Anyone who thought the “Tug of War” from Episode 3 of “Squid Game” would be the most challenging or deadliest of the games in Netflix’s Korean thriller series, may not have been prepared for “The Glass Bridge” in Episode 5. Gold Derby’s fifth exclusive “Making Of” video shows how this episode was created with thoughts from a few of the creatives and actors. (Note: If you haven’t actually watched “Squid Game” yet, this video does have a major spoiler toward the end.)
In this game, the remaining players have to walk across a pathway of “glass stepping stones” stretching high across the ground, carefully choosing between two options. One glass panel is strong enough to hold the weight of a human, the other panel cannot. As the contestants choose, they either move forward safely or go crashing through the glass down to the floor below.
SAG Award-winning actress Jung Ho-yeon admits, “It was actually pretty scary, because the glass bridge was built about one meter above ground, and we actually had to jump between the tempered glass panels,” although she also says there were many safety precautions in place.
Writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk thinks that building a real glass bridge enhanced the actors’ performances. “I think the reason why that scene was realistic [was] because the set itself was a little frightening for the actors. The fear portrayed on screen wasn’t fake,” he states.
“We probably filmed from anywhere between a week, or about 10 days in each set designed for each game,” actor Lee Jung-jae says, elaborating on how he was intrigued by the art department’s ability to change the sets over from one episode to the next. “The sets and all the art elements were amazing, combined to create a dreamy atmosphere.”
Production designer Chae Kyoung-sun, who designed and realized these games, wanted a game that could create real awe in the players. “The show portrays various human emotions, like how selfish and brutal people can be when pushed to the edge,” she explains. “I was trying to create a visual game that was never seen before, a space that is new and strange. We focused on the fact that the only way to survive here is to cross the dangerous bridge,” which is why the arena around this game was made to look like a circus stage with the spectators watching the players’ peril.
“We also wanted it to have some fairy tale elements,” Director Hyang emphasizes. I thought a lot about casinos in Las Vegas. There are no windows or clocks at a casino, and there are spaces with a fake sky, fake sunset, and everything that’s fake. Except they all feel very real.” Like in casinos, this was done so that players would only focus on the games.
“Instead of holding the perspective near the game, we show the perspective from afar, like looking into binoculars,” adds cinematographer Lee Hyung-Deok. “This creates a vertigo effect, and as players disappear one by one, as they fall through the glass, it maximizes the fear of heights.”
A lot of the tension created for this episode comes down to editor Nam Na-young, who reveals, “Tonally, it had the flashiest scenes. It also had the most suspense. It would be scary to even stand on top of tempered glass. I had butterflies in my stomach even though I knew it was fake.”
This video includes a lot of behind-the-scenes footage of this set being built, the actors jumping between glass panels, and other reveals about how this game was created.
Director Hyang also talks about the importance of visual effects for the episode, since the Glass Bridge game required the most VFX for the series, so it was important to use “VFX that did not look like VFX.”
“For scenes that CGI would be important, I would only do a rough cut, because CG work involves going frame by frame,” adds his editor. “If we need the scene to be longer or shorter for CGI, we would communicate in such a way to make it work.”
VFX supervisor Cheong Jai-hoon talks about how they created the eventual explosion of the glass bridge with deadly shards of glass flying at the survivors of the game. “The most effective way is to shoot in super slow motion using a Phantom camera shooting at 3000 fps to portray the look we wanted.”
He also reveals that a replica of the set was created that was 6 meters off the ground for the scenes in which the players crash through the glass with video of them shooting on this secondary set. “The most important was that both in reality and fiction, we needed to keep the intensity of the height.”
Hyang next gets into the sound design involved in creating this episode, saying, “We paid close attention to creating more multi-dimensional layers of sounds.”
“In the beginning, I would make suggestions. For instance, adding louder sounds when people fell.” sound designer Kang Hye-young explains. “But the director wanted to portray the sounds exactly as they were, [because] there is a difference between adding natural sounds to forcefully creating a sound effect. Director Hwang knew exactly what he wanted.”
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