Summit to think about
Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind and production designer Stephen Carter recall how they partnered with creator Jesse Armstrong to make HBO film Mountainhead, and their search for the perfect billionaire hideaway.
In HBO feature film Mountainhead, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong tells a satirical and timely story of four tech giant pals who gather at the titular retreat for a boys’ weekend.
When Randall (Steve Carrell), Venis (Cory Michael Smith) and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) arrive at the mountainside home of Hugo, aka Souper (Jason Schwartzman), there’s more on their minds than their usual obsession with each other’s relative net worth. That’s because countries around the world have become engulfed by political turmoil, panic buying, stock market crashes and outbreaks of violence – events attributed to new “content tools” released by Venis’s social media platform, Traam, that have been used to spread misinformation through generative AI and deepfake videos.
Jeff’s own software could hold the key to saving the planet from this barrage of AI distortion – but how far will the friends go in pursuit of their individual goals?
For the film, which also marked Armstrong’s first major directing credit, the writer again worked with a number of people from Succession, which concluded in 2023 after four award-winning seasons on HBO. Among them were composer Nicholas Britell, casting director Francine Maisler, editor William Henry, executive producers Jon Brown, Mark Mylod, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy, Tony Roche and Katrina Whalen and production designer Stephen Carter.
“I guess at this point in my career, there’s a handful of folks who I’d jump onboard a project with effectively blindfolded, but Jesse’s definitely at the top of that list,” Carter (Babygirl) tells DQ. “His writing is so funny and so to the point, but also he’s just incredibly centred and collaborative, and just so clear about what’s important to him for telling a story. There’s a crew of other writer-producers he runs with who are all friends now as well. So it’s kind of a no-brainer.”
Among those new to working with Armstrong was DOP Marcel Zyskind (The Ugly Stepsister), who came to know the writer through a shared friendship with Chris Morris (The Day Today, Brass Eye). A few years ago, Zyskind and Morris worked together on a film called The Day Shall Come, which Morris co-wrote with Armstrong.
“While we were shooting, in 2017, he came to visit Chris and I had a dinner with him. But he actually cannot remember this,” Zyskind laughs. “This must have been just before starting Succession, so I’m sure his mind would have been elsewhere.
“Then just before Christmas [2024], I got a call from Jesse, telling me about the project. Of course, I was very intrigued and eager to be on board. Then just after New Year, we just started scouting.”
For those who have watched Mountainhead, which debuted on HBO on May 31 just a matter of months after being greenlit, it will be no surprise to hear that finding Souper’s mountainous super-home was one of the early challenges facing the production team. It was a task on which Zyskind and Carter collaborated to ensure they found a location that didn’t just provide the right aesthetics but also meant Zyskind could shoot in the way he had imagined when he first read the script.
“I was off quite early saying, ‘This house is a character in the film. It needs to be the right place,’” Zyskind remembers. They scouted areas around Whistler, in British Columbia, and in Utah, where they saw a mixture of beautifully designed homes and other “outrageous” properties.
Then when Armstrong returned to writing in London, the team revisited Utah and came across a home that had its own private ski lift. “That just sounded like, ‘OK, that’s outrageous.’ We had to go see this,” the DOP says. “Apparently it’s the most expensive house in the state of Utah. So we went and it’s the house in the film now.”
When Carter heard the plot of Mountainhead – the script was in the works – he immediately knew his biggest job would be landing a location that could deliver a “great canvas” for the story. Souper’s home also had to “feel right for this as-yet-undefined, slightly sad-sack tech millionaire,” he says. “Then I knew there would be times I wanted to be a tiny bit pushy on not taking too many shortcuts, like using the same private jet for both Randall and Jeff, which was on the table for a while. [It was about] protecting some production scale even though we were a very fast, small-budget shoot.”
When it came to identifying suitable houses, Carter ruled out anything occupying anything less than 12,000 square feet, partly because anything smaller would struggle to contain the production crew even for the short, 22-day shoot.
“Once we saw our hero house, we pretty much knew right away that was the one,” he continues. “Jesse got a tour via FaceTime but found it really engaging. It could feel isolated, though it wasn’t, it had room to work, it had great views, and a lot of bells and whistles –a double bowling alley, indoor basketball court and climbing wall – that felt made to impress tech bro buddies.
“It also had that remarkable six-story spiral staircase that seemed tailor-made for a dubious accident. So it got the nod.”
With the house already fit for a billionaire – Souper is, in fact, the least wealthy of the four friends, earning him the nickname ‘Soup Kitchen’ – Carter then sought to improve its “shootability.” This meant adding art that both expressed Souper’s personality and broke up the large white walls.
“I didn’t want it to feel like Succession per se, but of course there is inevitable comparison,” he says. “With Souper, I felt like I could describe a specific personality a bit more than the ultra-impersonal ‘stealth wealth’ aesthetic we created for Succession. Souper is in a position where he’s just got to try harder to be cool, and we wanted the house to manifest that neediness.”
The house had never actually been lived in, despite some staged furniture in situ – and had no art. “We also did a lot work with greenery and snow blankets to cover what was essentially a construction site once the real snow started melting,” Carter adds. “We also replaced furniture and lighting, and skinned walls with real cedar and faux stone to help Marcel with his formidable lighting job.”
“It’s definitely a challenge to be in a place like that, where you can’t control the lighting,” says Zyskind, who was grappling with a clifftop property featuring floor-to-ceiling windows that flooded the interior with bright sunlight and also revealed the Utah landscape from every angle.
“You can’t put up lights or rigs or whatever,” he says. “I was going to just try to accommodate some of his [Armstrong’s] wishes about how to shoot, and then I would light in the way that I light, or prepare myself in the way I prepare and I bring my inner gut feeling to the project.”
Armstrong’s plan was to shoot Mountainhead in a way that was not dissimilar to Succession, incorporating long scenes and a documentary-derived, majority handheld shooting style. That was certainly something Zyskind could relate to, having shot numerous films with director Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart, Genova, The Killer Inside Me), was one of the inspirations Adam McKay used when he flimed the pilot episode of Succession.
“It was a full circle, in a way, that suddenly I was there,” Zyskind says. “To me, this approach of shooting this way didn’t feel at all strange or wrong. I was up for the challenge.”
To overcome the issue of excessive natural light, Zyskind planned shots around the movement of the sun, while also deciding to film events in the property as close to chronological order as possible.
“With the first AD, Christo [Morse], we were planning a lot of these scenes and we were shooting very fast and shooting whole scenes in full, with some of these eight- or 10-page scenes shot in four, five or six hours, so I was very happy.
“But the hardest part, really, was that in Utah, the weather changes every 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes with the wind, and suddenly it’s snowing outside. We had certain scenes that would be a safe ‘go to’ in case there was a snowstorm outside. We could go into the bowling area or downstairs. But at some point you run out of scenes that you can cover yourself with, so you’re just hoping that once you start, the weather is going to stay fairly consistent.”
For Carter, prep time, much like the budget, was at a premium. “At one point I was told I wasn’t supposed to have a construction team, which basically every film has,” he reveals. “That idea went my way after a few hot texts. But really the team were all so lovely and proficient that shooting went really smoothly and we often found ourselves wrapping early, leaving time to rehearse the next day’s work. In this business, that’s the true definition of luxury.”
Zyskind was on hand to back up Armstrong during rehearsals, observing the conversations between the director and actors and offering his thoughts on where the camera might be at certain points. With such long scenes to shoot and the documentary-style camerawork, the DOP likens shooting Mountainhead to a live performance or a play.
“It was just a joy to watch them, those four actors together with Jesse,” he says. “If I could see there were certain things that would really trouble me in terms of light and windows, I would just ask if it was possible to do this or that, and everyone was very accommodating in terms of making it work, because it’s a very collaborative effort.”
He adds: “In the timescale we had, everyone just wanted to do their best and collaborate, really, which was great. I very much enjoyed it. It was great fun.”
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
Billions: A drama about money and politics, as a hard-driving US attorney launches an investigation into a billionaire, win-at-all costs hedge fund manager.
The White Lotus: The satirical anthology series about wealthy guests staying at a luxury resort, highlighting social tensions and dark humour.
The Thick of It: This British political mockumentary satire features biting humour and fast-paced dialogue.
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tagged in: HBO, Jesse Armstrong, Marcel Zyskind, Mountainhead, Stephen Carter