Filming a Creative Documentary Segment for European TV

I worked as a Director of Photography on an episode of a documentary TV show called 42: The Answer to Almost Everything for Arte, a European production company and TV channel. The episode I worked on was all about imagination, and I was hired to film an interview with a psychologist who specializes on the subject.

The director encouraged me to get as creative as possible with the B-Roll, he wanted me make it weird. I don’t think he knew it when he reached out, but he picked the right person. I love this kind of thing. I have a small collection of abstract lens filters, prisms, and other things I like to shoot through, and I knew right away this was the perfect chance to use them.

We filmed at a garden center in Athens, Georgia. The location was beautiful. There was a large greenhouse and plenty of great spots throughout the outdoor gardens. We shot the interview inside the greenhouse under a floral archway. The interview style of this show uses ultra-wide shots where you can see the subject sitting in a chair, including her feet. That kind of framing makes it almost impossible to do anything interesting with lighting, especially inside a bright greenhouse. But the location itself really fit the content of the episode, and that was more important.

The best part of this shoot was definitely the B-Roll. We spent time walking around filming segments in the greenhouse and in the gardens outside. I used my prisms and other tools to create some unique looks in-camera. It was a lot of fun experimenting and getting some really cool effects. We also filmed a few specific shots for them to add animation to in post. One of my favorite shots was a deep rack focus starting on some flowers in the foreground to the psychologist sitting under a tree. When the flowers are in focus, she completely disappears into the blur, it looks really cool. I love filming abstract, dreamlike visuals and getting paid to do it is an incredible feeling.