McKittrick:We went through a lot of teacups.
Smith:On the day, Catherine went on a search
and I think she pulled it out of a cabinet in the
house. It was poetic, in a way.
McKittrick:It came down to how the cup
sounded. That was going to be the iconic thing,
and we knew it.
Gregory Plotkin (editor):When I saw the dailies
I immediately called the sound mixer and said, “I
need you to go in and shoot audio of the teacup.”
He had to go in on a Saturday, but I said, “You
gotta shoot it in the room.” Regardless of
whether you saw the cup or not, I thought it was
really important for the audience to hear it, to
know that she was the puppet master, pulling his
strings, slowly pulling him into the web.
McKittrick:It had to sound scary, but also
numbing. It’s a sinister, repetitious, scrapy stir.
Oliver:When we were shooting that scene, to
build up the tension, we started with eyelines
a bit wider. By the end, the eyeline is almost
directly down the barrel of the camera. I don’t
know if that was part of the plan in Jordan’s
mind. But luckily we did because it became
that iconic shot where he’s got the tears and
he’s staring straight at the camera before he
drops down into the Sunken Place.
Plotkin:They only did two takes of it. Daniel
nailed it on both takes.
Smith:We shot the Sunken Place itself on the
last day of photography. It might even have been
the final thing we did.
Peele:The shots had to be pulled off perfectly for
it not to end up feeling like some kind of corny
greenscreen thing. It was nerve-wracking and
I knew there were a lot of ways to get it wrong.
So we were very meticulous.
Oliver:I mentioned to Jordan something we
could use: the dry-for-wet technique. You shoot
underwater scenes on a dry stage, because
it’s so much cheaper and easier. It involves
suspending on a wire, and shooting at a higher
frame-rate to create a sense of floating. Daniel’s
clothes were chosen partly for the Sunken Place.
His sweatshirt would flop around in the wind
we create to sell the idea.
Peele:Daniel was very in tune with what we
needed to get. It was tough for him. We had him
essentially hanging from wires all day long,
which ends up being very physically demanding.
Plotkin:We started with these simple visual
effects in the Avid, where I would shrink Daniel’s
image in the frame and make him smaller and
smaller and smaller against this huge, dark
backdrop. As soon as we did that, we found the
key to the scene. He needed to feel small and cut
off in this vast place.
McKittrick:Even as we moved into post, Jordan
was specific about how many granules float
through the air. I remember sitting in a VFX
session with him going, “I want to get rid ofthat
granule andthatgranule.” There are literally
hundreds of granules! But I understand it.
It’s the single most important, iconic visual
representation of the film.•••
Plotkin:People want to talk about the Sunken
Place all the time. I’m very proud of it.
Peele:[The sequence’s cultural impact] was
very validating as an artist. It hit me like a ton
of bricks when it hit me. As an artist, when you
have an emotional and intellectual reaction to
something, to an idea — if you translate it right,
the audience will too.
Smith:The reaction was visceral in the theatre.I saw it in Sarasota, Florida, and I’ll never forget
the clusters of people talking and arguing that
I saw as I came out. I thought, “Oh my God.”
Oliver:The first time I saw it with an audience
was at this special secret screening at Sundance.
I had seen the movie before, at the lab. But was
the first time with a packed house, and people
were yelling and screaming. There was a massive
response, a real buzz. It was a rare, exciting thrill.
McKittrick:You could feel it in the room. People
were just shocked. They’d never seen a movie like
this. What’s funny is that people want to
understand it. “What does it mean? How does
that reflect on my life?” That’s the best part, that
it starts a conversation about where we are today.
Peele:There are many different social
phenomenons that the Sunken Place represents,
but in the moment I was thinking about people
who had been locked away for having some weed.
And I was a weed monster! There’s a cultural
epidemic of black men being taken and locked
away in dark places, where we don’t have to
acknowledge or think about them. Realising
that was the first time I realised the potential
importance of this piece of expression.
Oliver:So many people have a connection to the
movie — all the memes and everything else, it’s
really quite astonishing. With all the restrictions
that come with being a pretty low-budget movie,
you have to distill what’s really important. You
don’t have money for fluff.
Peele:You want to be able to listen to what your
mind, body and soul are telling you enough to
have a catharsis that you can then translate into
screen. I left realising that, if I’m writing
something and I don’t get to a place as
transformative as I did when writing the Sunken
Place, then I’d better figure out how to.