To answer what The Stranger is, and why it is something entirely new, we first need to explain Quibi. For those who have not heard just yet, Quibi is the first entertainment platform designed specifically for phones that plans to feature original content starting at $4.99 a month. With that in mind, the new episodic thriller The Stranger is now currently available to watch. The series stars Maika Monroe as an unassuming rideshare driver who lands in the crosshairs of a sociopath, played by Dane DeHaan.
Writer, Director, and Executive Producer: Veena Sud (The Lie, Seven Seconds, The Killing) was approached by the new network and asked to develop a new, gripping series tailor-made to be viewed on-the-go and in chunks of 10 minutes or less. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we now have content that is designed to be viewed in the portrait aspect ratio as well as traditional landscape. Qualms aside, this is a fascinating evolution of entertainment.
But how does a writer-director of Sud’s caliber approach such a seemingly restrictive medium? With creativity of course.
Synopsis: An unassuming young rideshare driver is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying, heart-stopping ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 hours as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a chilling game of cat and mouse.
Veena Sud: Content wise it was in having the audiences’ attention for a short time span and urge them to come back again and again and again. I usually write very slow burn, very kind of character based dramas. And so to play with this type of energy was really, really fun and different. Then you know that the actual technical aspects of having a screen shrink down to the size of your phone, again, as someone who prefers cinematic imagery as a way to tell a story, me and my production designer had talks extensively about that. How do you create a world that is on a phone that feels as lush and rich as one would feel when you’re watching a much larger television screen in your home? What we realized very quickly was, you know, it’s a vertical format, potentially, that a lot of people will be watching on, even if they’re holding their phone as is designed to be held. So in order to feel the world, they have to show depth. So there has to be a sense of eternity, a line of world information constantly coming at you. That’s one of the reasons you know, Claire is constantly running through different and very novel spaces, you know, like Chinatown Plaza, like the train station. You know, like that very long hallway. We were purposely thinking of how to create gaps in the screen in a way that I usually don’t think of cinema or storytelling usually is very, very left/right. So just doing that just thinking in terms of that and designing the terms of that and finding locations and replicating all actions and work that way. It’s so interesting fun and very different experience when you think that way.
HB: Did it hinder the story or enhance it in ways that you weren’t expecting?
Veena Sud: No, I think it always enhanced it. I think it was always a challenge. Because, you know, the very simple fact that when two people are talking, you know, our eyes are so used to that negative space, right on on a profile of someone looking screen right and and then then of course on the personal between us. So what we had to think about was when Dane and Claire were in the car a lot of times, you know, the camera’s moving between them, bouncing back and forth between them. Or we stack them, so Dane is in the foreground and Claire is in the background and I throw some black between them or just always creating different focal points in the screen. That is a weird game. It’s very subtle, but it keeps the actual image alive and rich and not, not leaving the viewer left thinking “I’m bored and I’m missing information.”
We have seen 10 episodes of The Stranger and Sud does an admirable job working in the new format as aspect ratio. If you want to check out the new show yourself, you can head on over to Quibi and sign right up. This series alone is worth the asking price.
