The size and scope of producing a single season of “Deadliest Catch” is hard to fully fathom. There are seven different producing-camera teams on seven different boats, rolling cameras around the clock, producing 25,000 hours of footage over the course of a fishing season.
To ensure visual and narrative cohesion and quality, series editor Rob Butler and cinematographer David Reichert — both 2023 Emmy nominees — must stay across an enormous team and complicated workflow. It’s a task complicated by their limited ability to shape what is being shot as the stories unfold. This is because it takes weeks to get the footage off the boats (they often have to wait until the fishermen come ashore to offload their catch) and FedEx hard drives to Los Angeles, where a team of seven assistant editors load and log hundreds of hours of footage every week.
“It takes weeks and weeks before it gets in...
To ensure visual and narrative cohesion and quality, series editor Rob Butler and cinematographer David Reichert — both 2023 Emmy nominees — must stay across an enormous team and complicated workflow. It’s a task complicated by their limited ability to shape what is being shot as the stories unfold. This is because it takes weeks to get the footage off the boats (they often have to wait until the fishermen come ashore to offload their catch) and FedEx hard drives to Los Angeles, where a team of seven assistant editors load and log hundreds of hours of footage every week.
“It takes weeks and weeks before it gets in...
- 8/18/2023
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
National Geographic’s “Life Below Zero” calls for director of photography Michael Cheeseman to always have a camera ready as he follows the cast and their struggles to live off the grid in remote Alaska.
Cheeseman is one of many cinematographers who work in the unpredictable world of nature. Others include “Deadliest Catch’s” David Reichert and “Serengeti’s” Richard Jones. Whether using a drone or a GoPro, these artisans are used to filming in extreme conditions and have learned to become resourceful when taking care of their gear miles from production houses.
Cheeseman, for example, often finds himself in subzero temperatures using equipment not built for such brutal weather.
“I’ll use my iPhone a lot for the GoPro, and it can die within 10 seconds. I have to put it right back in my jacket. The camera batteries can die too,” he says.
In order to elongate the life...
Cheeseman is one of many cinematographers who work in the unpredictable world of nature. Others include “Deadliest Catch’s” David Reichert and “Serengeti’s” Richard Jones. Whether using a drone or a GoPro, these artisans are used to filming in extreme conditions and have learned to become resourceful when taking care of their gear miles from production houses.
Cheeseman, for example, often finds himself in subzero temperatures using equipment not built for such brutal weather.
“I’ll use my iPhone a lot for the GoPro, and it can die within 10 seconds. I have to put it right back in my jacket. The camera batteries can die too,” he says.
In order to elongate the life...
- 6/30/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Which legendary cinematographers have inspired those working today? Can sharp-eyed Dp’s spot the seams in the unbroken shots of “1917” and “Birdman”? And what image from an expertly lensed movie blew them away before they stepped behind the camera themselves? These were just some of the questions answered by four of television’s best cinematographers during Gold Derby’s Meet the Btl Experts panel, conducted virtually by managing editor Chris Beachum. Watch the full interview with Marshall Adams (“Better Call Saul”), John Conroy (“Penny Dreadful: City of Angels”), David Mullen (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and David Reichert (“Deadliest Catch”).
See Over 300 exclusive video interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
All four panelists also conducted 10-minute individual interviews that delved deeper into their own shows, as did cinematographer David Klein (“Homeland”). Watch each by clicking on their names below.
Marshall Adams is also known for his work on “El Camino,” “Shut Eye,...
See Over 300 exclusive video interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
All four panelists also conducted 10-minute individual interviews that delved deeper into their own shows, as did cinematographer David Klein (“Homeland”). Watch each by clicking on their names below.
Marshall Adams is also known for his work on “El Camino,” “Shut Eye,...
- 6/29/2020
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
“A big part of what we’re doing is just trying to get these images in these conditions,” explains cinematographer David Reichert about the filming of “The Deadliest Catch.” The Emmy-winning Dp took viewers behind the scenes of the reality TV hit while appearing at Gold Derby’s Meet the Btl Experts panel, moderated virtually by managing editor Chris Beachum. Watch our exclusive video interview with Reichert above.
See Over 300 exclusive video interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
Now in its 16th season, the Discovery Channel series explores the high-seas adventures of real life Alaskan crab fisherman, who risk death and injury to make those prized catches. But it’s not just the fishermen who put their lives at risk. In shooting an episode, “we have to survive, our cameras have to survive… and we need to be recording all the time,” Reichert reveals, “because we are following the action. In this show,...
See Over 300 exclusive video interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
Now in its 16th season, the Discovery Channel series explores the high-seas adventures of real life Alaskan crab fisherman, who risk death and injury to make those prized catches. But it’s not just the fishermen who put their lives at risk. In shooting an episode, “we have to survive, our cameras have to survive… and we need to be recording all the time,” Reichert reveals, “because we are following the action. In this show,...
- 6/29/2020
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Five of TV’s top cinematographers will reveal the secrets behind their success when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Btl Experts” Q&a event with key 2020 Emmy contenders this month. Each person will participate in two video discussions to be published soon: one-on-one with our managing editor Chris Beachum and a group chat with Chris and all of the directors of photography together.
SEEalmost 300 interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2020 Emmy contenders:
Marshall Adams represents AMC for “Better Call Saul”
Adams is also known for his work on “El Camino,” “Shut Eye,” “Rush Hour,” “Grimm” and “CSI: New York.”
John Conroy represents Showtime for “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels”
Conroy has received one Emmy nomination for “Luther” and has won an American Society of Cinematographers Award for “The Terror: Infamy.” Other Dp projects have included “The Name of the Rose,...
SEEalmost 300 interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders
This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2020 Emmy contenders:
Marshall Adams represents AMC for “Better Call Saul”
Adams is also known for his work on “El Camino,” “Shut Eye,” “Rush Hour,” “Grimm” and “CSI: New York.”
John Conroy represents Showtime for “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels”
Conroy has received one Emmy nomination for “Luther” and has won an American Society of Cinematographers Award for “The Terror: Infamy.” Other Dp projects have included “The Name of the Rose,...
- 6/16/2020
- by Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
8 Ways the ‘Deadliest Catch’ Camera Crew Survives the Hardest Job In TV and Still Gets a Great Image
For 15 seasons Discovery’s “Deadliest Catch” has been documenting the journey of fishing ships to one of the most remote places in the world, the Bering Sea, to catch king crab and snow crab. In an environment where severe weather and high swells are frequent, it is one of the most difficult and dangerous places imaginable to film. It is also one of the most demanding jobs in all of television, requiring a set of skills not normally asked of a Hollywood camera department.
Here’s eight ways the camera team survives the hardest job in television, and still gets astounding images.
1. An Iron Gut
In an environment where the cameraperson is on a large boat that is often found heaving up and down over 30 foot swells, there are significant physical attributes needed before the creative part of the job even comes into play.
“The recruiting process is unique because...
Here’s eight ways the camera team survives the hardest job in television, and still gets astounding images.
1. An Iron Gut
In an environment where the cameraperson is on a large boat that is often found heaving up and down over 30 foot swells, there are significant physical attributes needed before the creative part of the job even comes into play.
“The recruiting process is unique because...
- 8/23/2019
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
They scale deadly cliffs, swim among sharks in a feeding frenzy and capture shots on a boat rocked by some of the world’s roughest seas. It’s all in a day’s work for the Emmy-nominated reality and nonfiction cinematographers, who must regularly find solutions to some of the most impossible situations imaginable.
“One hundred percent, the most challenging shot of the ’Coastal Seas’ episode was filming in a shark feeding frenzy at night in the middle of French Polynesia,” says Doug Anderson, Dp on the “Coastal Seas” episode of the series “Our Planet” and nommed for nonfiction program. “We overcame the challenge through a massive amount of preparation. We ended up making it safe by wearing chain mail shark suits, by using underwater communications, by being certain with other details of our diving equipment, so that if we did get bitten by sharks or any part of our equipment got bitten,...
“One hundred percent, the most challenging shot of the ’Coastal Seas’ episode was filming in a shark feeding frenzy at night in the middle of French Polynesia,” says Doug Anderson, Dp on the “Coastal Seas” episode of the series “Our Planet” and nommed for nonfiction program. “We overcame the challenge through a massive amount of preparation. We ended up making it safe by wearing chain mail shark suits, by using underwater communications, by being certain with other details of our diving equipment, so that if we did get bitten by sharks or any part of our equipment got bitten,...
- 8/2/2019
- by Karen Idelson
- Variety Film + TV
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