‘Squid Game’ team reveals how chaotic season 2 game Mingle was made

While the deadly childhood games in Squid Game may seem like pure chaos, a lot of meticulous planning went into their creation.

When it came to making season 2’s third game, Mingle, the creative team behind Netflix’s Korean survival drama worked tirelessly on every aspect to make it as scary as possible. In the video above, creator/director Hwang Dong-hyuk, star Lee Jung-jae, production designer Chae Kyoung-sun, cinematographer Kim Ji-yong, composer Jung Jae-il, and editor Nam Na-young break down the making of the tense scene for Entertainment Weekly‘s “It Takes a Village” series, revealing how they used camera angles, editing, lighting, set design, music, and more to enhance the terror of the scene.

The creator wanted to make every set as immersive as possible to keep the “suspense and thrill” alive for all the actors, and modeled the Mingle room like a surreal carnival or theme park. “We actually built that rotating disc which could hold 300 people,” Hwang says.

“Everything was all real and practical on that set,” Chae explains, adding that she incorporated all the iconic Squid Game symbols throughout. “2,000 light bulbs were used. We wanted to show this sparkly, beautiful lighting…and it took about three months to build.”

Since the set was so big, the cinematographer found it difficult to capture it all in one shot.

“So we had to shoot with this movement in the frame,” Kim says, adding that he debuted a new angle from directly above to also showcase the scope of the scene. “The result looks like you’re looking through a microscope.”

But the creator always makes sure to focus on the emotions of the characters during filming rather than trying to highlight the set. Meanwhile the editor wanted to foreshadow all the characters that would ultimately make the winning team by intercutting moments of dialogue with each of them at the beginning.

When it was time to film the scene, the director gave very simple instructions to all the actors: actually play the game as if their life depended on it. When each number was called out, the actors needed to form groups of that number, or else their character would be killed off.

“When you look at it from above, it’s weird and dysfunctional, and it looks like so much chaos,” Hwang says.

As for the music, the Squid Game team once again created a banger for the scene, although they didn’t realize it at the time. “We didn’t know that the song would become so famous,” Nam admits.

The composer explains how he transformed the popular, “cheerful” children’s melody into the sinister Squid Game version before transitioning into a “rather heavy” score during the killing.

“There’s a brightness, a purity, but at the same time, that tension,” Jung says. “The scene came out much more terrifying than I imagined.”

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Star Lee reveals the scene almost had a more comical quality at the beginning.

“When we were shooting, the director thought to maybe have all the contestants dance this choreo[graphy],” the actor says. “But instead of that, it was more important to have the audience feel a tension for this scene, so he decided to not have the dance in there.”

Watch the video above now to see the full interview and to find out which part of the scene is actually a “season 3 teaser trailer” Easter egg.

The final season of Squid Game premieres June 27 on Netflix.