Filming My First True Crime Series: Charmed to Death (2021)

In 2020, I worked as Director of Photography on my first documentary series, Charmed to Death, which aired on Oxygen. It was my first time DPing a full true crime series, and it opened the door for me to take on more work in both the true crime world and documentary series in general.

At the time, the COVID pandemic had just hit, and the production company was unable to fly out their regular crew. They were looking for a Director of Photography in Atlanta, and I was a fit for the project.

The production was small, with just me and an AC/Grip. We filmed inside a rented music venue that served as our only location. The challenge was that we had to make it look like several different places. Every interview was filmed in that one space, but the final show needed to look like multiple locations, including people’s homes and even a police precinct. Turning a music video into a police headquarters was the most difficult part. I ended up placing an American flag and another generic flag in the background, which helped sell the look. It was a small detail, but it made a big difference on camera. I was responsible for lighting, setting up two cameras, and running audio. It can definitely get stressful juggling that many roles at once, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle

It was also the first time I was pushed to light something in a moody way. I had learned about using negative fill to darken the shadow side of a subject’s face, but I had never actually put it into practice on set. I was excited to finally try it out, and it worked really well. The added contrast gave the interview the tone the series needed. One challenge I ran into on this project had to do with the lenses I was asked to rent. The producers requested a specific set of budget cine prime lenses, and the look they wanted was a heavily defocused background. While we were setting up the interviews, they kept asking for more background blur, so I ended up shooting with the lenses wide open and positioning the subject fairly close to the camera. Their chosen lenses were not as sharp as I would have liked when shooting with such a shallow depth of field. The footage still looks great, and honestly I doubt anyone but me would notice the difference. But I think the image would have been slightly improved if I had been able to stop the lenses down a bit.

Overall, it was a solid experience that helped me grow and led to more documentary work.