Sydney Sweeney in the Streets of Los Angeles: The Visual Secrets Behind the Giant Sequence of “Euphoria” Using Classic Special Effects
According to the CinemaDrame News Agency, In a recent episode of “Euphoria,” the character Cassie, played by Sydney Sweeney, transforms into an internet superstar, pulling in a massive income by publishing provocative and unfiltered posts. To capture Cassie’s feeling of having seemingly conquered the entire world, series creator Sam Levinson utilized an ingenious visual metaphor: a fantasy sequence in which Cassie transforms into a 50-foot woman, stepping over the streets of Los Angeles much like Godzilla tearing through Tokyo.
Given Levinson’s deep affection for cinema history, this sequence is designed in a highly bold and innovative manner, yet it looks to classic works of the past for inspiration. In this case, it draws from the 1958 cult classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, the seminal 1961 kaiju film Mothra, and other sci-fi works that relied on old-school miniatures and practical effects to create a sense of grandeur and scale. This part of the production required close collaboration between Levinson and various department heads, including production designer François Audouy and special effects supervisor David Van Dyke, who worked together to construct forced-perspective sets so Sydney Sweeney could walk among them with minimal reliance on digital manipulation.
“In Japan, there is a tradition of building miniature cities called tokusatsu, which began in the late 1950s with the film Godzilla,” François Audouy says. “They continued building these city destruction miniatures across various movies for decades, and we looked to some of those films for inspiration.” To create a miniature version of downtown Los Angeles for Cassie to conquer, Audouy collaborated with a scenery company to build a 90-foot translight backing that covered the entire back of the stage.
Explaining the function of this translight, Audouy noted, “We wanted this entire sequence to have a twilight, pre-sunset appearance, so the lighting had to be incredibly uniform.” In front of this backing sat the miniatures built by a veteran practical effects company whose portfolio includes the miniature work for enduring titles like Kill Bill, Speed, and Dick Tracy.
Audouy added, “Working with a team of model makers whom nobody really hires for this type of work anymore was truly wonderful. They are like the last knights of a bygone era.” The team spent six months constructing structures such as the Eastern Columbia Building and the Orpheum Theatre sign, the latter of which featured thousands of miniature incandescent bulbs—bulbs that Audouy noted are the smallest incandescent bulbs manufactured in the world.
The city set was built using forced perspectives, and different buildings were designed at varying scales, forcing Audouy and Van Dyke to solve complex mathematical equations to ensure everything looked correct in camera. Audouy said, “We built the foreground at a 1:24 scale and then dropped to a 1:48 scale for the background buildings. We also had a few close-ups done at a 1:12 scale. When you mix scales from one shot to another, it requires very complex physical calculations.”
For a scene filmed from inside one of the buildings, where a giant Cassie approaches from the outside while an office worker watches one of her videos on a computer, Van Dyke had to find a way to combine different frame rates and camera positions to create the illusion of a massive Cassie moving toward her fan. “We shot the foreground and the background separately,” Van Dyke said. The footage of the man inside the office was captured at a standard frame rate, while the footage of Cassie was filmed at a higher frame rate to make her movements appear heavier.
The confrontation between Cassie and the office worker ultimately culminates in a moment where Cassie presses herself against the building, her giant upper body shattering the windows—an idea Levinson and Sweeney pitched to Audouy late in the process, prompting the special effects specialists to construct a large rig capable of pushing through the glass. Audouy said, “This piece was sculpted and built in a traditional way almost at the last minute, and the result was fantastic. The crew placed the entire system on a track and timed it so that when the equipment hit the glass, small explosive charges triggered it to shatter at that exact moment.”
The sets for this entire sequence were built on wheels, meaning that when it came time to alter camera angles, the entire camera crew did not need to move; instead, the set was rotated to accommodate the new setup. Audouy likened the coordination between director of photography Marcell Rév and the assistant directors to a ballet designed to capture a massive number of shots, since despite months of effort to build the set, the entire sequence was filmed in just a few days.
Van Dyke viewed his role less as someone creating computer-generated imagery—as there was virtually no CGI in this sequence—and more as a complementary production designer adding physical elements to make the illusion more believable. His team captured various elements of smoke, explosions, and props like toy helicopters flying through the air to add volume and texture to the sequence. All of this was done while ensuring the details would remain fully convincing on high-quality film negatives, as much of Season 3 is shot on 65mm film.
“This method truly gives the work a natural cinematic feel; a classic Hollywood feel that aligns with the rest of the show’s tenets,” Van Dyke concluded. Audouy added that the entire concept was about finding a visual language to express Cassie’s internal experience: “Cassie’s inner life is one of the most operatic parts of the show, so returning to old Hollywood traditions was a way to lean into her storyline.” For Van Dyke, the satisfaction of the sequence stemmed from feeling there was a genuine purpose behind the method.
Season 3 of “Euphoria” is currently airing on HBO.
