Ryan Murphy’s “9-1-1” traffics in disasters large and small. Python chokeholds and elevator rescues are commonplace for its cast of first responders. The show kicked off the new season with a simulated 7.1 earthquake that recalled 1970s Irwin Allen disaster films such as “The Poseidon Adventure,” “The Towering Inferno” and yes, “Earthquake.” Unlike those films, “9-1-1” is a weekly series employing hundreds of technical-support personnel under the supervision of executive producer Tim Minear to create buckling freeways or a weird plane crash into a lake. For the game cast, headed by Angela Bassett and Peter Krause, it means working on listing corridors and floors rigged to collapse. But the increased episode order from 10 in Season 1 to 18 for Season 2 is worth the occasional aches and pains. When you’re in a hit, you don’t argue with success.
Minear works closely with producer Jeff Dickerson. He oversees the postproduction for “9-1-1,” coordinating with the visual-effects studio FuseFX. They spoke to The Post from the Fox lot in Century City, Calif.
What planning went into producing an earthquake in LA?
Minear: We came up with the story based on an actual hotel in another country. We’d seen the rescue footage, with rescue workers sliding on the floors. We had to find a location to shoot in a practical restaurant and lobby. We shot at the W Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Those pieces that we wanted to destroy we re-created on a soundstage we used last year to collapse a floor. We built a hotel suite on a giant steel gimbal — or teeter-totter — at Fox. The actors were on a set that tilted at a 30-degree angle. The actors were trying to walk up these staircases and we got the effects of gravity on their performances.
Dickerson: The plane crash in Season 1 was our high bar for big emergencies. The earthquake was the perfect way to top that. With FuseFX, we wanted to pull off something that looked like it was out of a film. Take the W Hotel and see how we could shoot it in such a way that we could tilt it at a 45-degree angle.
How many effects were CGI?
Minear: The exterior scenes where the actors are staring up [at the hotel] are CGI. But Angela Bassett standing on a piece of freeway is a practical effect. Practical effects are real effects that you do as you’re shooting. So we brought in our own rubble.
How about the recent episode where rescue workers climbed down sheer cliffs on the Pacific Ocean to rescue a hiker? Does the cast get special training for these scenes?
Minear: We have professional stunt supervisors and paramedics. We have a former fire battalion chief who’s a consultant. The actors love doing those scenes; it’s some of their favorite stuff.
Dickerson: We had real actors in harnesses. What we had to do in postproduction was go frame by frame and remove any Hollywood safety equipment. Those sweeping shots were done by a drone.
Which Season 1 special effect was a favorite with fans?
Minear: I would say the scene in the pilot where a baby got flushed down the toilet. That baby is a doll. It was more or less a puppet intercut with scenes with a real baby.
Do you have something special planned for the last episode in November before your winter break?
Minear: We’re going out on a holiday episode that dramatizes what a busy and different time of the year Christmas is for first responders — it’s something of a cliffhanger.
Is there any special effect you would do over?
Dickerson: We’re perfectionists, but with a TV timetable, it’s just not possible.
