Season 2 of HBO Max’s dark comedy series The Flight Attendant debuted in April. This season spans eight episodes in which Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) is living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. An overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, leaving her entangled in another case of international intrigue. The season filmed in Los Angeles, Berlin and Reykjavik.
“The editing in The Flight Attendant is very stylized, with the use of visual devices like split screens and multiple image tiling,” explains editor Anthony Miller. “It was challenging and fun to creatively come up with fresh and unique ways of using these devices to tell the story, while also finding the right balance between comedy and drama.”
“Season 2 of The Flight Attendant was an exciting rollercoaster of challenges for the VFX department,” adds VFX producer Elizabeth Rojas (pictured, left), “from invisible CGI, like replacing an earring that fell off mid-scene, to deciding exactly what a 10-foot-tall drowned teddy bear moonlighting as a bartender might do. We got to work on beautiful things, like the Aurora Borealis, and tragic things, like crumbling structures and shocking murders, and always had a roomful of Cassies and CGI airplanes at the ready at any given moment. From a carousel horse giving us a side eye, to roiling CG waves, 10 out of 10, I’d recommend this ride.”
Jennifer Phang directed Episodes 3 and 4 for Season 2, with shoots taking place in Iceland and Los Angeles. On top of handling the logistics of filming internationally, she also helped support the cast and crew, particularly the VFX team, in telling the complex story in the most visually-interesting way.
One aspect that Phang focused on was The Mind Palace of Cassie, where she goes into her own mind and talks to other versions of herself. The director made sure to support actress Kaley Cuoco in performing so many different versions of the same character, as well as focusing on the technical elements, such as making sure the transitions in and out of Cassie’s mind were seamless.
CLICK HERE to learn about Jennifer Phang’s experience directing Episodes 3 and 4.
Pete Chatmon directed Episode 5 for this season and faced a number of production challenges too, including a synchronized swimming sequence, and The Mind Palace sequences, which have become a signature storytelling vehicle for the show.
HERE, he details how he employed a mixture of in-camera solutions and VFX to achieve the ultimate results.