker’s art is fascinating, and the ability to let your imagination run wild while making something that looks good and works for the production has got to be a blast. [make3] really nailed it with this one.
Thanks to [Aaron’s Outie] for the tip.
Beautiful prop! And great example what can be done with just a few parts!!
Just a tech one – the needles are steered by stepper motors, not servos. Looks like small car dash gauge steppers … aaand based on the pictures, they indeed are: x27 168 https://www.adafruit.com/product/2424 driven by TB6612 stepper drivers (quite massive for the job, such needle gauges could be perhaps driven directly by ESP32 as they eat just about ~15mA max? But this is on the really safe side.)
The aesthetics are among the most compelling aspect of this show IMO. Story wise, feels like they’ve already told it in season 1… but I’m still watching it for the visual stimulation.
That being said, this prop is a great example why this show looks so compelling (albeit sterile and unpleasant).
They do the whole anachronism thing which is understandable (everything looks like cheap low-bid dog vomit in the future/present)
It’s clear that it is based on a real device by a very popular cult that will immediately sue if you call them that. They had a very charismatic dude as leader, obsessed with sailing, writing great sci-fi about nukes, DC-10s and aliens. For my safety I have forgotten his name. His haters say he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic who hated psychiatry.
I believe it was DC-3.
and if i was correct it call the Church of Happyology or was it the Epsilon Program?
Kifflom!
Kifflom, brother brother and kifflom, sister sister! Thanks for the correction.
We worship Kraff where the Earth reaches out to the 9th paradigm.”
Only the sci-fi novel turned into a terrible vanity movie by one of his very famous celebrity cult members was good. His string of instantly forgettable pulp novels were awful and amateurish.
I read somewhere in the distant past that someone did some analysis on the book and figured it was written by three different people just due to stylistic differences. I still have a copy somewhere, and it’s a fun romp of escapist “humans will survive and conquer against all odds!” tropes.
I’d love to see Christopher Rowley’s “The Starhammer” turned into a movie!
It’s pretty fun(ny) to watch though if you understand what it is
is is something with pseudoscience and an -ology, but there I will stop, although if i ever have to test fire a bazooka, i think i know a perfect test target…
My thought exactly, the moment I saw the photo. The Woe-meter!
Lack of a tinted window over the LED display always ruins it for me, but I’ll be generous and allow that there might be a cinematographic reason to leave it off ;)
I guess it’s because green LEDs look bright enough to humans even at very low intensities, but not so bright to cameras unless it’s exactly the right color to match the camera’s green filter (indicator LEDs are rather monochromatic), so they left the tinted window out to be visible.
Looks like a scientologist’s e-meter, which is also used to manipulate cult members.
scientology
While I’m in my armchair, here’s another criticism of this cool prop:
The “wiggling” of the needle, as shown in the sample footage, could have been done better. Either an actual coil spring between the shaft of the stepper and the needle, or a spring simulation in software, would have given it a better d’Arsonval meter feel.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law
As a props builder for film and TV, Severance is a really well designed show, and it’s inspiring/ frustrating to read the article about how they built it. There are SOME prop shops/ builders which get the time and money to massage these amazing pieces into life, but 99.9% of the time being a prop builder is basically having some stressed out Propmaster/ Production Designer spend five minutes telling you they don’t know what they want and then having to spend however long it takes kitbashing something into existence from existing parts because they need if yesterday and they don’t have any money, yet apparently everything you do needs a small change making after you have done it. Sometimes you do your best work when you have the time and budget and artistic vision, most of the time you do your best work when you have to pull something out of nothing.
that sounds like a lot of jobs TBH
The switches and knobs from the Nagra are fantastic – are they available from any other source or do I have to start a niche business?
Definitely start a niche business. I thought about starting a niche business in wood knobs. Still thinking about it.
a) this is my dream job.
b) titanium end caps and then they painted them?
I’d would have go for the aluminium version with wooden pads instead of plastic to close the enclosure ( like chesnut wood).
But it’s down to personnel preferences as I haven’t watched the show !
Nice propose !