Hawkeye Directors Break Down Yelena’s Incredible Snap Scene

The penultimate episode of Hawkeye, “Ronin,” was released on Disney+ yesterday and featured the show’s second appearance by Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova). Warning: Spoilers Ahead! The episode revealed what happened to Yelena during The Blip. While on a mission to free a Black Widow, she was washing her hands in a bathroom sink when she was snapped away. She instantly comes back five years later as if no time had passed at all (aside from the change in bathroom decor). Recently, directors Bert & Bertie spoke with BuzzFeed and spoke about bringing the moment to life.

“We wanted to film it in a way that felt continuous so that you were there and experiencing it with Yelena,” Bert explained. “For us, we always knew that was going to be incredibly exciting for fans, but we wanted to do it in a way that we hadn’t seen it done before. So hopefully, like when we put people in the car during the Episode 3 car chase, this feels the same way. We wanted audiences to experience the Blip on a real human level.”

Bertie added, “We actually had to build that bathroom set in this incredible mansion because we needed to come straight out of that living room into the bathroom, which didn’t actually exist there, and then straight back out again to reveal how the living room and world changed.” Bert continued, “We actually redecorated the bathroom for real. The transition to get from one moment to the other was done in post-production, but the green walls are real and everything that changed was real in the bathroom and the living room changes too. We always say it’s a grounded story, so that keeps it human as well. It’s tactile, it actually exists.”

“The last thing that we filmed on that day one in the beautiful house was Yelena entering that bathroom and turning the tap on, and the camera kind of tilts down,” Bertie shared. “Then, we had to go away and just remember what we’ve done. The camera operator had to implant that moment in his brain. Then we came back the next day and he did the end of the Blip camera move. It was very technical to figure out where the camera operator was going to be so Florence could then get out of the bathroom. It was lots of fun and we love that stuff. We love figuring out the technicals. You come up with the pie-in-the-sky idea and then it’s getting down and dirty to figure how to do it best.”

What did you think about Yelena’s snap scene? Tell us in the comments! 

The finale of Hawkeye will drop on Disney+ on December 22nd.