A Big Story with a Very Intimate Visual Language: A Conversation with ‘Silo’ Director and EP Morten Tyldum

Silo is the story of the last ten thousand people on earth, their mile-deep home protecting them from the toxic and deadly world outside. However, no one knows when or why the silo was built and any who try to find out face fatal consequences. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer, who seeks answers about a loved one's murder and tumbles onto a mystery that goes far deeper than she could have ever imagined, leading her to discover that if the lies don't kill you, the truth will.

Last year, we got an insider look with Graham Yost, Apple TV+ Silo creator, writer and showrunner about the joy of worldbuilding and breaking this particular story with his writers’ room and key creatives. And this go round, we’re going on a deeper dive, into all of the small details that make this show so big with director and EP Morten Tyldum.

Morten Tyldum recently spoke with Script about the importance of the show's visual language, the number of details that went into creating the silo as both a character and set, the importance of camera movement and lens choices to sound, and so much more. Plus, he shares invaluable advice for directors wanting a better grasp and understanding of their roles and how to stand out above the rest.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: I’d love to hear about your origin story into this project, how did it come to you and jumping on board as a director with a very specific vision?

Morten Tyldum: I had just finished Defending Jacob for Apple…they gave me a call and said, ‘We have this new show. And we need a filmmaker that can do worldbuilding.’ It’s a big world-building show. And I read the script, which I think was grandiose work, a phenomenal script - one of the best pilot scripts I’ve read – it was really strong. I was so intrigued immediately.

And it was so fun to come in so early. I found my production designer Gavin Bocquet, and we spent almost 10 months just figuring out and designing; looking at architecture and everything from Brutalism to how the old city of Barcelona developed and was built. It was so fun to create this society that at the same time is futuristic, and at the same time, they’re looking back. So, we could look back at the Great Depression - all of these elements and create a sci-fi show that looks old.

And trying to figure out what kind of resources do we have. What was the idea behind it? It's no secret now, but there are a lot of silos. And they are so ginormous and deep. And the second idea was, let's make everything rounded. So, we said, OK, make those with no straight corners, everything is rounded. So you're coming up with visuals, idea, which is all based out of how do we think what will make the most sense. And then we wanted it to be old - we wanted it to be really lived…And that's the main core - this is a society that has lost their history. What do you do with that? How do you grapple with that? How do you take a world that has no knowledge of where they're coming from? What happened to them?

Sadie: And it’s handled so well. It does feel so lived in. The camera movement and how it lives in this world, the collaboration with your DP, and especially with the lighting, it feels like it is practical lighting – not very force, no bright lights – it’s subtle and warm.

Morten: And very soft. No hard lighting. You have to create a sort of language. Camera wise, we made it a little bit technical; we had no long lenses, we only shot on short lenses. If you got to do a close-up, let's not put a long lens, move the camera closer, because we wanted to have the backgrounds sharp, because the silo is such a big character. So, we want the silos to always to be seen. We don't want to have these long lenses and blurry backgrounds.

And we tried to make all these wide shots where you're not following a character you're following the silo, the characters happen to move in and out of the shots, they're just living in the silo. And if you see in the opening montage, it actually had that idea - the characters are just blurry ghosts, because they pass and go.

Lighting wise, how do you show the passing of time in a world that has no sunlight? There's no sun. And that was actually a challenge because we're so used to if there’s no lights coming from the window, we immediately think it's dark, it’s night. So, we had to create this fake sun in a way so we can make it so you can have the feeling of light outside, because otherwise, every scene felt like evening. Because you're just automatically, as an audience, your brain is just programmed that way. So, there was all this challenge of how to how to emulate daylight, the feeling of day when there is no sun. We talked about the color temperatures and how to create evening, night, morning when there is no sun. Making them all feel the same.

It's great fun. It's just a level of detail you have to think about through this is like textures on clothing. Like, there are no zippers. I didn't want to see that because it's hard to make, they wouldn't make zippers - that's too complicated. They would make buttons. There was a level of detail on everything.

Sadie: When I spoke with Graham months ago, he mentioned that you came up with the idea that there are no whites in the clothing because the dyeing process would be so difficult. Only those who went to clean wore white, but everything else is all very natural colors and tones.

Morten: It's so rare, because there's something holy, I mean, I think we gravitate towards rituals and as humans try to find meaning in something. So that's why we make something as a ritual because that means that it has a purpose, a higher meaning for somebody. Cleaning becomes so important for them. So that's why they are the ones who wear white, there's something holy for them, at some level.

Having to think about all of these things is very interesting. The cell in the prison, the entrance is like a mixture of being a cellblock from a police station and sort of like a sacred almost like a church with giant symbols. Their Bible is the pact, right? It’s the only thing that exists is this one book. And it actually makes you think about how all the things we take for granted, like our symbols, our rituals, are things that are important to us.

Sadie: Yeah, it's all those little details. Helming the first three episodes and setting that visual language for the show, was there like a thematic anchor for you as a director that you wanted to make sure that was carried from that first episode until the next director took it on and took it to the very end?

Morten: Besides the visual language of all these, including the silo as a complete character, sound-wise and in music and everything, a good friend of mine who is the composer, which I brought on board for this recorded a lot of sounds and instruments in a concrete silo, and we use those sounds all the time underneath it. You want it to feel alive.

But also, we wanted it to feel, because this was a world – this was something that Apple said to me, ‘Please don't make it dark. And please don't make it too claustrophobic.’ [laughs] I wanted to feel like a world, we wanted it to feel epic and big, cinematic, and at the same time, very personal especially for Rebecca's character Juliette and her journey. 

We wanted to have a wide brush, like when you’re painting and so it doesn't feel big or small. But it has this scope. Especially the first three episodes starts from the top, which reminds me a lot about our world in a way. And we go down to this void, which is stripped off and you have no idea what it is, and everything is dark. It's a mystery show. That's the thing, I think it's never letting it become too small. But we're thinking about this as a big story that should be very intimate.

Sadie: Finding the rhythm of the show through the edit, but especially in that first episode, back to the camera movements, but there’s this moment with Rashida Jones’ character Allison – there’s this palpable excitement and then when she has that big revealing moment, there’s that sudden change to what the camera is doing, and that rhythm – it’s subtle, but very well done, I think

Morten: Oh, thank you. That's the first handheld scene when he comes in and she sits there. We do a lot of a lot of steady cam, a lot of crane shots. And because I wanted to move again, I wanted to feel like this is a very vibrant life. Because these people don't know anything else that is full of life, the camera moves all the time. And there's almost like a dance with the cameras and the people through all of that. And then suddenly, things get out of balance. And when she's there, and the camera is handheld, everything's a little bit uncomfortable. And it's a little bit off-frame and a little bit more disturbing.

The storytelling should follow the characters as they are, also in many ways, they are being antagonized. The silo becomes more and more of a prison for the characters, and they’re trying to get out of that, it’s controlling them, and that should also be reflected in the camera work.

So, it was great fun mapping out the visual language. Of course, this is the challenge with a 10-episode show is that you cannot do this much in detail for every episode. [laughs] But you can try to find the key moments and say, ‘This is what it’s going to be like,’ so that can be reflected visually. And I think it's crucially important that challenge you have as a director, who starts the show and creates a language is that you have to be very precise of that. So, the directors who will take over, they take the baton and continue your work.

Sadie: Did you shoot the episodes in order or was it non-linear?

Morten: We tried to – you have to remember, there's 75 sets.

Sadie: Wow.

Morten: Yeah, it's wow. [laughs] And some of them are huge, much bigger than what they actually look like. You can get lost on the sets. And some of the sets had to be taken down and set up, so you could shoot the first part of the scene and then around the corner, the second part of it could be shot two months later or three months later. Because it was part of a different set that has to go up, and that was a big challenge. It’s not like you are on location or if you are on a different set where you can just follow people around - nothing there's not built, we didn't have anything, there's nothing that exists in our world. And so, everything 100% is being built.

There is one day outside that was the first day of shooting and the first day of shooting I shot David [Oyelowo] going out, then Rashida [Jones] going out, and then Rebecca [Ferguson] going out. [laughs] That was the one day outside. And the rest we were inside during the pandemic, everybody with masks on - we were all living in the silos. No daylight, no nothing.

Sadie: It became very meta, I'm sure.

Morten: Oh, very meta. [laughs] We were definitely feeling the silo, all of us.

Sadie: Any advice for directors who want to break into TV?

Morten: A lot of directors feel because it's safe, that it's how to shoot things, what kind of camera, how to do shots. And the more you do this, you find out that's the easiest part. Being good at working with actors, and really understanding actors – one of the great things about film school is it forced us to act. I had to do Waiting for Godot, which I was horrible in, I really suck as an actor, like tremendously. [laughs] But it's really nice to be out of your comfort zone and have to do it. But it was a great experience. Just learning how to deal with actors, and try to understand their language, working with writers, working with stories, and discussing stories that dictate the story.

I heard a producer once say he calls directors shooters. Shooters are people who just comes in, they just shoot stuff, and then they’re out of there. And I think if you want to become a real filmmaker, the other elements are almost like more important. Yes, it's important where you put the camera, how you shoot it, the ideas behind it. But that's almost the last part of storytelling. It's actors, working with the writers, designing things, the ideas behind it – it’s so much more important. And I think that people really respond to that.

So, if you're coming in as a director who wants to stand above other directors, have that language or that knowledge, that interest - that's what you can bring to the table. I think that's really being highly appreciated. I think that's something that they'll look for. Because there's so many who can talk about cool shots. And I have this idea about these cool crane shots. And I want to do this and like, yeah, good for you. But that's the easy part. 

Silo is now streaming on Apple TV+.