Loki Cinematographer Reveals the Most Challenging Shot of Season 2

With so many interesting shots and scenes in the second season of Loki, it’s interesting to find out which of those are the most challenging to create. Tom Hiddleston is back as the God of Mischief, except he’s not causing much mischief and chaos this time around. Instead, he’s racing back to the Time Variance Authority, aka the TVA, to warn them about He Who Remains, who is a variant of Kang the Conqueror. The actions of Loki and Sylvie in the Loki Season 1 finale have major repercussions for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, opening it up to the Multiverse Saga. Which shot was the most challenging to shoot in Loki‘s first four episodes? We find that out from someone behind the scenes. 

ComicBook.com spoke to Loki cinematographer Isaac Bauman, who spoke about the show’s most challenging shot that came in its first four episodes. It’s interesting to note the shot is tied to both the season premiere and the fourth episode, which had Loki visiting the TVA in the future.

Loki’s most challenging shot in season 2 revealed

“I think that there was… Most challenging single shot? In the first episode, there’s a shot where Loki’s running around a future TVA that’s in some sort of distress that we actually revisit in the fourth episode,” cinematographer Isaac Bauman revealed. “We kind of see what was going on there because of this time loop thing. There’s a shot that turns from chasing Loki handheld through a great distance actually in the chrono monitor set into seamlessly into a dolly zoom shot. So we had to go from it feeling like a camera operator was running around, tagging all these different things, and then suddenly we’re in, without cutting, we’re in a super precisely controlled shot that involves a zoom, which is an enormous piece of equipment you could never hand hold. And so we had to work with the VFX department to blend two different shots together. And what you see is at a certain point, there’s a wipe of the camera and it wipes back and it’s taken over by the dolly zoom, but it still appears to be handheld for quite a while.”

He continued: “So you think you’re still in handheld mode, but really it’s just VFX handheld and then all of a sudden there’s a fade put where the VFX handheld plugin basically dissolves and the frame just kind of settles. And it has a very… I’ve never seen that before. I’ve never seen a handheld shot turn, not only to not a handheld shot, but this really controlled dolly zoom pullback and it actually brings chills to me to see how effective it is. It’s like you’re pulling the rug out front under the audience. It’s like we thought we were handheld and then, ooh, it’s getting really scary now. And I think that was a challenge to plan and figure out and execute, and that’s probably the best example.”

Bauman also teased the season’s final shot. “We shot the climactic sequence of the season, at least a major piece of it, the significant piece, on a single day, on a sound stage very near the end of our shoot,” Bauman reflected. “I think it was probably the most meaningful day of the whole production because you could feel just the weight of this story, Loki’s story, which has gone on for so long, closing this chapter at least.”

Marvel Studios fan-favorite Tom Hiddleston stars in Loki Season 2, returning as the titular God of Mischief for another round of time-traveling hijinx on Disney+ on October 6th. Loki is once again joined by Mobius (Owen Wilson) as the two attempt to keep the timelines intact. After the events of Season 1 saw his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kill He Who Remains and unleash the wrath of Kang the Conqueror upon the Multiverse, Loki must once again embark on an adventure to keep reality from collapsing. Loki was last seen in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where he and Mobius were keeping tabs on one of Kang’s mysterious variants. Loki Season 2 will continue the story of the Multiverse Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.