Margo’s Got Money Trouble: The 30-Minute Vegas Ride They Had To Nail | Collider BTS

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]The schedule was really tight. Yeah, you want 6 hours, we've got three. And everyone's so excited like roll now. I go not yet. It's not ready yet. Like wait till we get above. I thought it just captured her heartbreak. That that definitely is my favorite.

[00:00:19]Okay, so Vegas in a nutshell was the most intense crazy three days of shooting and we saved it to the end. So episode 5 was shot like maybe a month earlier and then we had three days of Vegas to put into that show and it was just the tightest craziest schedule and the actors were up for it. Michelle who, you know, we normally don't keep up late at night. We're like in the middle of the Fremont Street, you know, the only time we have some control over it is 3:00 in the morning. So that's where you're going to be, you know, and she was up for it. There were all these little bits that were slightly they were unscripted and there were these moments for that montage where we really wanted to find some of things where you could just [music] be with the character and Al who's the liaison in Vegas, he's like, you know, we got this high roller and it's this amazing thing you can control the lights, you can pick the color that you want and there voila, the director was just like we have to do something there. And we all went there one day as a group and we're in this thing and we're just like, well, we have to shoot her here. I mean, it's so perfect because we have this motif spaceship which what Richard Brunton, our production designer, modeled after a steakhouse restaurant and so that gave us the idea for the spaceship which, you know, happens at, you know, what they're building and then >> [music] >> is part of our opening credits and then we have this orb of the high roller which we're like this is perfect. So let's let's do this. The tricky thing is you're up for 30 minutes.

[00:01:54]>> [music] >> You you how much time do we have in a day? I mean, we had so much to do. We had maybe an hour to get this shot and it took some precision planning where we had the grips and everything go in earlier in the day and once you go up, you're stuck up there cuz the ride's still going. They don't really stop it for you. They stop it for like maybe a minute to load in and then you're off.

[00:02:15]So, we got the actress like, we got to do it now. Everyone loads into the first one with the village and the director and then it goes up and then L goes in and I have like two people hiding in the follow like in the one with her talking and we have these lights and we start going up and everyone's so excited like, roll now. I go, not yet. It's not ready yet. Like, wait till we get above and everyone's just like, now, now's the chance and then finally we get to [music] it and it just was like, let's just start shooting. We shot so many beautiful things. We I wish the sequence was longer because um there was just so many beautiful moments and at the same exact time I have a crew I'm on walkie and I'm getting pictures of my second unit DP shooting Dinks down the street carrying the baby out of the bottom dollar and I'm like, yeah, just like that and I'll put him more into the light in the street. Like, we're doing it all at the same time just to get it done. I knew that the >> [music] >> the style of that moment was very intimate handheld moment. I mean, our our show does does it all. Like, we have a huge range of moments from where handheld steady cam studio stylized and so this was just going to be a very personal moment for her. So, I I had a small camera package in there. I think maybe I told them to take a couple other lenses, but I I knew what lens it was going to be on and the focus pullers in there and and a dolly uh grip just to help on our steady cam person and then we had a PA. And that was it in L's booth. [music] In the one above with everyone, I had a DIT village. I had my gaffer with a a lighting console dimming up our lights and everything. I mean, we hit that to the max and then [music] we chose a color uh that I thought was pretty much like this kind of >> [music] >> pinkish purplish, you know, very Margo bubblegum color. When we were waiting to go, our orb is all the way up top and we're waiting for it to come down to, you know, to to get to the spot where we can load in.

[00:04:09]>> [music] >> And we just lined it with some LED lights and stuff that was a quick attachment and then we went. Her character is excited about this world and she wants to have fun with it. And she's with these two that are just going all out. And so, a lot of it was I want to say kids today, you know, you have access to all of these lights from like Amazon, these sheetings, colors and stuff and you're playing with all this makeup and really it was just like a gaggle of stuff that I thought would would make sense that you would use. Like people are pretty savvy with [music] colors and lighting.

[00:04:45]And so, it was just creating a world of fun. So, I was like, let's do a bubble machine, we have a black light. The paint was an idea for makeup, they wanted to do this glow paint and I was like, perfect, we'll put the backlight in. Obviously, the motion of it is is us watching it and feeling it with her, but being able to introduce the camera and you can kind of see from the camera perspective and them just having fun.

[00:05:09]Um, [music] that was so important and then taking that uh part of the equation out and just being on the ride with the music. I mean, the whole show, it brings the music into the viewership and it's kind of a fun ride. So, you really wanted to feel her excitement for it. We [snorts] actually got very successful by capturing it live with the phone. And so, so we only had to shoot it once. Or if we were in the way, we would just step aside and continue doing it for the actual only fans coverage. It was really important to whether we used the iPhone or the little still camera just to be as authentic as possible to what you would use and what you had. Um, I think in the beginning in prep too, they came out with all these like lights and cameras and stuff and I'm like, "No, no, no, very basic. Let's just use what they have." And that's also what Susie's character does. She uses what she has and we didn't [music] go beyond that.

[00:06:03]That was another big sequence. I remember thinking, well, you know, we all went to an actual wrestling match.

[00:06:10]The world of wrestling is so intense and people and the lighting and everything goes so large and so we needed to bring that to our empty convention center that we found with all of these skylights and everything and we're shooting it over a day and a half and so there was a lot to that went into lighting to just control it and to build these caps over the skylights and the lighting in the ring to work and be able to shoot fast. We didn't have that much time with Nicole, I remember and it was so it was such a stressful two days.

[00:06:44]Where I think there's behind-the-scenes pictures of me just going like, "Mhm, this is going to work." You know, one of the things that went into shooting in the ring was to make the camera very lightweight and spun. I believe we tethered it as well because the floor is so bouncy and I wanted it to be handheld and free to go and I have the operators watch the stunt rehearsal videos that we had so we kind of knew what the motion was. We didn't get much rehearsal time at all with the actors. It was literally when they're in there we're going. So that was for the stunt stuff and it was pretty great. Like Nicole and and Nick were just doing more than we thought they would and and going back and forth and everything. So that was just great.

[00:07:25]We only had to do it a couple times and we got it. I mean, they were just such pros. And then there's I don't know what they call it but when they're just playing to the crowd, you know, the wrestlers do that kind of performing and stuff and Nick just went off. I didn't know what he was going to do and he's ripping his shirt and doing the dental floss thing and you know, we just had three cameras. I always had one hidden within the crowd so you could feel from the crowd point of view one with him and one by the ring so you feel it. And we kind of staged it in a way that when you watch wrestling, there's a lot of the just the the ring is the barrier and you're watching it from that kind of perspective. The one where you're with him is the one that was the A camera inside and then from the crowd POV. So and when he was just that it was just go go go go go. And when it was over, it was just like, "Oh my god, I need a drink. I can't believe we we got that."

[00:08:15]Yeah, it's really interesting because when I'm you know, when I'm in it and and we're fighting the things with the camera and just you know, and I'm talking about it, it's just so instinctual in the moment and you kind of just know what that is. When describing it, you you know, you realize how much how much thought was actually put into that idea which was really that kind of awe. I mean, that moment of her seeing her father for the first time in person. I mean, they've had a broken relationship. It it wanted to feel like, "Oh, he he is his hero to me." And so yeah, that's why that approach was like that. And then it's so sad when he's down on the ground and it's a long lens and at the same height and she's small to the right. I mean, that was all very intentional. Yeah. That was another huge sequence. We shot it over 2 days. It was steady cam, handheld in studio. There's so many things that happened very quickly in that sequence and so there were different ways to capture that. And the first thing we did, the very first days, we revolved everything around the judge.

[00:09:18]The judge was a whirlwind. And so we spent the first day going wherever the judge went. And he took us from side to side and so that felt like the ping pong match. Right?

[00:09:28]And so then the second day, we just stayed with our characters and we were handheld in those moments cuz we were more right there with them and we could put that into that ping pong match, but everything revolved around the judge and where the judge went. He kind of took us where the audience was going to pay attention from what side to what side that he decided to go to. Like he was the driving force of all of that. All of our music we had chosen ahead of time and so we knew what we had. So there are a lot of scenes that have music going over it that we actually played um on set and so we were all in the vibe and it kind of helped the camera language and it helped the the tempo of everything as we went. We're always listening to We were always getting to the vibe and so it definitely feels in a way like a music video at times because we were all on the same beat. You know, we went to these amazing locations and there was just meticulous planning that went into lighting it and preparing these places to shoot these actors. So working really closely with the AD who's like, "Yeah, you want 6 hours?

[00:10:35]>> [music] >> We've got three." Okay, so then now I'm like, you know, talking to my gaffer and key and we're just, you know, what should we rig? What am I going to see?

[00:10:43]Talking to the director and eventually our approach became very second nature so we can walk into locations and I knew exactly kind of what I needed to get to get it done, but in the beginning there was a lot of trying to figure it out. So a lot of times, you know, we're working in a style of naturalism and we wanted to feel [music] very real and not too overlit or too sourcy and at the same time be quite flattering for all of our actors. So that kind of is, you know, you're not in a realism situation where you're, "Let's turn the lights on and let's just do some daylight pushes."

[00:11:20]>> [music] >> It, you know, so often times it was building in a level of fill light up in the ceiling, um making sure production design added lighting and mirrors in ways that I knew in my background would help create depth. [music] Trying to nudge the director into certain directions that were going to be beautiful and perfect for us, and it all worked out, and that kind of was our go-to. Um, [snorts] a lot of that is when you when you come up with a lot of the movies, you know, especially from the '80s and '90s, a lot of you know, a lot of the actors almost perform a theater like and play within frames. And so, a part of that approach for this was to give the actors >> [music] >> more space and a stage to improv and do their thing because they're such great character actors and they would bring [music] all the lines of dialogue to life, so you didn't want to limit them.

[00:12:10]So, giving them a wide berth to play with [music] was kind of the way to capture the best out of their physical uh, performance because it wasn't really a show that would that played [music] a lot here. It kind of played in a in a medium wide to kind of feel the physicality. The way Cheyenne and you know, Michelle Pfeiffer, the way she dressed and the way she moved was very much a part of her character. So, you didn't want to tighten that up. So, >> [music] >> that was the main reason behind doing that. Um, there was a great scene where we wanted Elle to come in and she's on the phone. Those are always hard, you know, when you're like on a FaceTime, how are you going to cover that? And [music] we kind of just embraced this natural way of like, you know, you're on the phone with someone and you're listening. And so, we just played it naturally like she would set the phone down and the camera would go to the phone, and then you'd see her up in the mirror and she'd pick it up and go to the bed. And >> [music] >> and really, we were just in one area just kind of pulling back a little, tilting down, and panning over. And then she undresses by her bed, and then she kind of comes up and tries to go to the bathroom, and in the background you could see her father way deep in the background cleaning, and the bathroom's [music] being used by her roommate, so she comes back around on the side and she's waiting, and you see her friend come out of the bathroom, and then she goes. And and being able to play that all in kind of that natural looseness was the way to tell that story perfectly, yeah. My favorite [snorts] shot from the series would be would be the high roller shot of Margo.

[00:13:39]I thought it just captured her heartbreak that moment for her. That that definitely is my favorite. I mean, we purposely, you know, stayed away from like the new part of Vegas and everything was the old strip to give you that feeling of like it it just had a very warm connecting vibe to it, you know, those lights of the Plaza Hotel and and everything. Um yeah, that that was a really special sequence.