PRISMA

“We shot for about 20 days, and I remember each of them vividly.
I felt like I was in a constant state of creative flow, deeply immersed in the work. It was exhilarating.”

At this point in my life, I was in a very particular mental space. I felt an overwhelming sense of capability, like I could take on anything. I had just come out of a long and demanding project, one that had pushed me to my limits, and I finished it by delivering exactly what was needed. Despite the odds, I did really well, and that left me with a strong sense of invincibility. I truly felt that if the opportunity arose, I’d be ready to shoot something on the scale of Game of Thrones. That’s where my confidence was at the time.

About a week before the shoot was set to begin, I got a call from Sónia—one of the directors—asking if I was available to step in as Director of Photography. Their original DP had recently left the project for personal reasons, and I was essentially their last resort. Still, the chance to work with Sónia and Zé was immediately appealing. On top of that, the possibility of signing my name as DP on my first-ever fiction project was a powerful motivator in itself.

Sónia Balacó as Vera Mendes

The project had a very limited budget—extremely limited, in fact—and for us to achieve the results we envisioned, we needed decent camera equipment. So we reached out to Zé Tiago at Planar for support. I approached it with modest expectations; we would have been grateful to receive whatever was available, even gear worn down by thousands of hours of use. But Zé Tiago, a genuine patron of the arts, went above and beyond. Not only did he provide what we needed, but he also gave us the equipment we had initially dreamed of using.

The team that came together was an absolute joy. The gaffer and the 1st AC joined the project at a critical moment and brought an incredible level of dedication and love for the craft. Their commitment and presence were invaluable—I genuinely couldn’t have done it without them by my side.

Zé Bernardino as Rui Alves

Each episode unfolds over the course of the same narrative day but is seen and experienced through the unique perspective of a different character. This structure not only reveals new layers of the overarching story but also invites the audience to engage with the same events through multiple, often contrasting, lenses.

Because of this narrative approach, each episode, or chapter, had the freedom to develop its own distinct visual language. This opened up an exciting creative space for us as a team: one day we might lean into an organic, handheld style that captured the raw, spontaneous energy of a scene, while on another day, we’d experiment with static, durational shots that invited a different kind of contemplation. We could play with zooms, wide angles, or tightly framed close-ups, all within the same framework of a single day in the story.

Rita Revez as Ana Rebelo

We shot for about 20 days, and I remember each of them vividly. I felt like I was in a constant state of creative flow, deeply immersed in the work. It was exhilarating.
This constant shift in visual grammar required us to be both flexible and intentional in our choices—embracing the challenge of tailoring the style to the perspective of each character, while ensuring that the visual approach always served the emotional and narrative core of the episode. It was a rewarding, at times demanding, process that deepened our engagement with the material and, ultimately, the series as a whole.

Maria de Sá as Clara Rocha

Black and white was always part of the initial shooting plan. From a directing perspective, I believe the intention was to use it as a way to introduce a layer of surrealism into the project, an aesthetic choice that shaped the entire atmosphere of the series.

At the same time, working in black and white helped us navigate the practical limitations of our small budget. It gave us more flexibility to manage challenges around locations, art direction, costumes, and lighting. Instead of being constrained by the imperfections or inconsistencies in these areas, the monochrome palette helped unify the visuals, creating a cohesive identity for the series.

Ultimately, shooting in black and white freed us to focus more on the storytelling itself, on the emotions, the characters, and the narrative arc without getting caught up in details that might have distracted from the essence of the story.

Pedro Hossi as João Maria Cardoso

Fiction:

Commercial:

Music video:

Martim Plantier Varela