S4 E6: Blow-Up (Part 1)

Summary

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Only Murders in the Building Official Podcast

S4 E6: Blow-Up (Part 1)

Release Date: October 2, 2024
Host: Michael Cyril Creighton (Howard), with Ryan Tillotson & Maggie Bowles
Guests: John Hoffman (Showrunner & Co-Creator), Jessica Yu (Director), Rich Kind (Actor), Patrick Howe (Production Designer)

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Overview

This episode dives behind the scenes of "Only Murders in the Building" Season 4, Episode 6, titled “Blow-Up.” The podcast explores the high-concept, found-footage style of the episode, the process of incorporating multiple types of in-world cameras, the inspiration for specific narrative devices, standout on-set stories, and beloved recurring motifs. Cast and crew share technical insight and fun anecdotes about wrangling this complex episode, while fans are treated to hidden details and Easter eggs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Episode Plot Recap & Spoilers

• The episode opens with the Tawny brothers in prison, introducing their lifelong artistic tendencies and their mantra: "always keep the camera rolling."
• At a chaotic photo shoot, Glenn Stubbins is shot (saved by his metal head plate), and the bullet then hits Zach Galifianakis.
• The show's core trio (Charles, Oliver, and Mabel) flee the scene with Howard to Oliver’s apartment, deemed “the least murdery.”
• Detective Williams reveals that Dudenoff is not in Portugal but nearby, and brings more of Szasz’s remains to Charles.
• Mabel and Marshall notice the brother sisters are unfazed by the shooting.
• The trio watches the brother sisters' student film The Desecration of Alice and spot Vince Fish, prompting a visit to confront him.
• New revelations: the brother sisters’ film teacher was Dudenoff; hidden cameras had been placed in all apartments; and, chillingly, the trio receives texts showing themselves being filmed live, followed by an ominous message: "I’m watching you."
• The episode ends with the trio deciding to leave the Arconia for their safety.
  [01:03–03:01]

2. The Movie Title Motif

• The podcast team admits to only just realizing that every episode title in Season 4 is also a movie title.
• John Hoffman confirms the motif, noting some titles are subtle homages, while others are directly woven into each episode’s content and structure:

  “It's inspired by the film, but also I tried to like, balance that throughout the season and shake up in various reasons and ways in which we homage the titles of movies for the movie we're telling.” – John Hoffman [04:36]

• Example: “Blow-Up” is not only referenced for its photography focus, but as an allusion to the way the story’s secrets unravel explosively in the episode.

3. Found Footage Frenzy: Cameras Everywhere

• This episode was shot almost entirely using in-world cameras handled by the characters – iPhones, old Super 8s, VHS, hidden spy cams, a drone, and even a “doggy cam” on Gravy’s collar.
• The creative decision was driven by the brother sisters’ director personas and the story’s placement in the season.
• Technical challenges: Unlike traditional setups, much of the found footage (esp. Super 8) couldn't be reviewed until days later.
• Editing required creative solutions to piece disparate camera footage together, adding to the episode’s distinct energy.

  “All of that felt like, exciting conceptually, and then terrifying once you got into production and thinking, how are they going to handle this?” – John Hoffman [06:04]

Types of Cameras Used:

• Super 8 for flashbacks/student films
• iPhones (e.g., used by Howard and Zach Galifianakis)
• VHS (e.g., Marty’s upstairs footage)
• Drone camera (for aerial/spy shots)
• Hidden "peanut cams" and a “doggy cam” on Gravy’s collar
  [07:25–09:53][16:13]

Memorable Production Anecdotes:

• Shooting days were drastically shorter due to the raw, unscripted camera approach (finished by 1–2 PM instead of late evening).

  “Because of the limitation of those cameras, the days flew. And we were ending at 1 or 2 in the afternoon with what would normally take us till 7 o'clock that night to finish shooting scenes.” – John Hoffman [10:44]

• Actors felt liberated improvising directly to camera, Office-style.
• Michael Cyril Creighton (Howard) actually operated the camera for certain scenes:

  “There is one scene...I did shoot fully because of how the space was that the camera had to be like, I had to hold on to the camera.” – Michael Cyril Creighton [11:32]

• Director Jessica Yu, with a documentary background, enjoyed the "puzzle" of assembling a narrative from nontraditional footage.

4. Cast Chemistry & On-Set Dynamics

• The episode featured complex group scenes with a star-studded ensemble (Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and more).
• Michael Cyril Creighton shares the sense of awe and camaraderie:

  “You get to watch, like, Eugene Levy and Steve Martin interact the way they've interacted for decades...then people fanning out on each other all over the place.”– Michael Cyril Creighton [13:07]

5. The Desecration of Alice: The Brothers Sisters’ Film

• An intentionally pretentious, surrealist student film, inspired by Metropolis (as per Jessica Yu), and meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to early cinematic “body horror” (exaggerated for humor).
• Richard Kind relates personal experiences with student films, sharing humorous anecdotes about overacting for the role of Vince Fish:

  “I got to overact. You know when you were a kid and you make funny faces in the mirror...just what I did.” – Richard Kind [26:24]

• The fake film became a running on-set joke, with location markers and props all over NYC labeled “TDOA” (The Desecration of Alice).

6. Homages and Memorable Moments

Moonstruck Scene:

• The show features a comedic group reenactment of a famous “Moonstruck” scene (“Snap out of it!”).

  “And then Share Bono says, snap out of it.” – Richard Kind [30:21]

• Writers and actors laugh over the random yet infectious energy of such references; John Hoffman giddily admits to slipping in multiple Bono-related nods throughout the season.

Drone & Tech Mishaps:

• A real drone was used inside for the drone-filming scenes – much to the cast and crew’s delight and nervousness.
• Richard Kind offers a retro “Jetsons” comparison, referring to the drone as “Gizmo” from his childhood TV memory.

  “Whenever I think of a drone, I think of Gizmo...they flew right in front of our face, and we're right there, and then they fly out. So that was cool.” – Richard Kind [24:00]

7. Dudenoff: The Mystery and Its Resolution

• The enigmatic Dudenoff is revealed:
  • He was the brothers' sisters’ film teacher and connected to many Westies.
  • A prosthetic shoulder joint among Szasz’s remains hints Dudenoff was incinerated.

  “Dudenoff is incinerated.” – John Hoffman [35:57]

• The writers delighted in planting small clues—like an offhand comment about brittle bones—to foreshadow the physical reveal.

8. Easter Eggs in the Opening Credits

• This episode: a movie projector appears.
• Previous episodes reference pig-walking, director’s chairs, and Hamlet, plus clever visual allusions to upcoming twists.

  “Last episode…there was a reflection. Episode four, we saw Howard walking the pig for the first time.” – Maggie Bowles [37:26]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (Timestamps)

• “You were a little slow to that, guys.” – John Hoffman teasing the hosts for missing the movie-titles motif [04:01]
• “It's sort of this new approach to everything in the show. Just had a feeling and a vibration about it.” – John Hoffman [09:20]
• “I can't believe how well it turned out this season.” – Michael Cyril Creighton [12:48]
• “I love a good limitation…being able to set up all our, quote, spy cams…was really, really fun.” – Jessica Yu [16:39—17:39]
• “The word isn't…well, I had makeup on and I had weird clothes and I, I just got to overact…That's what I did.” – Richard Kind [26:25]
• “It's a love letter to the Bonos.” – Maggie Bowles, on recurring Cher/Sonny jokes [31:40]
• “Dudenoff is incinerated.” – John Hoffman, on the macabre but crucial revelation [35:57]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• (1:03–3:01) – Episode plot summary
• (4:01–5:44) – Movie titles as episode titles revealed
• (6:04–12:54) – Found footage concept, technical obstacles, and cast/crew insights
• (13:07–14:22) – Ensemble cast dynamics
• (20:47–23:53) – Documentary director Jessica Yu’s methodology
• (22:54–23:35) – Drone scenes and “Jetsons” reference
• (24:39–27:00) – Richard Kind’s student film experiences
• (29:44–30:12) – Metropolis and surrealist filmmaking homage
• (30:21–31:40) – Moonstruck group scene
• (35:04–36:00) – Dudenoff’s mysterious story arc and prosthetic clue
• (37:26–38:04) – Easter eggs in the opening credits

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Conclusion

This episode of the podcast offers a playful, illuminating deconstruction of “Blow-Up”, Season 4, Episode 6, from conceptual breakthroughs to technical constraints and all the ways this bottle episode manages to both homage classic cinema and move the murder-mystery forward. The ensemble’s genuine affection for each other—and for the craft—shines throughout, with insider stories, loving jabs, and deep dives into the minutiae that make Only Murders in the Building such a joy for fandom sleuths.

Transcript

[Maggie Bowles]

Straw Hut Media.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Oh, no. There were like. Sometimes we'd be like, where? Where is the camera?

[Ryan Tillotson]

Right? That's like. Hello, welcome to the Only Murders in the Building podcast. I'm Ryan Tillotson.

[Maggie Bowles]

And I'm Maggie Bowles. And we're looking behind the scenes and mining for clues as we meet the cast and creators of the Hulu original series, Only Murders in the Building.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Today on the show, we're talking all about season four, episode six.

[Maggie Bowles]

We'll hear from showrunner and co creator John Hoffman, director Jessica Yu, actors Rich Kind and Michael Cyril Creighton, and even production designer Patrick Howe.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We'll talk about the process of piecing together all the different types of footage in this episode. The inspiration for the brothers sisters short film, the desecration of Alice, and of course, the reveal of Dudenov.

[Maggie Bowles]

But first, a quick recap. And listeners. There are spoilers for episode six, so if you haven't watched it yet, hit pause, go watch it, and then come right back.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Episode 6, Blow Up.

[Maggie Bowles]

We open on Tawny brothers in an orange prison jumpsuit. We learn that the brother sisters have always been weird and artistic and their film teacher taught them to always keep the camera rolling.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We learn that someone was shot at the photo shoot. The bullet hit the metal plate in Glen Stubbins head and it bounced off and hit Zach Galifianakis. Glenn is unconscious and Zach is okay. The trio leave the photo shoot with Howard and decide to go to Oliver's apartment because it's the least murdery.

[Maggie Bowles]

Detective Williams shows up and tells the trio that Dudanoff is not in Portugal. He's been cashing his Social Security checks in a bodega uptown. Williams also brings Charles the rest of Szasz's remains.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Bev Mellon calls an emergency production meeting. The show must go on. Mabel steps aside and talks to Marshall. And they notice that the only people who don't seem freaked out by the shooting are the brothers sisters.

[Maggie Bowles]

Then the trio decides to watch the brother sisters student film the Desecration of Alice, and they discover Vince Fish in the movie. So they go over with Howard to ask Vince about it.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Vince and Rudy are playing with a drone. We learn that the brother sister's film teacher was Dudenoff. Vince and Rudy get weird when Charles tells him that Dudenoff is not actually in Portugal.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oliver decides to call Loretta and bare his soul, but she responds with two grunts. And so he starts to spiral. Gravy knocks over Saz's ashes, and they discover two metal shoulder joints. But they're both left Shoulders. Which means there was more than one body in the incinerator.

[Ryan Tillotson]

They go up to the production office to confront the brother sisters.

[John Hoffman]

And.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And the brothers sisters admit that they would kill for Dudenoff. Then Detective Williams identifies the extra shoulder. It belonged to Dudenoff. Dudenoff is dead. The brothers sisters are devastated.

[Maggie Bowles]

We learned that inside that big black case, it wasn't a rifle. It was actually hidden cameras. And the brothers sisters had them set up in everyone's apartment. Except there's another camera that they didn't set up. All three of the trio get text messages showing each of them being filmed. And then they all get a text that says, I'm watching you.

[Ryan Tillotson]

The trio decides to leave the Arconia.

[Maggie Bowles]

They gotta get out.

[Richard Kind]

Okay.

[John Hoffman]

Okay.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We are not safe in this building. You think?

[Maggie Bowles]

Charles, you are right. We have to get out of here now. All right, we're gonna be a little bit vulnerable here for a second and admit to the one and only John Hoffman that we did not catch onto what seems like a very obvious motif.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Now, this is the episode, and I. I felt dumb after it took this long, but this is the episode where I realized that all the titles of the episodes of the show are movie titles.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, this is. This is when we noticed.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Oh, I love that. I'm a huge fan of Blow Up. And I was like, well, I know it's a movie. I mean, I've seen the movie many times. And I was explaining to her the plot of the movie. And.

[Maggie Bowles]

And then I was like, wait, all the. All of them are. And I was like, wait, is the Stuntman a movie? And then I looked it up. I was like, it is a movie. They're all movies. We had this, like, aha moment.

[John Hoffman]

I'm not gonna lie. You were a little slow to that, guys.

[Maggie Bowles]

I know we were. We're slow to many things, but this was when we figured it out. And we're okay with admitting that, and we assume it's gonna go through the rest of the. Of the season.

[John Hoffman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. If you don't know the movies, that's for sure. True that, you know, you might miss it. The Stuntman adaptation.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah. I mean, I knew adapt.

[Maggie Bowles]

I knew all of them, except for the stuntman was the one that threw me.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And so I didn't think of it as anything, you know, and. Right. And then I was trying to understand, like, why call this episode Blow Up?

[John Hoffman]

It's inspired by the film, but also I tried to, like, balance that throughout the season and Shake up in various reasons and ways in which we homage the titles of movies. For the movie we're telling. Once Upon a Time in the west is much more integrated into it than Two for the Road, which is, you know, a title that sort of hangs together, but that. That movie is a Stanley Donen film that has a very unique structure to it dealing with flashback. So all of that felt like a piece with our show, but this one felt particularly tied into the inspiration from that film and obviously photo shoots and photography and. And then this is the episode where everything has blown up.

[Maggie Bowles]

I'm also realizing now that when Ben Smith and Pete Swanson told us the original title for Episode Attack of Star Wars, Episode 2, Attack of the Clones, I still didn't make the connection. Jeez, Jesus. I need to go back to college or something. My brain's operating very slowly. No, right there for me.

[John Hoffman]

You'll see. When you see episode eight, we do another swing with the titles.

[Maggie Bowles]

Okay.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Okay. The production of this, I assume it just must be. It must have been wild. There were camera. Everyone's holding a camera. There's cameras everywhere.

[Maggie Bowles]

All found footage.

[Ryan Tillotson]

All found footage. Can you tell us about that?

[Maggie Bowles]

Maybe the decision to do that as the. As the concept and then also what it was like to put it together.

[John Hoffman]

Yes, I'd love to talk about this, just because it's like you look at the season and you think, what. What is. What is the season about? And so doing an episode through the lens of any camera, multiple cameras, found footage, cameras, felt like, oh, wouldn't that be exciting? Knowing where we were in the story and the brothers sisters sitting in the suspect spotlight at that moment felt like they're the directors. They would be doing a behind the scenes thing. They would be doing what, you know, directors do before their movie gets going in production. And so all of that felt like, exciting conceptually, and then terrifying once you got into production and thinking, how are they going to handle this? And luckily again, we had Jessica Yu and Kyle Wolschlager leading the team on the DP side. And they really dove so beautifully deep along with their teams to both vary up the footage to source cameras that made sense to land with iPhones. And then how do we play it? This isn't a typical thing. So, you know, we're literally watching on the monitors when you're using iPhones or, you know, the Super 8. We couldn't see any of what we were getting until a week or two later.

[Maggie Bowles]

So Those were real Super 8s you were using. Okay, so let me See if I can. Let me try to list all the different cameras we had. We had the Super 8s. We had the hidden cameras. We had cell phone footage.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

So what's inside your heads? You thinking Tawny took that shot? Oh, you think it was meant for Oliver?

[Richard Kind]

If it was, that means the shot that killed Szazz could have been meant for me. And who knows, Mabel could be next.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

So you're all the target.

[Maggie Bowles]

Howard, why are you filming us?

[Ryan Tillotson]

Was that Howard in the car? Was he using a cell phone?

[John Hoffman]

He was using his iPhone.

[Ryan Tillotson]

He was using his iPhone.

[Maggie Bowles]

Zach Galvanakis also does the iPhone in the hospital.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Oh, yeah, that too.

[John Hoffman]

Yes. Then we use a VHS camera.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oh, and the drone.

[John Hoffman]

And the drone camera, Exactly. There were many. I think there were so many others too. Marty uses his VHS1, he goes upstairs. We had all of them at play. The miracle was because of that. And what I loved about that was it's sort of this new approach to everything in the show. Just had a feeling and a vibration about it that felt just suddenly very different about the way we tell our stories. And it also allowed the actors to do things like they do on the office and address camera and feel awkward in front of one. It just felt like it started to multiply over and over again as we started to make this episode. Some ways in which I had planned and thought, this will be exciting. And so many ways in which it was like, wow, I didn't see as many of these levels and interesting sort of takes from. And then it was really a dance of editing. And Matthew Barbato did a fantastic job. I should also say Peyton Koch at the end of 405. And that whole photo shoot edited masterfully to get to that. But also here, Matthew Barbato really took the bull by the horns with the footage that he got and started to put this episode together. And we found a lot of it in the editing room and built. And we added some things in. We picked some things up, clarifying what we were watching. I think there's also. I can't remember if it's Super 8 that they were using for the early days of the Brothers Sisters, but it might have been a different.

[Ryan Tillotson]

It looks like it, but, yeah, I think so.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah. For the desecration of Alice, you mean, or.

[John Hoffman]

Well, there's the desecration of Alice camera. There's also the footage of them as young kids and that, I think a sort of VHS camera that was like a mini dv. Yeah. We have many, many versions of things that all of that prep and preparation was so detailed before we ever started shoot. And the shocker for us, because we always are trying to sort of know, oh gosh, you know, how many hours a day are we going to be shooting to get all of these scenes and stuff. And the way Jessica had planned with Kyle and everyone else on that team, it turned out that because of the limitation of those cameras, the days flew. And we were ending at 1 or 2 in the afternoon with what would normally take us till 7 o' clock that night to finish shooting scenes.

[Maggie Bowles]

Wow.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah.

[John Hoffman]

I don't know why we didn't foresee. I didn't foresee the actual speed that that might bring, but boy, it helped us, like, it saved us a lot of money. But I also felt bad because I'm like, oh, everyone has to go home now or even before lunch sometimes.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Wow, that's crazy. I mean, it makes sense.

[Maggie Bowles]

You don't have to reset again. Reset again. Reset.

[John Hoffman]

Yeah, you're more free flow and you get what you get and you're like, well, I don't know what else differently I would do because the camera is in Howard's hands. There's not a lot of variation of shots you can do. And like, don't we want to get a close up? No, you have what you have.

[Maggie Bowles]

Does that mean that Howard Morris should get a camera operator credit on IMDb? Did he shoot the whole episode?

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

I did not shoot the episode. I did, I did shoot. I did pretend to shoot each scene.

[Ryan Tillotson]

This is Michael Cyril Crichton, he plays Howard.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

There is one scene, and I won't say which one, but there is one scene that I did shoot fully because of how the space was that the camera had to be like I had to hold on to the camera.

[Maggie Bowles]

Was it in the car? In the cab?

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Well, good guess. Yes. I'm not going to tell you, but it was a very small space and it looked like it was yellow.

[Richard Kind]

Yes.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

And it turned out really well, if I do say so myself. But yeah, it gave me this whole appreciation for our like, crew, who is already, I knew was amazing. But Dan, who was our camera operator and I were like doing a dance at certain points. He would follow me while I film. Fake filmed.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

And then I would follow him. I'd always be behind him during the scene. He has long hair too, and I was always pretending that I wanted to braid it. But I would stand behind him so I was the eyeline. And so I'd be in the scene and you'd feel me in the scene. So I did those scenes like, so many times. But cameras are heavy. Moving around, like, that is a lot of work. It takes so much grace and so much discipline and so much, like, control. So it really impressed me what Dan

[Richard Kind]

is able to do.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

But it was fun. I loved doing it. It was really. I can't believe how well it turned out this season.

[Ryan Tillotson]

The cast is insane. It's so crazy, the amount of stars in this. Like, how is that behind the scenes? Like, there are definitely scenes where, like, everyone is all there, you know?

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Yeah, it's. It is. It is overwhelming and exciting and fantastic because everybody is so nice on the set. Like, there's never been a bad egg. And I know everybody says that, and that's kind of boring when people, you know, interviewing us, that we're like, everybody's nice. I'm sorry. But you know, what's great is all of the actors are all fans of each other or have these great histories together. So you get to watch, like, Eugene Levy and Steve Martin interact the way they've interacted for decades, and. And then, you know, people fanning out on each other all over the place. And what's so cool, like. Like, speaking of Daphne, like, you get all of these incredible, gigantic A list names, and then all these other really incredible working actors from New York all in the same room. Desmond Borges, who plays her husband. I just love the whole cast. And then we have Kat Cohen, who is one of the funniest comedians and a friend of mine.

[Maggie Bowles]

She's so funny.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

And Sienna, who was the other brother's sister, who was just such a gem. And like, we get to, like, walk around and get snacks and be like, this is crazy, isn't it? You know, you have people to decompress with sometimes and be like, we're watching Eva Longoria and Eugene Levy and Zach Galifianakis act with Selena, Steve and Marty. It's a lot.

[Ryan Tillotson]

It's a lot.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Like, there was that day when it was. There's a. Oh, I can't say. Forget it. But, yeah, sometimes we're all together and it's really exciting.

[Ryan Tillotson]

What is this? What's happening?

[Richard Kind]

Just pretend I'm not here yet. No, that's not happening. Shut that shit off.

[John Hoffman]

He never fails us. And yet I still can't believe the way I feel. We all feel comfortable handing him anything. An iPhone, a pig, a dog, a cat, you know, a bird, anything. I just lean in that way with him, and he always finds a new way to deal with something. But clever, clever man, he is. And that whole thing, like, when he you know, you never knew what you were going to get, but he was doing it as Howard. So who he focused on was who he wanted to focus on, including himself, making little faces at himself. And all of that was like him creating all that stuff. And it was like, that's a dream. And the little ADR afterwards that he was doing, narrating, so you just hear him off camera. Oh.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oh.

[John Hoffman]

Like little noises. And that was all later, but, wow, it was brilliant. There's never been a more facile comedic actor I've worked with that just will take the challenge and run with it and keep it all in the vein of the show in that way. So he's.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, yeah, he's the best. We love him. We're big fans.

[John Hoffman]

I love him.

[Jessica Yu]

Howard, who's documenting the story from within, and of course, Michael, Cyril Creighton actually became quite the operator in there for some of that stuff, so. Oh, we even had a. Like a doggy. Doggy cam. So that was also very amusing.

[Ryan Tillotson]

What's a doggy cam?

[Maggie Bowles]

A doggy cam. Oh, on Gr.

[Richard Kind]

Gravy's new collar is a doggy cam.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

She's a doggy spy. I'm a cadaver dog.

[Richard Kind]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, gravy.

[John Hoffman]

That's my friend.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oh,

[John Hoffman]

bad gravy.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

She is not bad. She is doing her job, being a cadaver dog and being absolutely adorable. Yes, you are.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Jessica Yu, the director of this episode and episode five, was excited for the challenge.

[Jessica Yu]

It was such a great concept that John had, which was that it was all going to be filmed with, you know, anything that was just not a show camera. And I really love that. I love a good limitation. And I think in retrospect, he was thinking, oh, well, it's great because I started in documentaries, so sometimes, you know, you're cobbling together your story through the footage that exists. So it was just such a fun puzzle to figure out what to use.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Like, were any of those cameras able to be monitored?

[Jessica Yu]

Yes, actually. Well, so the really fun thing was being able to set up all our, quote, spy cams, you know, the cameras that were hidden, say, in Oliver's apartment. So it was a matter of going in there and seeing, like, what are the main angles that we need to get? You know, what are the little moments of punctuation where somebody looks at, you know, Saz's ashes in a box. Right. So setting those up, and then we were able to monitor those. And that was really, really fun.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Yeah.

[Jessica Yu]

And then when we were shooting, it was like doing A play for the. For the cast, because they were able to move around. And it was kind of funny because I think that they also just, after a while, they weren't asking about where the cameras were. They were just going and doing it. And then seeing those guys just play against each other and getting that in the moment, timing and everything, it was such a pleasure.

[Maggie Bowles]

That is so cool.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Did it scare Kyle, the dp, or was he excited about this concept?

[Jessica Yu]

Kyle was totally excited. He's game for everything. I mean, everybody's game. That's the thing about the show is, like, everybody is up for it. And so, you know, you come out with this kind of wild and risky premise. And everybody's. I mean, not everyone's thinking, this is gonna work great, but everybody's saying, let's do it. So that part was, you know, everybody was in. I don't think everyone completely understood what we were doing, but that's fair. And then, of course, editing was a lot of fun.

[Maggie Bowles]

Everyone was game for this high concept episode, but that doesn't mean it wasn't challenging. Patrick Howe, the production designer, had a lot to think about.

[Patrick Howe]

You spent a whole career, like, studying, focusing on what the camera lens that you're used to working with Canon is capable of, and then that's just all thrown out the window when you add every, you know, every other camera, that lens that's in, you know, machine that's been invented in the last few years.

[Maggie Bowles]

So I think they did cover all possible camera types.

[Patrick Howe]

Yeah, completely one side, you know, like, you have to be fully geeked out in that technology to know what that was. And Jessica, thankfully, was. She'd done a lot of documentary stuff, so she was really up on what a lot of the cameras could be and, you know, 8 millimeter, 16 millimeter, the iPhones, the, like, the peanut cams, all this stuff. And so all I knew is that you're gonna just. We'd wind up seeing anything and anywhere and then cross your fingers about, you know, and hope that, like, somebody would get to us if they notice something that they were seeing something we shouldn't see or in some unflattering way or whatever. But, I mean, it worked out. And we were able to have a monitor of a. A couple of them, but.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Okay.

[Patrick Howe]

But not, you know, a lot of times you just like, I wonder what they're filming. And that's a very uncomfortable position to be in.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Totally.

[Patrick Howe]

You know, so you just try to. We tried to vet the spaces as much as possible. And you worked out.

[Ryan Tillotson]

After the break we learned that Richard Kind has done his. His fair share of student films and small projects and how the Desecration of Alice echoed beyond just Episode six.

[Maggie Bowles]

Welcome back. As we've heard multiple people mention a few times now, Jessica Yu, the director of this episode, got her start in documentaries, and in fact, she won the Academy Award for best Documentary short subject in 1997 for film called Breathing the Life and Work of Mark o'. Brien. Here is Jessica.

[Jessica Yu]

You know, I guess I just always. I like doing new things, so I probably just try to meet each project on its own terms and. But there's always stuff that carries over. So certainly coming out of independent documentaries, you know, you know, you know how to be scrappy, you know how to be agile. But these days, I've really just been focusing more on scripted and. Because there's just so much good stuff. And that's why I was so excited about episode six, because it was something very, very different. And you just know, you know, oh, there's some way to do this. We can make this work. And then whatever solution you come up with, like, everybody just makes it funny and.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah.

[Jessica Yu]

And free and good.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Was there, like a particular, like. I mean, I feel like I have that kind of in me, too, where it's like, I like the challenge, I guess. You know, was there something in particular that you're like, oh, I can't wait to get to this part to see how we tackle it?

[Jessica Yu]

I think it was the first time we had set up the surveillance cameras and set the cast free in there. I think once, you know, it's kind of like, you know, when you, when you. I don't know, this is probably a bad analogy, but, like, if you have an indoor cat.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

Right, we do.

[Jessica Yu]

And they're just always used to indoor. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I'm going to let you through the cat door. Go out in the yard. Right? So they were kind of like, wait a minute, we could just move anywhere. And. And a lot of times they didn't really necessarily move, but it was just them feeling like, oh, you know, this. Anything we do is valid in this because there's cameras everywhere.

[Maggie Bowles]

Do you have any highlight scenes from the episode where you were like, maybe like, you were not sure how it was going to work and then it worked really well, or you just thought it was very funny or anything like that?

[Jessica Yu]

Oh, I would say when we were playing with the drone, because it was kind of in and out, like the drone was going to be a bigger Part of it than not. Then a lot of back and forth, and I think part of it. We were thinking, like, how do we get a camera to look like it's a drone? Because we weren't sure about being able to control it. And our drone team came in and did a great job. And we're like, oh, my gosh, we could just shoot with the drone.

[John Hoffman]

Come on in.

[Richard Kind]

Rudy and I are just playing with our new toy. We got it at this estate sale for this old lady. She was at that stop at the

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

transverse, minding her own business.

[Richard Kind]

Then bam. Decapitated by the side view mirror of the M86 bus. Damn. The bus didn't even stop because it was pretty full.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

And there was another one right behind.

[John Hoffman]

Oh, my God.

[Ryan Tillotson]

On the bright side, we got a drone.

[Richard Kind]

Oh, it's working.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And it's a camera drone.

[Jessica Yu]

So that was fun. And just seeing the drone fly around and, you know, smash into the window and. And that whole scene was just so, so funny.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Did you actually have a drone inside the. Yes, it was in there. Okay.

[Jessica Yu]

Yeah. So a lot of the stuff turned out to be more the way that it's scripted than, you know, sometimes with that stuff, if you get too worried about it, you can sort of overthink it and try to control it more. But it's kind of amazing what you can do with drones.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And Richard Kine didn't actually operate the drone.

[Jessica Yu]

He didn't. He didn't. But, you know, I have no doubt that Richard could. Could handle a drone.

[Richard Kind]

Okay, this is a reference you're not going to get. But the Jetsons had Gizmo. Remember Gizmo? That's what I think of as a drone. Gizmo would come in front of the face. That was like, the first time. So whenever I think of a drone, I think of Gizmo or certainly these drones, and they flew right in front of our face, and we're right there, and then they fly out. So that was cool.

[Maggie Bowles]

That's Richard Kind, obviously. Ryan, do you remember the Jetsons? Of course, listeners, do you remember the Jetsons?

[Ryan Tillotson]

Probably.

[Maggie Bowles]

Okay, well, we were also curious about the short film, that student film that the brothers sisters did. And we were wondering if Richard Kind, the real Richard Kind, had done any weird student films like that.

[Richard Kind]

Oh, God, yes. Oh, I have. I have. Yes, I have. I've done student films. I've done these independent shorts. I've done YouTube series. You help kids. You help kids. Well, when I first did it, I was. There's a wonderful DP and editor Named Jim Hershletter, who, when I was first starting out, put an ad in Showbiz magazine. I mean, I was a kid. And a guy named. Very wonderful writer and director, a guy named Tony Spiradakis, who recently came out with the movie Ezra. He wrote the movie. He also wrote the movie Queen's Logic, if you remember that movie. He actually wrote a part for me in that movie that John Malkovich ended up doing. I want to think that Tony maybe directed that movie. In any case, I did all the workshops. When I say workshop, we did readings at my house, everything. But I met Tony through that student film. So when I was young, I did a student film. Now I'm going to tell you something about the student film. Don't ask me what I even look like in the student film, because the person who does the acting or the talent in that student film is the director who has a vision. And I don't even know if I say anything in the thing. So don't ask me what that student film is. I just know that the brothers sisters get to make the film. I. I met them once. I don't even know whether they were there on set, whether I ever worked with them on set, but I met the two of them and they were lovely women. But I don't. I don't know what that film is about.

[Maggie Bowles]

We don't either.

[Richard Kind]

I know.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah.

[Richard Kind]

I know that when I was there, I had fun. I don't want to say the word is. The word isn't. Well, I had makeup on and I had a weird clothes and I, I just got to overact. You know what? You know when you were a kid and you make funny faces in the mirror and you just go, just what I did, I had to throw away all self respect in front of a crew and just make faces like I would if I was standing alone in the bathroom when I was 12. Making faces. That's what I did.

[Maggie Bowles]

I love it.

[Richard Kind]

I overacted with purpose because number one, as Vince Fish, I'm not an actor. And number two, it's a comedy. So that's what I did. Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And I think that that shows we're making a lot of strange faces.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, yeah.

[Richard Kind]

It made faces. That's what I did. Yes,

[John Hoffman]

that's the perfect answer.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We weren't able to get a lot of information from Richard Kind about the desecration of Alice, so we tried our luck with John Hoffman.

[John Hoffman]

I still can't believe I'm laughing so hard. Because in the research for these characters and as we were building these girls, these sisters, I did say, in the room, you know, and they had made a movie called the Desecration of Alice.

[Maggie Bowles]

And there's some kind of anti sugar message.

[Jessica Yu]

Yes, creator, we will do your bidding.

[Maggie Bowles]

Say the word and we'll spoil our blade in the flesh of your enemies.

[Richard Kind]

Go spill some blood in my name, girls.

[Patrick Howe]

Vince Fish.

[John Hoffman]

And it just stuck. And I thought it just came off the top of my head really quickly. And I'm like, well, we're not gonna call it that. It'll be something else. And we have a character named Alice in season two. We're not gonna call it that. But it just came around and then literally just to see it everywhere because people kept on laughing like it sounds exactly what a pretentious pair of young college students would make their first film. The Desecration of Alice. And, you know, a horror bent and a body horror, you know, all of the descriptions that they say is what their, you know, specific genres and inclinations towards that genre would be. But it was so ridiculous because when we were making the actual television show, Only Murders in the Building, it was used as sort of like markers on lamp posts all over Manhattan. If the next couple of days we'd be shooting on location in Manhattan, the signs would say tdoa. Tdoa. And it was the way in which they didn't know it was only murders in the building coming. But TDOA was the desecration of Alice.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Very clever.

[John Hoffman]

Kept on multiplying out. And I was like, everywhere I look is the desecration of Alice. And I thought they shot that so magnificently, that black and white day with the. Those twins standing there against those. I mean, Jessica and. And Kyle really did beautiful work that, you know, on that film.

[Jessica Yu]

I didn't go to film school and I feel like now I have again.

[Maggie Bowles]

This is Jessica Yu, director.

[Jessica Yu]

Yeah. So we were taking some cues from Metropolis, Right. The classic. And so I had this idea of. I just wanted to like, you know, there's a whole. Of course, the theme with eyes, with.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah.

[Jessica Yu]

You know, with Mr.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Fish.

[Jessica Yu]

So I wanted to make like a face with just separate features. And so the camera were just like right in his eye and he's trying not to blink. Maybe. Maybe that was a little much, but

[Ryan Tillotson]

no, I thought it was incredible.

[Maggie Bowles]

I thought it was just the right amount. Yeah. Oh, so good.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

It was fun.

[Maggie Bowles]

Speaking of acting, there is another moment from this episode that we loved, and it's this one.

[Richard Kind]

I lost my head. I lost my bride. Johnny has his head. Johnny has his bride. And then Share Bono says, snap out of it.

[John Hoffman]

It's from Moonstruck.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Mabel, you really should see it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, I think I've seen enough.

[Ryan Tillotson]

I lost my.

[Richard Kind]

I lost my bride.

[Ryan Tillotson]

And then Charles joins in and even

[Maggie Bowles]

Kumail on the couch.

[Ryan Tillotson]

It's so funny. What is going on there? Why Moonstruck?

[Maggie Bowles]

Why that moment of Moonstruck?

[John Hoffman]

Yeah, it's so rando. Right? But. But I just did like that. And they really went with it. I wasn't predicting that that would go so big, but everyone just dove in. Steve, Marty, Richard, once Richard led it. And they. Yeah, and it's. It's. Anyone who loves a movie or anyone knows that line. And like, you know, you've been in those conversations too. And then you're high fiving someone if they knew the scene or they knew that moment. And then that it's Moonstruck is just ret. Ridiculous. Marty said there may be three in this season references to the Bonos, whether it's Sonny. Well, because he was saying he rented Sunny Bonus.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Hoffman]

He squatted it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Squatted. That's right. A love letter to the Bonos.

[John Hoffman]

And then he says. And then Share Bono says. Which is another thing I love.

[Maggie Bowles]

I love that.

[Richard Kind]

Having not seen the movie in ages, I went back and I looked at it with talk about overacting Nick Cage and so. But he's so brilliant. And it was fun. That was fun. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

[Maggie Bowles]

I love that.

[Richard Kind]

I should have watched the whole movie again. I just watched the scene. I remember it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah.

[Richard Kind]

But I, you know, I had to be reminded of it. But.

[Maggie Bowles]

But we rewatched it too.

[Richard Kind]

But the line. Is the line that famous to everybody?

[Ryan Tillotson]

I. I don't know.

[Maggie Bowles]

Ryan didn't know it, but I remembered it. And it's been a while since I'd seen Moonstruck, but I did. I re. Watched the scene because.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Because I wanted to see the. I wanted to see the reference.

[Richard Kind]

I bet a lot of people go to YouTube to watch the reference. I didn't know it. I don't know why they didn't take some. Some other famous line, but that obviously has something. Well, somebody who was really impacted by Moonstruck took that line.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah, well, that was gonna be my question. If you knew why. If you knew why. Why it was referenced.

[Michael Cyril Creighton]

No, you.

[Richard Kind]

You don't want to go into the mind of a writer. I don't. I don't think this. I don't think that's anywhere you want to investigate.

[Maggie Bowles]

We do, though. We do. On this podcast. We Talk to?

[Richard Kind]

I. I have no idea. Never asked a writer. Never asked anybody. I just. I just accepted it. I'm a dancing monkey on a string. That's what I do. I show up as best I can and say, is that what you want? They say, yes, and I go home. That's what I do.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Sounds nice.

[Richard Kind]

What I do.

[Maggie Bowles]

It's a good time.

[Richard Kind]

Do you ever see the show Red Oaks? That I did. No.

[Ryan Tillotson]

No.

[Richard Kind]

Well, let's. You two write this down on Amazon. Is Red oaks.

[John Hoffman]

It is.

[Richard Kind]

1020. It's 26 episodes, two seasons of 10.

[Ryan Tillotson]

When. When was. When did you make it?

[Richard Kind]

That's about four years ago. It's wonderful. Me, a lot of. A lot of young people. Paul Reiser's in it. Jennifer Gray plays my wife. It's wonderful. David Gordon Green, I'm sure, is a direct, a director that, you know, he. He produced and directed it.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Steven Soderbergh produced it, saved it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oh, cool.

[Richard Kind]

Watch it. So everybody on this podcast should watch it. It's a not a good show. It's a great show, but it takes place in the 80s and we did one episode, I think it's the first season where my son and I body switch. And that was sort of weird. It's not. The show is very realistic. This was a weird addition to the oeuvre. Watch the whole show. Don't even think about that. But that was a weird thing too. It just was very different.

[Ryan Tillotson]

One important thing, thing we learn in this high concept episode is that Dudenoff is a real person and that all of the Westies knew him and so did the brothers sisters. So we asked John Hoffman about it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Oh, we were wondering about Dudenov. In this episode we see Dudenov is a real person.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Milton.

[Maggie Bowles]

Milton Dudenoff, who has a connection to many of the characters on the show that we've met so far. Was that another Madeleine George or who named Dudenov?

[John Hoffman]

You know, it might have been Mateo and Madeline, but that name, when it came up, this is my own obsession too, in the room. And it drives everyone crazy. But like, I heard the name and I'm like, well, that's it. It's got. It's got to be Dudenov. But that name became so central. And I remember pitching the season to the studio and network actually, and we had a whole card over the zoom, because we do that on zoom. And I walked them through the season and they said an essential question to the season is going to be who is Dudenoff?

[Maggie Bowles]

And.

[John Hoffman]

And so get ready. Marketing team with any Dudenoff who is Dudanoff, And. And Dudenoff is going to be brought up a lot by. By these people, and then it's going to have an answer that twists a couple times.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Oh, geez. Interesting.

[Maggie Bowles]

Well, yeah. I mean, we learn he's dead. We learn who he is, and then we learn he's dead. Yeah. So.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Geez.

[John Hoffman]

Not just dad. Maggie. Not just dead. Dudenoff is incinerated.

[Maggie Bowles]

Incinerated.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Dust. Yeah.

[John Hoffman]

Yeah.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Szaz does not have two left shoulders.

[John Hoffman]

That was. I love that bit. And he gave them, I will say this, that one little Easter egg in that. As to why he had a prosthetic shoulder or replacement joint. Shoulder. We do tease that a little bit when he's giving the girls his super eights, because he can't. He says something about, my bones are too brittle to, like, lug those around.

[Ryan Tillotson]

He didn't even clock it.

[Maggie Bowles]

I didn't clock it either.

[John Hoffman]

Thing we like to thread through. And now I have to tell everybody, so. Because no one else.

[Maggie Bowles]

We love to hear those details.

[John Hoffman]

You like that stuff? Oh, good.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yeah.

[John Hoffman]

There's the Reddit boards and you guys that really go deep on us.

[Ryan Tillotson]

I mean, of course I love it.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah. That's it for today, listeners. Thanks for tuning in. And I have forgotten for the last, I don't know, four weeks or so about the Easter egg in the opening credits. So by popular demand, let's go through, and I'll try my best to remember to say them moving forward. So this episode, there was a movie projector. Last episode, Ryan, do you remember? No, I think there was a reflection. It looked new. Does that sound right, listeners? Was that. Was that the Easter egg? If it wasn't, tell me episode four, we saw Howard walking the pig for the first time. Yes. Episode three, we saw two sets of three director's chairs, I think. And in episode two, there was that hanging Hamlet.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Yes. Very good. Well done.

[Maggie Bowles]

Okay, that's it for today, but on Friday, we're going to talk to the brothers sisters themselves.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We will have both Sienna Werber and Cat Cohen on the pod.

[Maggie Bowles]

They play Trina and Tawny, or Tawny and Trina, respectively. So we'll see you then. Also, we've had a lot of entries for our next New York escape room, but not very many for the LA one.

[Ryan Tillotson]

This is your chance. La if you want to go to a free escape room.

[Maggie Bowles]

Okay, that was aggressive, Ryan. I was just gonna say that if you're near LA and you want to enter, your chances will be very, very good. So you got higher chances to win for LA than New York right now just based on volume.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Indeed. Okay, see you in a few days.

[Maggie Bowles]

Only Murders in the Building podcast is a production of Straw Hut Media, hosted and produced by Ryan Tildson and Maggie Bowles. Our associate producer is Stephen Markley, original music by Kyle Merritt, and only Murders in the Building theme music by Siddhartha Khosla. Assistant editor is Daniel Ferreira, and production assistant is Caroline Mendoza.

[Ryan Tillotson]

We talked to so many people for this week's episode. Thank you so much to Michael Cyril Crichton, to Richard Kind, and to Jessica Yu.

[Maggie Bowles]

And big, big thanks as always to John Hoffman and the entire Hulu team.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Hello and welcome to the Only Runners in the Building podcast. I'm Ryan Tillotson.

[Maggie Bowles]

And I'm Maggie Bowles. Egg, I need you to shut up, please. I love you. Please be quiet.

[Ryan Tillotson]

I'm Ryan Tillotson.

[Maggie Bowles]

And I'm Maggie Bowles. And we're looking behind the scenes and mining for clues as we meet the cast and creators of the Hulu original series, Only Murders in the Building. Do I have to do that again?

[Ryan Tillotson]

We're just gonna go with it. Today on the show, we're talking all about season four episode.

[Maggie Bowles]

I'm gonna take her in the other room. Yeah, we're recording. Okay, my love. We're recording, my love. Here, I'm gonna put you in a window so you can look at the window at all the cats. Okay? See you next week.

[Ryan Tillotson]

Bye.

[Maggie Bowles]

No, not see you next week.

[Jessica Yu]

No.

[Maggie Bowles]

Yeah, see you later.

[Ryan Tillotson]

See you later. See you in a few days. I'm tired.

[Maggie Bowles]

I know you want me too.